but a complicated arrangement respecting it was included in the agreement of December 7, 1631, requiring the baker to purchase at least seventy bushels of wheat per month from the public granary, with certain restrictions as to the places whence he could procure further supplies. In 1649 we chance to learn that the oven was farmed out for six thousand reales per annum and, in 1663, a lively conflict arose because the tribunal had granted a lease which was not subject to the restrictions of 1631. Then again, in 1690, the trouble broke out afresh, each side accusing the other of violating the agreement. All the authorities, from the king and viceroy down, were invoked to settle it; there were fears of violence but, May 1, 1691, the tribunal reported to the Suprema that a compromise had been reached on satisfactory terms.'

The independent spirit of Aragon caused it to suffer less from the mercantile enterprises of the Inquisition than the more submissive temper of Castile. In 1623 there was a flagrant case in Toledo, arising from a butcher-shop established by the tribunal in violation of the municipal laws. Its violent methods triumphed and Don Luis de Paredes, an alcalde de corte, sent thither to settle the matter, was disgraced for attempting to restrain it. This called forth an energetic protest from the Council of Castile, which boldly told the king that he should not shut his eyes to the fact that the inquisitors were extending their privileges to matters beyond their competence, with such prejudice to the public weal that they were making themselves superior to the laws, to the government and to the royal power, trampling on the judges, seizing the original documents, forcing them to revoke their righteous acts, arresting their officials and treating them as heretics because they discharged their duty.2

In procuring provisions, whether for consumption or sale, besides the freedom from local imposts, the Inquisition had the further advantage of employing coercive methods on unwilling vendors and of disregarding local regulations and prohibitions. As early as 1533 the Aragonese, at the Córtes of Monzon, took the alarm and petitioned that the statutes of the towns, when short of bread-stuffs and provisions, should be binding on officials of the Inquisition, to which the emperor's reply was the equivo

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 38, fol. 22; Libro 62, fol. 457, 526, 528, 544; Lib. 922, fol. 453.

' Bibl. nacional, MSS., Mm, 464.—Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Leg. 621, fol. 45, 46.

The sig

cating one customary when evading confirmation.1 nificance of this is manifested by a carta acordada of 1540, authorizing the tribunals to get wheat in the villages for their officials and prisoners and, if the local magistrates interfere, to coerce them with excommunication. Yet inquisitorial zeal in using this permission sometimes overstepped the bounds and, in this same year, the Suprema had occasion to rebuke a tribunal which had issued orders to furnish it with wheat under pain of a hundred lashes, for it was told that, in rendering such extra-judicial sentences, it was exceeding its jurisdiction. How bravely the Suprema itself overcame all such scruples was manifest when laws of maximum prices, and the heavy discount on the legaltender spurious vellon coinage, rendered holders of goods unwilling to part with them at the legal rates. It issued, February 14, 1626, to its alcalde, Pedro de Salazar, an order to go to any places in the vicinage and embargo sheep and whatever else he deemed necessary, sufficient for the maintenance of the households of the inquisitor-general and of the members and officials, paying therefore at the rates fixed by law, to effect which he was empowered to call for aid on all royal justices, who were required to furnish all necessary aid under penalty of major excommunication lata sententia and five hundred ducats. So again, on April 11, 1630, Salazar was ordered to go anywhere in the kingdom and seize six bushels of wheat, in baked bread, for the same households, paying for it at the established price, and all officials, secular, ecclesiastical and inquisitorial, were required to assist him under the same penalties. This was an organized raid on all the bakeries of Madrid, and Salazar was more scrupulous than the average official of the time if he did not turn an honest penny by taking bread on his own account at the legal rate and selling it at the current one.1

1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion de Barcelona, Córtes, Leg. 17, fol. 47, 48. Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 63, 64.

Ibidem, Libro 940, fol. 220, 221. The excommunication lata sententia worked of itself when the act was committed and did not require to be published. It was one of the worst ecclesiastical abuses and during the later middle ages was so lavishly employed that men scarce knew whether or not they were excommunicate under some mandate of which they had never heard.

This abuse existed in England under the name of Purveyance and Preemption, but there it was restricted to the royal household. It inevitably led to many abuses and was replaced, in 1660, with an excise on malt and spirituous liquors by 12 Carol. II, cap. 24, 8 12-27.

The tribunal of Valencia enjoyed another privilege in the important matter of salt, the royal monopoly of which rendered it so costly to the ordinary consumer. Every year the tribunal issued an order to the farmers of the salt-works, commanding them, under pain of excommunication and fifty ducats, to deliver to the receiver of confiscations twelve cahizes (about forty-two bushels) of refined salt, at the price of eight reales the cahiz, and the custom-house officials were summoned, under the same penalties, to let it pass without detention or trouble for the service of God. The salt was duly apportioned among the officials at this trivial price, each inquisitor getting four bushels, down to the messengers who received two-thirds of a bushel, and even jubilado officials had their portion. When or how this originated is unknown; in 1644 it seems established as of old date and it continued until 1710, when the new dynasty brought it to a sudden conclusion. The Council of Hacienda reported it to the king, as though it were a novelty just discovered, pointing out that the eight reales were less than the cost of transport from the works to the magazines; that the manufacture was a monopoly of the regalías and the price charged was in no respect a tax or impost, but was regulated by the necessities of the national defence; that no other tribunal in Spain, secular or ecclesiastic, made such a demand, while the publication of censures against royal officials was dangerous in those calamitous times. This aroused Philip, who ordered a prompt remedy. The Suprema no longer ventured an opposition or remonstrance, but wrote immediately to Valencia expressing its surprise; the demand must be withdrawn at once; if any censures had been published they must be revoked and no such demonstration should have been made without previous consultation.'

