formed long continued to disturb the peace of the kingdom.1

That, under such circumstances, the Moriscos made reprisals when they safely could may well be believed, though we may reasonably reject the stories told by the ecclesiastical writers to excite abhorrence—that they were taught by their alfaquies to slay Christians whenever they could without risk, that they became pastry-cooks in order to poison their customers and physicians in order to despatch their patients. Bleda relates that, during the four years in which he was in the baronies of the Duke of Infantado teaching the Moriscos, a friend of his among them, named Juan Vleyme, seemed one day much disturbed because the aljama had ordered him to rent the ferry-boat. On being asked what was the rent he said he did not care whether he made or lost money but he disliked the duty imposed on the ferry-man, which was to kill all the Christians who employed him when he could do so without being discovered; that a spade was kept in the boat with which the passenger was knocked on the head from behind and then buried in the sand. Not content with assassination, it was said that the Moriscos used to drink the blood of their victims and Bleda even goes so far as to assert that these murders sensibly

Lanuza, Historias Ecclesiasticas y Seculares de Aragon, II. 90-97,

139-45.

It should be borne in mind that the right of private warfare seems still to have been one of the recognized privileges of Aragon. At this time there was a ferocious struggle going on for years between Hernando, Duke of Villahermosa and Count of Ribagorza, and his vassals of Ribagorza, who were endeavoring to throw off their subjection to him and there was no interference by the viceroy.—Ibid.

diminished the population of Spain, already reduced by emigration and foreign wars. This martyrdom did not lack its Santo Niño-a Santa Niña Catalina de Oliva, martyrized November 26, 1600, with bestial cruelty.'

There is probably more reliance to be placed in the account we have of Hornachos, a town in the province of Badajos, inhabited almost exclusively by Moriscos. They had bought from Philip II., for 30,000 ducats, the privilege of bearing arms; they had a regular organization and treasury and a mint for counterfeit money employing thirteen operatives; they robbed and murdered strangers passing through the town as well as all who informed against them or aided the Inquisition and by judicious bribery of the officials of the court they protected the assassins when detected. At length the hidalgo Juan de Chaves Xaramillo denounced them to the king as confederating with the disaffected throughout the kingdom in preparation for a rising and in October, 1608, the licentiate Gregorio Lopez Madera, alcalde of the court, was sent there to investigate and punish. Alcaldes of the court sent on these errands were noted for the stern and speedy justice which they administered, and Madera justified this reputation. He made an inquest and found eighty-three dead bodies in the fields; he hanged ten of the council of Hornachos and its executioner; he sent a hundred and seventy to the galleys, scourged a large number, and left the place peaceful for the brief period which remained before it was depopulated by the expulsion.2

1 Bleda, Cronica, pp. 861-66; Defensio Fidei, p. 512.

2 Bleda, Cronica, p. 921.—Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 122-3.— Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 355.

In Castile, the chief complaint was as to those who had been deported

It was not, however, so much lawlessness with which the Moriscos had to contend as with the laws and customs which deprived them of nearly all rights and reduced them to a condition akin to serfdom, in flagrant disregard of faith pledged to them. Enforced conversion had added to their burdens and had brought no compensatory privileges—they were Christians as regarded duties and responsibilities and subjection to the Inquisition, but remained Moors as respected liabilities and inequality before the law. When enforced conversion was decreed, in 1525, we have seen (p. 85) that Charles V. solemnly promised them all the liberties of Christians, and in pursuance of this the syndics of the aljamas represented that in order to enjoy their religion they had been subjected to many servitudes and imposts by their lords which as Christians they could not pay, as they would not be allowed to work on Sundays and feast-days, wherefore they asked to be taxed only as Christians. In the concordia of 1528 the answer to this was that they should be treated as Christians and to avoid injury to parties investigation would be made to prevent injustice. It was ominous however that, in this same year 1528, the cortes of Valencia declared that the lords of Morisco vassals retained all their rights over the converts and forbade them to change their domiciles.1 The nobles made good from Granada after the rebellion. An official report of a commission appointed by the royal council states that, between 1577 and 1581, more than two hundred persons had been found murdered in the vicinity of populous cities such as Toledo, Alcalá, Seville, etc., and it was proved that all this was the work of seven or eight bands. They had only commenced in 1577, by which time they had become acquainted with the country.-Janer, p. 272.

1 Dormer, Lib. II. cap. 1.-Danvila, pp. 101, 105.

If there had been felt need of justification for the perpetual breaches

their claims, although they had been allowed the tithes and first-fruits as a compensation, and the Moriscos were powerless to resist. Charles seems to have felt himself equally impotent and had recourse to the pope in hopes that faculties granted to the Inquisition might enable that dreaded tribunal to enforce what he dared not attempt. Clement VII. responded, July 15, 1531, in a brief which is perhaps the most remarkable of all that the Inquisition has ever received. It was addressed to Inquisitor-general Manrique and recited that when the Saracens were converted the barons and knights who held the converts as vassals, to recompense them for the loss inflicted on them by the conversion, were by apostolic authority empowered to exact from them the tithes and first-fruits, but the nobles not only collect these but also extort the personal services and acofras1 and other demands which were rendered prior to conversion, whence it arises that the converts, unable to endure these burdens, allege them as a reason for resorting to their old customs, eating flesh and disregarding the Christian feasts and ceremonies. As Charles had asked him for a remedy and as he had no knowledge of the matter he commissioned Manrique

of faith pledged to the Moriscos it could have been found in the allegation that they were all constructively heretics and apostates and it was a recognized principle that faith was not to be kept with heretics if there were any valid reason for its violation. As Bishop Simancas says "cum hæreticis nullum commercium nec pax ulla catholicis esse debet; quamobrem fides illis data, etiam juramento firmata, contra publicum bonum, contra salutem animarum, contra jura divina et humana, nulla modo servanda est."-De Catholicis Institutionibus, Tit. XLVI. n. 53 (Romæ, 1575).

The zofres or zofras were imposts or excise paid by the Mudéjares in addition to the division of crops. It remained a grievance to the last ; Ribera alludes to it twice (Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, pp. 362, 444).

to diligently inform himself and if he found the conversos unduly oppressed he was to order by papal authority the nobles to exact no more from their Morisco vassals than from the Old Christians on their lands and not to molest them under pain of excommunication and other penalties at his discretion. In case of disobedience he was to hear complaints and render justice, for which full powers were granted to him, and he was to enforce his decisions by censures, invoking if necessary the secular arm. Under this, when, in January, 1534, Manrique sent Calcena and Haro to Valencia as commissioners to organize the Morisco churches, in his instructions he informed them that the king ordered the concordia to be enforced and that in all things the New Christians were to be treated like the Old and they were secretly to investigate and report whether this was the case. The role of protector in lieu of persecutor was a new one for the Inquisition; there is no trace of its functions in this line and it doubtless held that Moriscos should prove themselves Christians before they were entitled to its aid. What prosecutions it undertook against their lords were for favoring their vassals, which meant endeavoring to prevent their being interfered with and disquieted for their apostasy. As little could they look for assistance from the cortes, where no measures were ever adopted for their relief; the only effort was to increase their burdens and, in case of prosecution, to profit by the confiscations."

The lords, in fact, had been accustomed to get from their Moorish vassals double the imposts which they could

1 Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro I. de copias, fol. 118.

2 Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 77, fol. 227.

3 Danvila, p. 141,