that this produced little amendment but, when the vacillation of Philip V was succeeded by the resolute purpose of Carlos III and his able ministers, the power of the Inquisition to oppress was greatly curbed. It was not alone the commonalty that had reason to complain of the extended jurisdiction claimed by the Inquisition. The feudal nobles, whose rights were already curtailed by the growth of the royal power, were restive under the interjection of this new and superior jurisdiction, which recognized no limitations or boundaries and interfered with their supremacy within their domains. Thus in 1553, the Duke of Najera complained that, in his town of Navarrete, the commissioner of the Inquisition had insulted his alcalde mayor and then, with some familiars, had forcibly taken wheat from his alguazil. Inquisitor-general Valdés wrote to the tribunal of Calahorra to investigate the matter and punish the officials if found in fault; the alcalde and alguazil were not to be prosecuted save for matters pertaining to the Inquisition and this not only in view of its proper administration but because he desired to gratify the duke.1 A still more serious cause of complaint, to which the nobles were fully alive, was the release of their vassals from jurisdiction by appointment to office. In 1549, the Countess of Nieva appealed to Valdés, setting forth that Arnedo was a place belonging to the count; it was within three leagues of Calahorra and there had never been a familiar there until recently Inquisitor Valdeolivas had appointed some peasants in order to enfranchise them from the jurisdiction of their lord. It was not just that, while the count was absent from the kingdom on the king's service, his peasants should be thus honored in order that they might create disturbance in the villages and interfere with the feudal jurisdiction. It may well be doubted whether her request for the revocation of the commissions was granted, but that her prevision of trouble was justified is seen in a case before the tribunal of Barcelona, in 1577, in which Don Pedro de Queral, lord of Santa Coloma, a powerful noble of Tarragona, endeavored to secure the punishment of two of his vassals, Juan Requesens, a miller, and his cousin Vicente. They were both familiars and seem to have been the leaders of a discontented opposition which 1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 215. rendered Don Pedro's life miserable. The trees in his plantations were cut down, his arms, over the door of his bayle in Santa Coloma, were removed and defaced, libellous coplas against him were scattered around the streets, but the cousins, being familiars, were safe from his wrath. Don Pedro died but the trouble continued between his widow, the Countess of Queral and a new generation of Requesens, who succeeded to their fathers' office of familiars. Finally, in 1608, she succeeded in convicting Juan Requesens of malicious mischief, but her only satisfaction was that he was reprimanded, warned and sentenced to pay the costs, amounting to 115 reales. Such a case shows how feudalism was undermined and we can conceive how nobles must have writhed under the novel experience of rebellious vassals clothed with inviolability. It is easy therefore to understand the detestation felt for the Inquisition by all classes-laymen and ecclesiastics, noble and simple. It was fully aware of this and constantly alleged it to the king when defending the tribunals in their quarrels, and when urging enlarged privileges as a protection against the hatred which it had excited. In its appeals against the curtailment of its jurisdiction in Aragon, it did not hesitate to admit that it had been hated there from the beginning and that its officials were so abhorred that they would not be safe if exposed to secular justice and, even as late as 1727, it repeated the assertion of the persistent hostility of the Aragonese. In Logroño, the inquisitors reported to the Suprema, in 1584, that it was a common saying among the people that their life consisted in discord with the tribunal and that it was death to them when there was peace. It was the same in Castile. The Córtes, in 1566, when encouraging Philip II to constrain the Flemings to admit the Inquisition, gave as a reason that his success there was necessary to the peaceful maintenance of the institution in Spain, thus intimating that, if the Flemings rejected it, the Castilians would seek to follow their example. In the same year the familiars alleged that the detestation in which they were held led them to be singled out for especial oppression in the billeting of troops 1 Proceso contra Juan Requesens (MSS. of Am. Philos. Society). 2 Bibl. nacional, MSS., Mm, 464.—Archivo gén. de la C. de Aragon, Leg. 528. -Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 27, fol. 88. Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Leg. 1157, fol. 90. 4 Dépêches de M. de Fourquevaux, I, 166 (Paris, 1896). and, in 1647, the Suprema declared that nothing seemed sufficient to repress the hatred with which they were regarded, in support of which it instanced an unjust apportionment, in Cuenca, of an assessment of a forced loan.' This hostility continued to the last, even though the decadence of the Inquisition in the eighteenth century diminished so greatly its powers of oppression. A defender of the institution, in 1803, commences by deprecating the hatred which had pursued it from the beginning; even in the present age, he says, of greater enlightenment, there is crass ignorance of its essential principles and a mortal opposition to its existence.2 Thus, notwithstanding the Spanish abhorrence of Jews and heretics, the dread which the Inquisition inspired was largely mingled with detestation, arising from its abuse of its privileges in matters wholly apart from its functions as the guardian of the faith. 1 Modo de Proceder, fol. 41-2 (Bibl. nacional, MSS., D, 122).—Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Lib. 23, fol. 45, 57. 2 Discurso historico-legal sobre el Origen, Progresos y Utilidad del Santo Oficio, Introd. pp. i-iv, p. 139 (Valladolid, 1803) APPENDIX. I. LIST OF TRIBUNALS. THE permanent tribunals of the Spanish Inquisition were Toledo, Seville, Valladolid, Corte (Madrid), Granada, Córdova, Murcia, Llerena, Cuenca, Santiago (Galicia), Logroño and Canaries, under the crown of Castile, and Saragossa, Valencia, Barcelona and Majorca under the crown of Aragon. In addition were Sicily, Sardinia, Mexico, Lima and Cartagena de las Indias, which lie beyond the scope of the present work. This distribution of the forces of the Inquisition was not reached until experience had shown the most effective centres of action. Numerous more or less temporary tribunals were erected and many changes occurred in the apportionment of territory. The following list makes no pretension to absolute completeness but contains the result of such allusions as I have met in the documents. ALCARAZ. For some years there was a tribunal fixed at Alcaraz. In 1495 Alonso Hernandez, presented for a canonry, is qualified as Inquisitor of Alcaraz and, in 1499, Alonso de Torres is appointed as inquisitor there.1 ARMY AND NAVY. The fleet organized for the Catholic League which won at Lepanto seemed to require a tribunal to preserve it from heresy and Philip II procured from Pius V a brief of July 23, 1571, authorizing the inquisitor-general to appoint an inquisitor for each army of Philip II, whether by land or sea. The first appointment under this seems to have been Rodrigo de Mendoza, Inquisitor of Barcelona, whose commission as Inquisidor de las Galeras is dated March 21, 1575, 1 Bibl. nacional, MSS., Tj, 28.-Llorente, Añales, I, 252. |