of the early records of all of which we know little. In 1490 a temporary one was organized in Avila by Torquemada, apparently for the purpose of trying those accused of the murder of the Santo Niño de la Guardia; it continued active until 1500 and during these ten years there were hung in the church the insignias y mantetas of seventy-five victims burnt alive, of twenty-six dead and of one fugitive, besides the sanbenitos of seventy-one reconciled penitents.1

The various provinces of Castile thus became provided with the machinery requisite for the extermination of heresy, and at an early period in its development it was seen that, for the enormous work before it, some more compact and centralized organization was desirable than had hitherto been devised. The Inquisition which had been so effective in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries was scattered over Europe; its judges were appointed by the Dominican or Franciscan provincials, using a course of procedure and obeying instructions which emanated from the Holy See. The papacy was the only link between them; the individual inquisitors were to a great extent independent; they were not subjected to visitation or inspection and it was, if not impossible, a matter of difficulty to call them to account for the manner in which they might discharge their functions. Such was not the conception of Ferdinand and Isabella who intended the Spanish Inquisition to be a national institution, strongly organized and owing obedience to the crown much more than to the Holy See. The measures which they adopted with this object were conceived with their customary sagacity, and were carried out with their usual vigor and success.

At this period they were earnestly engaged in reorganizing the institutions of Castile, centralizing the administration and reducing to order the chaos resulting from the virtual anarchy of the preceding reigns. In effecting this they apportioned, in 1480, with the consent of the Córtes of Toledo, the affairs of government among four royal councils, that of administration and justice, known as the Concejo Real de Castella, that of

A list of these, made in the last century, is printed by Padre Fidel Fita (Boletin, XV, 332). It is probably not wholly complete. Of later date than 1500 there are ten reconciliados-one each in 1509 and 1516 and eight in 1629-sent thither by the tribunals in which they were tried.

Further details as to the organization of the various tribunals will be found in the Appendix.

Finance, or Concejo de Hacienda, the Concejo de Estado and the Concejo de Aragon, to which was added a special one for the Hermandades.1 These met daily in the palace for the despatch of business and their effect in making the royal power felt in every quarter of the land and in giving vigor and unity to the management of the state soon proved the practical value of the device. The Inquisition was fast looming up as an affair of state of the first importance, while yet it could scarce be regarded as falling within the scope of either of the four councils; the sovereigns were too jealous of papal interference to allow it to drift aimlessly, subject to directions from Rome, and their uniform policy required that it should be kept as much as possible under the royal superintendence. That a fifth council should be created for the purpose was a natural expedient, for which the assent of Sixtus IV was readily obtained, when it was organized in 1483 under the name of the Concejo de la Suprema y General Inquisicion-a title conveniently abbreviated to la Suprema -with jurisdiction over all matters connected with the faith. To secure due subordination and discipline over the whole body it was requisite that the president of this council should have full control of appointment and dismissal of the individual inquisitors who, as exercising power delegated directly from the pope, might otherwise regard with contempt the authority of one who was also merely a delegate. It thus became necessary to create a new office, unknown to the older Inquisition-an inquisitor-general who should preside over the deliberations of the council. The office evidently was one which would be of immense weight and the future of the institution depended greatly on the character of its first chief. By the advice of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Pero González de Mendoza, the royal choice fell on Thomás de Torqemada, the confessor of the sovereigns, who was one of the seven inquisitors commissioned by the papal letter of February 11, 1482. The other members of the council were Alonso Carrillo, Bishop of Mazara (Sicily) and two doctors of laws, Sancho Velasco de Cuellar and Ponce de Valencia. The exact date of Torquemada's appointment is 1 Colmenares, Hist. de Segovia, cap. xxxv, 18.-Garibay, Compendio Historial, Lib. XVIII, cap. 16.

' Páramo, p. 137.-Llorente, Añales, I, 73.-Zurita, Añales, Lib. xx, cap. xlix.-Instruciones de Sevilla, 1484, Prólogo (Arguello, fol. 2).—Archivo de Alcalá, Estado, Legajo 2843.

In the conference of Seville in 1484, besides the inquisitors and the members

not known, as the papal brief conferring it has not been found, but, as Sixtus created him Inquisitor of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia by letters of October 17, 1483, his commission as Inquisitor-general of Castile was somewhat antecedent.'

The selection of Torquemada justified the wisdom of the sovereigns. Full of pitiless zeal, he developed the nascent institution with unwearied assiduity. Rigid and unbending, he would listen to no compromise of what he deemed to be his duty, and in his sphere he personified the union of the spiritual and temporal swords which was the ideal of all true churchmen. Under his guidance the Inquisition rapidly took shape and extended its organization throughout Spain and was untiring and remorseless in the pursuit and punishment of the apostates. His labors won him ample praise from successive popes. Already, in 1484, Sixtus IV wrote to him that Cardinal Borgia had warmly eulogized him for his success in prosecuting the good work throughout Castile and Leon, adding "We have heard this with the greatest pleasure and rejoice exceedingly that you, who are furnished with both doctrine and authority, have directed your zeal to these matters which contribute to the praise of God and the utility of the orthodox faith. We commend you in the Lord and exhort you, cherished son, to persevere with tireless zeal in aiding and promoting the cause of the faith, by doing which, as we are assured you will, you will win our special favor." Twelve years later, Cardinal Borgia, then pope under the name of Alexander VI, assures him in 1496, that he cherishes him in the very bowels of affection for his immense labors in the exaltation of the faith. If we cannot wholly attribute to him.

of the Council there are mentioned as present Juan Gutiérrez de Lachaves, and Tristan de Medina, whom Llorente (Añales, I, 74) conjectures to have been assistants of Torquemada.

