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ought to remedy he is to be written to.' That, in fact, the king was recognized as controlling the Inquisition is seen in all the efforts of the Córtes, appealing to him to obtain a modification of its rigors, although, as we have seen, the Concordia of 1512 was held to require the assent of Inquisitor-general Enguera to render it binding, with subsequent confirmation by the pope and though, in later times, the monarchs found it convenient to throw upon the inquisitor-general the responsibility of rejecting the demands of their subjects.

Ferdinand was too self-reliant to deem it necessary to assert his power consistently on all occasions. In a subsequent chapter we shall see that he submitted to the inconveniences arising from an excommunication threatened by Torquemada on receivers of confiscations who honored royal drafts in preference to paying salaries. He had no scruples in making Torquemada join with him in grants of money or in settling competing claims on the debts due to a condemned heretic; he sometimes allowed his cédulas to be countersigned by members of the Suprema, especially in the later periods; indeed, toward the end of his reign, this became so habitual that in letters of November 25th and December 10, 1515, he explained that his orders were to be obeyed although not so authenticated, because none of the members happened to be at hand; he sometimes delayed answering applications for instructions until he could consult the inquisitor-general, but the mere application to him shows that he was regarded as the ultimate arbiter. In fact, in a case in which some prisoners named Martínez had appealed to him, he replies to the inquisitors, September 30, 1498, and March 2, 1499, that the inquisitors-general send instructions and it is his will that these should be executed, thus implying that his confirmation was requisite.'

Whatever participation he might thus allow to the head of the Inquisition, when he saw fit he asserted his arbitrary control and he by no means deemed it necessary to communicate with the tribunals through the inquisitor-general but frequently issued his commands directly. May 14, 1499, he writes to an inquisitor to have a certain confiscated property sold at an appraised value to Diego de Alcocer, no matter what instructions

1 See Appendix. All this of course is omitted from the later official compilations.

Archivo de Simancas, Libro 1; Libro 3, fol. 24, 441, 442.

he may have from the inquisitors-general or what orders to the contrary. Even for trifles he took them sharply to task, as when, May 17, 1511, he vigorously rebuked one for sending Bachiller Vazquez to him on an affair which could have been as well settled by letter with much less expense. He was fully aware that the power of the Inquisition rested on his support and when there was the slightest opposition to his will he had no hesitation in saying so, as when, in a letter of July 22, 1486, to the inquisitors of Saragossa, he tells them that, although they have the name, it is to him and to Isabella that the Holy Office owes its efficiency; without the royal authority they can do little and, as they recognize his good intentions, they must not interfere with his orders.1

These instances illustrate the minute and watchful care which he exercised over all the details of the Holy Office. Nothing was too trivial to escape his vigilant attention, and this close supervision was continued to the end. The receiver of Valencia consults him about a carpenter's bill of ninety sueldos for repairs on the royal palace occupied by the tribunal and Ferdinand tells him, May 31, 1515, that he may pay it this time, but it is not to be a precedent. On January 18th of the same year he had written to the receiver of Jaen that he learns that the audiencechamber is ill-furnished and that the vestments for mass are lacking or worn out, wherefore he orders that what the inquisitors may purchase shall be paid for.2

Ferdinand's control over the Inquisition rested not only on the royal authority, the power of appointment, his own force of character and his intense interest in its workings, but also on the fact that he held the purse-strings. He had insisted that the confiscations should enure to the crown, and he subsequently obtained the pecuniary penances. The Inquisition had no endowment. One could easily have been provided out of the immense sums gathered from the victims during the early years of intense activity but, although some slender provision of the kind was at times attempted, either the chronic demands of the royal treasury or a prudent desire to prevent the independence of the institution rendered these investments fragmentary and 1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1; Libro 926, fol. 308.—Arch. gén. de la C. de Aragon, Reg. 3684, fol. 103.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 340, 402.

wholly inadequate. Thus the expenses of the tribunals and the salaries of the officials were in his hands. Nothing could be paid without his authorization and the accounts of the receivers of confiscations, who acted as treasurers, were scrutinized with rigid care. He regulated the salary of every official and his letter-books are full of instructions as to their payment. Besides this, it was the Spanish custom to supplement inadequate wages with ayudas de costa, or gifts of greater or less amount as the whim of the sovereign or the deserts of the individual might call for. In time, as we shall see, this became a regular annual payment, subject to certain conditions but, under Ferdinand, it was still an uncertainty, dependent upon the royal favor and the order of the king was requisite in each case, even including the Suprema and its officials.' The crown thus held the Holy Office at its mercy and the recipients of its bounty could not resent its control.

