the 129 decreed in lo72 should be endowed. Philip sent Canon Francisco de Quesada as a special agent to Rome where he obtained from Paul V. a brief, March 6, 1600, revoking three letters of Clement VIII. and confirming one of Gregory XIII. in favor of 190 rectories in the archbishopric, of twenty in Segorbe, of twenty in Tortosa and of eleven in Orihuela. The chapters were required by the pope, against their previous refusal, to grant pensions on the tithes, and rectors were to be sent to all the Moorish villages. Ribera, we are told, had always paid his quota; the Bishop of Tortosa now agreed to furnish 400 ducats a year for the support of the new rectories and the Bishop of Segorbe promised to do his share but questions arose which prevented a settlement. The money difficulty, which had from the beginning been the impediment to the carrying out of all plans, seemed at last to be reaching a solution. To render these exertions effective Philip instructed Quesada to procure a brief ordering the Valencian bishops to meet in consultation. It was dated May 11, 1606, and required Ribera to assemble his colleagues and discuss the best means of conversion and report their conclusions to him, and it especially urged the importance of providing endowments for the churches and seminaries, a matter which was represented as the chief object of the conference in the letters addressed to the several bishops. It was not however until April 6, 1608, that Philip forwarded these briefs to the bishops, who did not assemble until October, when they spent four months in deliberations, the result of which they duly forwarded to the king, being principally that a new edict of grace should be procured during which instruction should be carried on, and the Inquisi

tion be suspended, the money question being prudently evaded.1 It mattered little what their conclusions were. The anxieties of the rulers of Spain were growing too acute to permit much longer delay, and, as the all-powerful Duke of Lerma said, instruction was useless but it must be kept up in order to blind the Moriscos to the preparations for sterner measures which were in progress.2

To appreciate those anxieties it is necessary for us to take a glance at the secular aspects of the Morisco question and the position which the New Christians occupied amid the surrounding populations.

1 Danvila, pp. 263-4, 270-1.—Fonseca, pp. 39-50.—Bleda, Crónica, p. 975.

2 Danvila, p. 283.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CONDITION OF THE MORISCOS.

It was not only in matters of religion that the Moriscos had legitimate cause of discontent. In their relations with their Christian neighbors they were the objects of oppression and injustice, which created an enduring sense of wrong, rendering their fidelity suspect and leading to harsh measures of repression which increased their disaffection. The blundering policy of Spain moved in a vicious circle, ever aggravating the difficulties of the situation until the statesmanship of the age could find no outlet from it save self-destructive violence.

In the older time, as we have seen, there had been no necessary antagonism between the races, even when the Mudejares were allowed peaceably to follow their ancestral faith, but with the development of Christian fanaticism there came a change which led the Spaniard to treat the Morisco with the galling contempt which Bishop Guevara deprecated and which inevitably was repaid with hatred. So little respect had been shown by the rulers to plighted faith, where the Moriscos were concerned, that this contempt not unnaturally led the people to regard them as entitled to no protection from the law and as subject to arbitrary abuse and oppression. The relations between the races are illustrated by R trouble which arose in Aragon in 1585. Pedro Perez, a native of Sandinies in the Valle de Terra

one of the most remote and rugged in the Pyrenees—in the winter of 1584—5 drove his cattle to pasture in the valley of the Tagus, not far south of Saragossa. In some quarrel he was slain by the Mariscos of Code, whereupon his nephew, Antonio Martony an infanzon or gentleman of Salient, resolved to avenge him, in spite of the dissuasion of his friends, among whom was Lanuza the narrator of the event. He and his comrades believed that the killing of Moriscos was a most acceptable service to God and that if they perished in the attempt their souls would be a grateful offering to the Creator. Marton, with four companions, stationed himself before sunrise at the gate of Codo and when the Moriscos came forth to their daily labor they were set upon, five or six being killed while the rest fled back to the town and barred themselves in, and the Montaneses returned home in triumph. Some days later Marton came back with a force of twenty-five men; they concealed themselves in a valley and attacked the Moriscos who came to work in the fields, but found them armed and watchful; a skirmish ensued in which some fifteen Moriscos and one Christian were killed and Marton had five wounds. The Montaneses continued to despatch all the Moriscos they could find; the latter formed an organization, known as the "Conjuracion" or "Moros de la venganza," and murdered Christians wherever they could—on one occasion, between la Almunia and la Muela they slew fifteen, including two frailes who were peaceably travelling from Calatayud to Saragossa. The whole kingdom was disturbed, homicides were frequent and the high-roads were full of dangers. This went on for several years till, in 1588, the Montaneses assembled in force and descended upon Codo, which they

utterly destroyed; then turning upon Pina, where there was a mixed population, the houses of the Old Christians were spared, but those of the Moriscos were levelled; they massacred without sparing age or sex and it was reckoned that the slaughter amounted to seven hundred souls. There was talk of making an end with all the Moriscos of Aragon, but the catastrophe of Codo and Pina at length aroused the authorities. Forces were

raised and garrisons placed in Benasque, Balbastro and other places and the crusading zeal of the Montaneses was curbed. The next thing was to break up the Morisco "Conjuracion," which had its headquarters in Pleytas, a town near Saragossa. Alonso Celso, the deputy-governor of Aragon, on the night of January 30, 1589, quietly surrounded Pleytas and ordered the gates opened in the name of the king. The Moriscos refused and rang their bells for assistance, as agreed upon in the Conjuracion, but Celso forced the gates, losing a few men wounded, and by threats of fire and sword compelled surrender. He tore down some houses of the most guilty and carried off twenty-nine men, together with three who had come in response to the call for aid. The twenty-nine were garrotted and the three were discharged at the instance of the Justicia of Aragon, whose vassals they were, while two leaders who had escaped were subsequently captured and executed. Perhaps the most characteristic feature of the affair was that the Montaneses felt remorse for what they had done and voluntarily came to Saragossa and surrendered themselves. Marton was put to death and his comrades were pardoned on condition of serving in the army of Italy, but the factions which had been