too plain to admit of refutation, but on the other hand it was argued that it would take too long; besides there was Fray Juan de Pucgentos with his disciples and many others who preached to them in Arabic without success, and further that in Aragon the Moriscos had nearly forgotten their ancestral tongue while those of Castile had wholly abandoned it and they were as impenetrably heretic as those of Valencia. These arguments were successful, Philip decided against the professorship, and ordered that Morisco children should be taught the vernacular.1 There is a world of significance in the scorn with which Fray Bleda tells us that, in the junta of 1604, there were people who even urged that it would be serviceable if the preachers would learn Arabic.2 Another method, which seems based on common sense, was to bring about a fusion of the races by mingling them together. The Morerias, or separate quarters in the towns, divided by a wall under the legislation of Ferdinand and Isabella, still existed and the Moriscos thus dwelt apart from the Christians. If this could be broken up not only would they be exposed to Christian influences but it would be much easier to keep them under supervision and punish them for backsliding. The earliest suggestion that I have met with as to this occurs in 1515, when the Inquisitor Enzinas, during a visit to Agreda, ordered that thirty or forty of the baptized Moriscos should live in the town and as many Old Christians be transferred to the Mota or Moreria. The municipal authorities appealed to Ferdinand, representing that to accomplish this the gate of the Mota would have to be 1 Fonseca, pp. 346-60.--Danvila, p. 230. opened so as to make a This Ferdinand refused left open and another gate be street connecting the quarters. to sanction and suggested that those to be moved, both New and Old Christians, should be persons who have no houses of their own. During the baptismal process in Valencia the Inquisition took a different view and, when the aljama of Albarracin was converted, the inquisitors arbitrarily issued an edict forbidding all Moors to enter the city, in order to prevent all intercourse between the unconverted and the neophytes. This worked great hardship on the citizens as it deprived them of the supplies which the Moors were accustomed to bring, and as the city was a place of transit it prevented Moors from passing through, wherefore Charles, March 4, 1526, asked the inquisitors to relax their edict in so far as to allow travelling Moors to pass two days and nights inside the city wall, but not to enter that of the Morería. In 1528 the cortes of Castile saw the unwisdom of keeping the races apart and petitioned that the Moors should be obliged to live among Christians to facilitate their conversion.3 On the other hand, in this same year, 1528, the concordia between the Inquisition and the Moriscos of Valencia provided that the independent organizations of the latter in the royal cities, such as Valencia, Jativa, Castellon de la Plana, etc., should be preserved, but in 1529 1 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 3, fol. 427; Libro 927, fol. 276. 2 Ibid. Libro 927, fol. 284. 3 Colmeiro, Córtes de los antiguos Reinos de Leon y de Castilla, II. 155. Danvila, p. 105. Charles changed his policy; he wrote to all the corregidores and Manrique to all the inquisitors, ordering them to consult together and also with representatives of the Moriscos as to the best means of removing the latter from their barrios or Morerías, in order to facilitate their conversion without inflicting too great inconvenience and loss on them, and the result of these deliberations was to be submitted to the Suprema.1 Like so much else in this unhappy business of perpetual consultations and non-action little or nothing came of this. It is true that Inquisitor-general Valdés, in a letter to Charles V. November 5, 1549, says that the experiment had been tried in various places with happy results, but the almost insuperable difficulties attending it are seen in the attempt made in Valladolid, where, in 1541, it had been proposed to tear down the wall of separation and throw open the barrio of the Moriscos. This involved the destruction of certain houses, the value of which was appraised at 3000 ducats and, in 1542, the city agreed to defray one-third, another third was to be obtained by assessing benefits on property that would be improved, while the Inquisition promised to furnish the other third out of fines to be imposed on Moriscos coming in under an Edict of Grace. The matter then rested until 1549, when the work of demolition commenced, but the house owners resisted; in the squabble two officials of the Inquisition were arrested by the alcaldes de corte (the court at that time was residing in Valladolid) and for this insult the tribunal vainly clamored for satisfaction. The work was suspended indefinitely and when, October 8, 1549, Valdes calmly 1 Archivo de Simancas, loc. cit. fol. 277. ordered that Old and New Christians should occupy alternate houses, the Suprema replied to him November 18th with a report of the whole affair. It also wrote to the emperor, then in Germany, November 7th and December 23d. The position was simply that the Inquisition was asked to advance the whole 3000 ducats and take its chances of collecting the 2000. The Suprema declined; it had not money enough to pay its salaries and if it should borrow the amount the prospects of recovery were too vague to justify the risk; besides it demanded as a condition precedent satisfaction for the arrest of its officials.1 How the matter terminated we have no means of knowing, but it is fairly safe to assume that the Moriscos were left undisturbed in their barrio until the final expulsion. In 1572 Philip II. recurred to the idea and ordered the Moriscos to live among Old Christians in order that they could be watched and denounced to the Inquisition, but no attention seems to have been paid to the commands,2 and I have met with no trace of further efforts in this direction. In his letter of October 8, 1849, to the Inquisitors of Valladolid, Valdez made a valuable suggestion in the same line by ordering them to encourage intermarriage in every way; the dower which a Morisca bride may bring to an Old Christian should never be subject to confiscation, and it should be the same with the property possessed by a Morisco at the time of his marriage with a Christian.3 Unfortunately fanaticism could not endure such liberality; in 1603 Archbishop Ribera boasted that he never granted licences for such marriages as the Christian spouse was apt to be perverted, and Bleda devotes a whole section to 2 1 Ibid. Libro 4, fol. 183; Libro 79, fol. 43, 51. Fonseca, p. 71. 3 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 4, fol. 183. proving that they ought to be prohibited.1 Valdés further ordered that instructors should be appointed, to teach the Moriscos and their children, whose salaries should be paid in such wise as the inquisitors should determine. The question of payment was solved by the thrifty bishops of Valencia who sent doctrineros, or catechizers through their sees at wages of two reales per diem, to be paid by the Moriscos in addition to all their other burdens of tithes and oblations.2 We have seen the fluctuating policy adopted with regard to confiscations and the occasional suspension of the Inquisition. This had the vice inherent in all uncertain lines of action, for temporary leniency only increased exasperation when severity was resumed. Yet it was explicable by the hope persistently entertained that the perpetual efforts at so-called instruction would prove successful in spite of the fact, which should have been self-evident, that the whole machinery, however honestly devised, was in the hands of those whose only object was to make what they could out of the oppressed race. The Spanish statesmen had a duty to perform of tremendous import and complexity and they earnestly sought to discharge it according to their imperfect lights, but their efforts were neutralized by the greedy and self-seeking hands to which the most delicate and responsible functions were of necessity confided. The extent of self-deception of which they were the victims is seen in the repeated efforts to gather in a harvest of true converts as the fruit 1 Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 90.--Bleda Defensio Fidei, pp. 359-63. 2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3. |