Yet in this perpetual activity of Ferdinand in the affairs of the Inquisition it is to be observed that he confined himself to temporal matters and abstained from interference with its spiritual jurisdiction. In his voluminous correspondence, extending, with occasional breaks, over many years, the exceptions to this only serve to prove the rule. I have met with but two and these fully justified his interference. In 1508 the leading barons of Aragon complained that the inquisitors were persecuting the Moors and were endeavoring to coerce them to baptism. As they had no jurisdiction over infidels, he rebuked them severely, telling them that conversion through conviction is alone pleasing to God and that no one is to be baptized except on voluntary application. So, when some had been converted and had been abandoned by their wives and children, he ordered the inquisitors to permit the return of the latter and not to coerce them to baptism. The other case was that of Pedro de Villacis, receiver of Seville, a man who possessed Ferdinand's fullest confidence. No name occurs more frequently in the correspondence and he was entrusted with the management of an enormous and most complicated composition, in which the New Christians of Seville, Córdova, Leon, Granada and Jaen agreed to pay eighty thousand ducats as an assurance against confiscation. While deeply immersed in this the tribunal of

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 346-81.
Ibidem, Libro 926, fol. 76

Seville commenced to take testimony against him. On hearing of this Ferdinand was astounded; he expressed indignation that such action should be taken without consulting him and ordered all the original papers to be sent to him for consideration with the Suprema, pending which and future orders nothing further was to be done.1

This was an extreme case. There are others which prove how useless it was to rely upon the royal favor in hopes of interposition. Thus Ferdinand's vice-chancellor for Aragon was Alonso de la Caballería, a son of that Bernabos de la Caballería whose Çelo de Cristo contra los Judíos has been referred to above (p. 115). The father's orthodox zeal did not preserve his children from the Inquisition and their names and those of their kindred frequently occur in the records. Alonso had already passed through its hands without losing his position. In December, 1502, his brother Jaime was arrested by the tribunal of Saragossa, and Alonso ventured to ask Ferdinand's intervention in his favor and also for himself in case he should be involved and be subjected to another trial. Ferdinand replied, December 23d, expressing regret and the hope that all would turn out as he desired; if Alonso's case comes up again he shall be tried by Deza himself who can be relied upon to do exact justice. A second application from Alonso brought a reply, January 3, 1503, reiterating these assurances and promising a speedy trial for his brother, about whom he writes to the inquisitors. In effect, a letter to them of the same day alludes, among other matters, to Jaime's case, with the customary injunctions to conduct it justly so as not to injure the Inquisition and assuring them that if they do so they shall not be interfered with. How little the appeal to Ferdinand benefited the accused is seen in the result that Jaime was penanced in an auto de fe of March 25, 1504.2

In one respect Ferdinand showed favoritism, but he did so in a manner proving that he recognized that the royal power could not of itself interfere with the exercise of inquisitorial jurisdiction. Notwithstanding his settled aversion to papal intervention, he procured a series of curious briefs to spare those whom he favored from the disgrace of public reconciliation and

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 423.

* Ibidem, Libro 2, fol. 28, 29, 30.-Libro Verde de Aragon (Revista de España, CV, 573).

penance and their descendants from disabilities. So many of his trusted officials were of Jewish lineage that he might well seek to shield them and to retain their services. Thus, in briefs of February 11, 1484, and January 30, 1485, Innocent VIII recites that he is informed that some of those involved in this heresy would gladly return to the faith and abjure if they could be secretly reconciled, wherefore he confers on the inquisitors faculties, in conjunction with episcopal representatives, to receive secretly, in the presence of Ferdinand and Isabella, fifty persons of this kind to abjuration and reconciliation. A subsequent brief of May 31, 1486, recites that he learns that the sovereigns cannot always be present on these occasions, wherefore he grants for fifty more similar power to be exercised in their absence but with their consent. Then, July 5, 1486, the same is granted for fifty more, even if testimony has been taken against them, with the addition of the removal of disabilities and the stain of infamy in favor of their children and moreover it authorizes the secret exhumation and burning of fifty bodiesdoubtless the parents of those thus favored. These transactions continued, for there are similar letters of November 10, 1487, and October 14, 1489, each for fifty persons and fifty bodies, to be nominated by the king and queen, and possibly there were subsequent ones that have not reached us.1 It was doubtless under letters of this kind that, on January 10, 1489, Elionor and Isabel Badorch were secretly reconciled in the royal palace of Barcelona.2

These apparently trivial details are of interest as revealing the basis on which the Inquisition was established and from which it developed. They also throw light on the character of Ferdinand, whose restless and incessant activity made itself felt in every department of the government, enabling his resolute will to break down the forces of feudalism and lay the foundation of absolute monarchy for his successors. It would be doing him an injustice, however, to dismiss the subject without alluding

1 Raynald. Annal. ann. 1485, n. 81.-Llorente, Añales, I, 109-11.-Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I, fol. 29, 33, 91, 101, 102.-Archivio Vaticano, Innoc. VIII, Regist. 682, fol. 263, 294.-Fidel Fita, Boletin, XV, 573-8, 587. Pastor (Geschichte der Päpste, III, 249) erroneously regards this private and special reconciliation to be a general decree of Innocent VIII.

2 Carbonell, De Gest. Hæret. (Col. de Doc. de Aragon, XXVIII, 18, 29). Their father, Pedro Badorch, was sentenced to perpetual prison in the auto of August 8, 1488, but was released March 26, 1490.

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