The New Christians were not long in realizing the futility of such attempts and we hear little of them in the later periods. Yet there were cases of occult heresy concerning which the functions of the Inquisition seem to have varied. In the earlier times the Edicts of Grace brought these to the tribunals and the Instructions of 1484 permit the inquisitor to admit them to secret reconciliation and abjuration and do not contemplate his delegating his power to another.[65] There must have been doubts as to his faculties for this, since, in 1530, Clement VII delegated powers to inquisitors to absolve and reconcile for occult heresy, with the imposition of appropriate penance.[66] This evidently contemplates his administering sacramental absolution and yet not long afterwards he was told that he was judge in the external and not in the internal forum and that it was not his business to hear sacramental confessions.[67] In fact, the inquisitor was by no means necessarily in priests’ orders and, when acting in his judicial capacity, sentencing a culprit and hearing his abjuration, he simply granted licence to any approved confessor to absolve him from excommunication and to impose salutary penance.[68]
There was, however, a class of cases, by no means infrequent, demanding sacramental rather than judicial ministration, which gave rise to some debate before their treatment was settled. These consisted of good Christians, who were assailed by secret doubts or indulged in erroneous speculations and who brought their spiritual troubles to the confessional. Over these, priest and bishop had been deprived of jurisdiction, and to make sure of this there was a clause in the annual Edict of Faith prohibiting confessors from granting absolution in any case touching the Inquisition and ordering the penitent to be sent to the tribunal.[69] If he refused to go, the only alternative was for the confessor to obtain from the inquisitor a licence to absolve him, for the confession was covered by the seal and prosecution was out of the question, but as to this, even in the middle of the sixteenth century, there were doubts. Bishop Simancas says that the power of the inquisitor to grant licences is doubtful and he can only suggest reference of each case to the Suprema.[70] A body of practice, of uncertain date, asserts that when a confessor reports that a penitent has confessed heresies and asks for a licence to absolve him, it cannot be given. He must be ordered to induce the penitent to come to the tribunal; in case of necessity, or of persons in high station, the inquisitor may go with a notary to receive the confession, which is examined in the tribunal and the consequent absolution or abjuration is performed in secret. In the case of nuns, who could not be induced to discharge their consciences before a commissioner and a notary, there was a concession that the confessor might reduce the confession to writing and send it to the tribunal which would consult the Suprema, and frailes were to be compelled to seek the tribunal, where they were treated as espontaneados, or spontaneous self-denouncers and were absolved or reconciled secretly with spiritual penances.[71]
The indisposition to license confessors to absolve for heresy in the forum of conscience is easily explicable. By compelling the penitent to come to the tribunal, a record was made for use in case of relapse; if he had accomplices he could be forced to reveal them and their prosecution followed, and there was an opportunity of inflicting pecuniary penances, although confiscation was waived in such cases.[72] These same reasons operated in a contrary sense with the penitent, besides the horror which all men felt as to falling into the hands of the Inquisition. When he was obstinate, the tribunal was powerless, for the seal of confession shielded his identity; it finally yielded the point and no longer pretended that licenses could not be given to confessors. In 1562 a case was referred to the Suprema of a person who had confessed sacramentally to certain heresies, without having been taught them by any one, when the inquisitor-general empowered the inquisitors to absolve him in such way as they thought best and they empowered the confessor.[73] Finally it became the rule that the confessor sought to induce the penitent to apply to the Inquisition; if he resolutely refused the confessor applied for a faculty, which was granted or not, according to the temper of the tribunal.[74]
A case in 1754 shows the Inquisition in a favorable light and has interest also as illustrating the tortures of a soul which rejects belief and yet holds belief to be essential to salvation. Fray Thomas de Sos reported to the Toledo tribunal that, while on a mission at Ajofrin, a penitent had asked him to obtain a commission to absolve her for heresies internal and external, which yet were occult, as she had never expressed them except to her aunt. She said that, on a previous occasion, a confessor had done this for her and she wished to avoid the disgrace of personal appearance before the Inquisition. He was ordered to ascertain all details and reported that the penitent was a poor woman named María Lara, living with an aunt aged eighty. Her heresies were only of a few months’ standing, occasioned by intense grief at the ingratitude of one whom she had benefited; she disbelieved in the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Law of God, the Virgin, hell and the devil and at the same time felt herself lost beyond the hope of salvation. She could not say how much of this she had uttered to herself or before her aunt and the importance attached to this point indicates the weight attributed to the distinction between internal and external heresy. The aunt was examined, the cura of Ajofrin was called in, the registers were searched and finally, after six weeks had been consumed, a commission was issued which the good fraile, eager to heal a despairing soul, at an hour’s notice bore to Ajofrin and absolved her.[75]