It would be superfluous to adduce further examples of the manner in which the tribunals abused their power for unlawful gains and benefits, and we can readily conceive the exasperation thus excited, even among those most zealous in the extermination of heresy.

Few of the privileges claimed by the Inquisition gave rise to more bickering and contention than its demand that all connected with it should be exempt from the billeting of troops

1 Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Libro 7 de Autos, Leg. 2, fol. 391, 494; Leg. 2, n. 18; Leg. 13, n. 2, fol. 11.

and the furnishing of bagages or beasts of burden for transportation. The subject is one of minor importance, but it furnishes so typical an illustration of inquisitorial methods that it is worthy of examination somewhat in detail. Under the old monarchy the yantar or droit de gîte, or right to free quarters, was an insufferable burden. Almost every Córtes of Leon and Castile, from the twelfth century complained of it energetically, for it was exercised, not only by the royal court in its incessant peregrinations, but by nobles and others who could enforce it, and it was accompanied by spoliation of every kind, while the impressment of beasts of burden was an associated abuse and even the lands of the Church were not exempt.' The more independent Aragonese were unwilling to submit to it, and a fuero of the Córtes of Alcañiz, in 1436, provided that the courtiers and followers of the king should pay all Christians in whose houses they lodged. When the Inquisition was founded and was to a great extent peripatetic, its officials apparently claimed free quarters, for a clause in the Instructions of 1498 provides that where a tribunal was set up they should pay for their accommodations and provide their own beds and necessaries. When travelling, a decree of Ferdinand, October 21, 1500, repeated in 1507, 1516, 1518, 1532, and 1561, provided that they should have gratuitous lodging and beds, with food at moderate prices. The frequent repetition of this indicates that it aroused opposition and, in 1601, when the inquisitor of Valencia was ordered to go at once on a visitation of Tortosa, he was told not to oppress the city by demanding free quarters but to lodge decently in a monastery or in the house of some official.5

Furnishing free quarters however was different from enjoying them. The old abuses gradually disappeared with the settled habitations for kings and tribunals, but the change in military organization, with standing armies, gave rise to others which, if more occasional, were also more oppressive-the billeting of troops. When Louis XIV resorted to the dragonnades—the quartering of dragoons on Huguenot families-as an effective

1 Córtes de Leon y de Castilla, T. I, II (Madrid, 1861-3).—Colmeiro, Córtes de Leon y de Castilla, II, 122, 124, 136, 150, 162–3, 181, 193, 201, 277.

Fueros y Ordinacions del Reyno de Aragon, Lib. vII (Zaragoza, 1624, fol. 131).

'Arguello, fol. 22.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 1; Libro 939, fol. 144.

Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 5, n. 2, fol. 304.

coercion to conversion, it shows how severe was the infliction. The rebellion of Catalonia, in 1640, had for its proximate cause the outrages committed by troops quartered for the winter in places insufficient for their support, culminating in their burning the churches of Riu de Arenas and Montiró. The massacre in Saragossa, December 28, 1705, of the French troops in the service of Philip V, had the same origin."

As the pay of Spanish armies was habitually in arrears and the commissariat system imperfect, it can be realized how valuable was the privilege of exemption from entertaining these uninvited guests and providing them with transportation when they departed. In the war with Portugal, in 1666, Galicia suffered so seriously that we are told a company of cavalry was worth to its captain two thousand ducats in ransoms, from outrage.3 That the Inquisition should claim such exemption was to be expected, for it was one of the privileges of hidalgos, but the earliest allusion to it that I have met occurs in 1548, when Inquisitorgeneral Valdés ordered that no billets must be given on houses occupied by inquisitors or officials, even though not their own or during their absence, for their clothes were in them. What authority he had to issue such a command it might be difficult to say, but it indicates that the exemption was an innovation and, as it refers only to salaried officials, it infers that the numerous unsalaried ones were not entitled to the privilege, which is further proved by the fact that, in the Castilian Concordia of 1553, regulating the exemptions of familiars, there is no allusion to billeting. The action of Valdés, however, settled the matter as far as the salaried officials were concerned and even the Aragonese Córtes of 1646, which greatly limited the claims of the Inquisition, admitted that they had the same privileges as hidalgos.5

The determination with which this was enforced is seen in a case in 1695, when Inquisitor Sanz y Múñoz of Barcelona threatened with excommunication and a fine of two hundred libras the town-councillors of Manlleu if they should assign quarters in a country-house belonging to the portero of the Inquisition, although it was occupied by a peasant who worked on the land.

1 Parets, Sucesos de Catalonia (Mem. hist. Español, XX, 150-182; Appendix, pp. 219, 299, 301, 312).

2 Macanaz, Regalías de los Reyes de Aragon, p. 111 (Madrid, 1879). Candamo, op. cit. (Valladares, Semanario erúd., IV, 13).

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 939, fol. 144.

Fueros y Actos de Corte de Zaragoza, 1645-6 (Zaragoza, 1647, p. 10).