by Cardinal Manrique. It met in the Franciscan convent of Madrid and sat for twenty-two days; the matter was elaborately argued; some of the theologians, with Jayme Benet, the most distinguished canonist of Spain, at their head, denied the validity of the baptisms, but no decision in that sense was possible and it was agreed that, as the Moors had made no resistance or complaint, they should keep the faith which they had accepted, whether they wished it or not. On March 23, 1525, the emperor was present in the junta; Cardinal Manrique announced the result to him, when he confirmed it and ordered the necessary measures to be taken for its enforcement. Accordingly, on April 4th, he issued a cedula reciting the care with which the question had been examined and the unanimous conclusion reached, wherefore he declared the baptized Moors to be Christians, that their children must be baptized and that churches in which mass had been celebrated must not be used as mosques.1

The weighty decision was taken and the fate of the Spanish Moors was sealed, for all subsequent events were the natural consequence of the policy on which Charles had resolved and of which this was the first step. No time was lost in sending as inquisitorial commissioners Gaspar de Avalos Bishop of Guadix, Fray Antonio de Guevara, the Dominican Fray Juan de Salamanca and Doctor Escanier royal judge of Catalonia, with a retinue of counsellors and familiars, constituting a most formidable tribunal. They reached Valencia May 10th and on Sunday the 14th the bishop preached, explained his commission and ordered the publication of Charles's

1 Sandoval, Historia de Carlos V., Lib. xIII. xxviii. —Sayas, Añales de Aragon, cap. cxxvii.-Danvila, Expulsión, pp. 90–1.

cédula and of an edict granting thirty days in which apostates could return with security for life and property, after which they should forfeit both.1 It was easy to issue proclamations but not so easy to identify those who had undergone baptism and were living with their unconverted brethren. To this task the commissioners therefore addressed themselves, travelling through the land, investigating and making out lists and administering confirmation to all whom they could identify.2 This of course was preliminary to prosecuting those who had returned to Moorish rites, but they were too numerous to be subjected to the full hardship of the ordinary inquisitorial procedure. To moderate this required papal authority which was invoked; a brief of Clement VII. to Cardinal Manrique, June 16, 1525, recites that Charles had applied to him for a remedy; the multitude of the delinquents calls for gentleness and clemency wherefore they are to be prosecuted with a benignant asperity, and those who return to the light of truth, publicly abjure their errors and swear never to relapse may be absolved without incurring the customary disabilities and infamy.3

In spite of this effort to mitigate the rigor of the canons against heresy and apostasy, this laborious and doubtless unsatisfactory investigation had a double result. On the one hand it served to confirm Charles and his advisers in the conviction that the only way to be sure of the baptism of a Moor was to baptize them all; on the

1 Sandoval, ubi sup.-Sayas, ubi sup.-Bleda, Crónica, p. 647. 2 Fonseca, Giusto Scacciamento, p. 11.-Bleda, Crónica, p. 647; Defensio Fidei, p. 123.

Archivo de Simancas, Inquisicion, Libro 926, fol. 47.-Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Libro II. fol. 58 (Archivo Histórico Nacional).

other it naturally created great alarm and excitement in the Moorish population, especially among the ten or fifteen thousand who had passed under the hands of the Agermanados. They had the sympathy moreover of the ruling classes. Charles was moved to indignation on hearing that the magistrates of Valencia had asked the commission to act with caution and not to ill-treat the alfaquies because the prosperity of the kingdom depended on the preservation of the Moors, and when the baptized ones took refuge in the Sierra de Bernia the nobles not only would not reduce them but favored them, hoping that the trouble would lead the emperor to suspend action. Charles was inflexible, however; he reproved the recalcitrant nobles, praised those who showed a disposition to assist, and ordered them all to go to their estates and urge their vassals to become Christians, promising them favor and good treatment. At length preparations were made to attack the refugees of Bernia, who had held out from April until August; they agreed to surrender on promise of immunity, and were taken to Murla, where they received absolution and were kindly treated.'

The Bishop of Guadix fell sick and left the field; the other commissioners grew tired of the work and were on the point of returning to Castile when despatches were received from Charles saying that as God had granted him the victory of Pavia he could show his gratitude in no better way than by compelling all the infidels of his realms to be baptized; they were therefore ordered to remain and undertake this new conversion, in conjunction

1 Sandoval, ubi sup.-Danvila, pp 92-3.-Sayas, ubi sup.

with a new colleague, Fray Calcena. Although Charles had long been preparing for this, there may be partial truth in the story that he was stirred to immediate action by the gibes of his captive, Francis I., who landed at Valencia June 30, 1525, and was taken to the castle of Benisano, where he was scandalized on seeing from a window Moors at work in the fields on a feast day.1 It was doubtless as a persuasive to conversion that in October and November severe restrictions were placed on all unbaptized Moors. They were required to wear on the cap a half-moon of purple cloth, they were forbidden to leave their domiciles under pain of being enslaved by the first comer, they were forbidden to sell anything, they were deprived of their arms and the practice of their religious rites, they were required to rest on feast days and to uncover and prostrate themselves on meeting the sacrament.2

The Germanía had builded better than it knew. It had given an impulse which blind fanaticism had eagerly developed until the movement was spreading far beyond the narrow boundaries of Valencia, and the wild work of the lawless bands of Agermanados was to be adopted and systematized and perfected by the supreme powers in State and Church.

1 Bledæ Defensio Fidei, p. 124.

2 Danvila, p. 92.—Sayas, ubi sup.--Bleda Defensio Fidei, p. 123.

CHAPTER IV.

CONVERSION BY EDICT.

Even before the question of the validity of the Valencian baptisms had been settled, Charles V. had resolved that he would have uniformity of faith in his Spanish dominions. Whatever tolerant tendencies he might have had in the earlier years of his reign had disappeared in the fierce struggle with the Lutheran revolt. By the edict of Worms, May 26, 1521 he had put Luther and his followers under the ban of the Empire; under his orders the magistrates of the Low Countries were burning reformers; he had learned to regard dissidence of belief as rebellion against both the temporal and the spiritual power and as both a statesman and a sincere Catholic it was his duty to suppress it. His demands for religious unity in Germany were fatally weakened if it could be said that in Spain, where his authority was almost absolute, he permitted hundreds of thousands of his subjects openly to worship Allah and his prophet.

His grand-dame Isabella had enforced outward conformity in the kingdoms of Castile, but for those of Aragon there was the obstacle of the solemn oath taken by Ferdinand for himself and his successors, an oath which Charles himself had repeated when he was recognized and had received the allegiance of his Aragonese subjects. It was a binding compact between them but