1 Folch de Cardona, in the Consulta of the Suprema to Philip V, July 18, 1703, states that the earliest bull in the archives was one of Sixtus IV in 1483 appointing Torquemada inquisitor-general with power to deputize inquisitors and to hear cases in the first instance. It was not till 1486 that Innocent VIII granted him appellate jurisdiction.-Bibl. Nacional, Seccion de MSS., G, 61, fol. 199.

The title of Inquisitor-general was not immediately invented. In a sentence pronounced at Ciudad-Real, March 15, 1485, Torquemada is styled simply "juez principal ynquisidor."-Arch. Hist. Nac. Inq. de Toledo, Legajo 165, n. 551.

'Ripoll Bullar. Ord. FF. Prædic. III, 630; IV, 125. Yet modern apologists do not hesitate to argue that the papacy sought to mitigate the severity of the Spanish Inquisition (Gams, Zur Geschichte der spanischen Staatsinquisition,

the spirit of ruthless fanaticism which animated the Inquisition, he at least deserves the credit of stimulating and rendering it efficient in its work by organizing it and by directing it with dauntless courage against the suspect however high-placed, until the shadow of the Holy Office covered the land and no one was so hardy as not to tremble at its name. The temper in which he discharged his duties and the absolute and irresponsible control which he exercised over the subordinate tribunals can be fitly estimated from a single instance. There was a fully organized Inquisition at Medina, with three inquisitors, an assessor, a fiscal and other officials, assisted by the Abbot of Medina as Ordinary. They reconciled some culprits and burnt others, apparently without referring the cases to him, but when they found reason to acquit some prisoners they deemed it best to transmit the papers to him for confirmation. He demurred at this mercy and told the tribunal to try the accused again when the Licentiate Villalpando should be there as visitador. Some months later Villalpando came there, the cases were reviewed, the prisoners were tortured, two of them were reconciled and the rest acquitted, the sentences being duly published as final. Torquemada on learning this was incensed and declared that he would burn them all. He had them arrested again and sent to Valladolid, to be tried outside of their district, where his threat was doubtless carried into effect. When such was the spirit infused in the organization at the beginning we need not wonder that verdicts of acquittal are infrequent in the records of its development. Yet withal Torquemada's zeal could not wholly extinguish worldliness. We are told, indeed, that he refused the archbishopric of Seville, that he wore the humble Dominican habit, that he never tasted flesh nor wore linen in his garments or used it on his bed, and that he refused to give a marriage-portion to his indigent sister, whom he would only assist to enter the order of beatas of St. Dominic. Still, his asceticism did not prevent him from living in palaces surrounded by a princely retinue of two hundred and fifty armed familiars and fifty horesemen. Nor was his persecuting career purely

pp. 20-1; Hefele, Der Cardinal Ximenes, p. 269; Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, II, 582), basing their assertions on the eagerness of the curia to entertain appeals, of which more hereafter.

1 Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inquisicion, Legajo único, fol. 28. 2 Páramo, pp. 156-7.

disinterested. Though the rule of his Dominican Order forbade individual ownership of property and, though his position as supreme judge should have dictated the utmost reserve in regard to the financial results of persecution, he had no hesitation in accumulating large sums from the pecuniary penances inflicted by his subordinates on the heretics who spontaneously returned to the faith. It is true that the standards of the age were so low that he made no secret of this and it is also true that he lavished them on the splendid monastery of St. Thomas Aquinas which he built at Avila, on enlarging that of Santa Cruz at Segovia of which he was prior and on various structures in his native town of Torquemada. Yet amid the ostentation of his expenditure he lived in perpetual fear, and at his table he always used the horn of a unicorn which was a sovereign preservative against poison.2

3

As delegated powers were held to expire with the death of the grantor, unless otherwise expressly defined, Torquemada's commission required renewal on the decease of Sixtus IV. Ferdinand and Isabella asked that the new one should not be limited to the life of the pope, but that the power should continue, not only during Torquemada's life, but until the appointment of his successor. The request was not granted and, when Innocent VIII, by a brief of February 3, 1485, recommissioned Torquemada it was in the ordinary form. This apparently was not satisfactory, but the pope was not willing thus to lose all control of the Spanish Inquisition and a compromise seems to have been reached, for when, February 6, 1486, Torquemada was appointed Inquisitor-general of Barcelona and his commission for Spain was renewed, on March 24th of the same year, it was drawn to continue at the good pleasure of the pope and of the Holy See, which, without abnegating papal control, rendered renewals unnecessary. This formula was abandoned in the commissions of Torquemada's immediate successors, but was subsequently

1 Ripoll, IV, 126.

2 Páramo, p. 156.

Arch. Gen. de la Corona de Aragon, Reg. 3486, fol. 45.—Páramo, p. 137. • Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 6, 8.-" ad nostrum et dictæ sedis beneplacitum."

The original appointments of Miguel de Morillo and Juan de San Martin were similarly ad beneplacitum (Ibid. fol. 10), which may perhaps explain their assertion of independence of Torquemada.