These cases gave the Inquisition considerable concern and, in 1772, the Suprema called upon all the tribunals to report what was their practice. After carefully weighing their answers, it issued, November 9, 1772, instructions that, when a confessor reported such a case, he was to be ordered to use every effort to induce the penitent to denounce himself, assuring him of merciful treatment and showing him that he would thus be saved in case of denunciation by others. He could make this denunciation to the tribunal or to a commissioner, or could even authorize the confessor to denounce him, giving all details under oath. If, however, the penitent obstinately refused, then the confessor could absolve him, explaining that it was only in the forum of conscience.[76] If we may believe Lorenzo Villanueva, however, this liberal concession was by no means put in practice, at least by all tribunals.[77]
Confession of formal heresy was not so leniently treated and, as it inferred accomplices, every effort was made to secure their denunciation. The confessor was ordered to persuade, if possible, the penitent to come to the Inquisition and confess as to himself and others, promising secret absolution without confiscation. This was virtually the offer made to those who came forward under an Edict of Grace and did not exclude arbitrary pecuniary penance; it was not likely to attract self-denunciation, especially as it included betraying kindred and friends, although power to absolve was not granted in case of refusal. This led to a dead-lock and possibly in such cases the confessor was expected to violate the seal of confession under the old rule that it did not cover heresy. At least this may be inferred from a case occurring in Lima about 1580, when Padre Luis López, S. J. reported that a penitent in confession had admitted to have Judaized and on being told to go to the Inquisition had refused. The matter was regarded as so grave that it was referred to the Suprema which sent orders to deliver López to the viceroy for shipment to Spain—apparently one who would not violate the seal was too dangerous to be left in Peru.[78] Simancas, however, characterized this as a most pernicious doctrine and argues that infraction of the seal is much worse than allowing a heretic to escape punishment.[79]
When the Inquisition was re-established in 1814, under the Restoration, it recognized the impossibility of investigating and punishing the innumerable heresies disseminated in the licence of years of warfare and exposure to foreign armies. In its zeal for the salvation of souls it therefore, by edict of January 2, 1815, granted for a year, to all confessors, faculties to absolve for heresy external or mixed. The confessor, in fact, was made a quasi-inquisitor and the procedure formidably resembled that of the tribunals. The penitent had a pledge of secrecy, but his confession had to be minute and comprehensive; it was reduced to writing, signed and sworn to, and was then forwarded to the tribunal to be filed among its records. This relieved him from prosecution in case of denunciation by others, while, if he refused to do this, he was to be absolved, but only in the forum of conscience; he was to be reported to the tribunal and remained liable to the external forum.[80]
In view of the recognized principle that sacramental absolution does not affect the external forum, it shows the watchful jealousy with which the Inquisition guarded its jurisdiction that it remonstrated against the papal indulgences of the Santa Cruzada and the jubilee. The former granted an indulgentia plenissima; it was a state affair, managed by the Government and bringing in a large revenue of which a portion accrued to the Holy See; its sale was pushed in every quarter with the utmost vigor and the Inquisition punished severely any utterances calculated to diminish the demand. Only extreme sensitiveness as to its jurisdiction could have led the Inquisition to cast any doubt as to the unlimited efficacy of the indulgence but, when St. Pius V, in 1571, after an interval of five years, renewed the concession of the Cruzada, it took the alarm. In cartas acordadas of May 30 and June 13, 1572, the Suprema informs the tribunals that in some places it is asserted that the Cruzada bulls grant faculties for the absolution of heresy; this is not the case and, if it were, the pope would be asked to withdraw them; the assertion must be contradicted everywhere and the prelates are to be asked to give corresponding instructions to confessors.[81] A more effective step was taken, in 1576, by procuring from Gregory XIII a brief declaring that it never was the papal intention that the indulgence should include heresy and to make this known he authorized the Commissioner of the Cruzada to translate the brief into the vernacular and publish it wherever the Cruzada was preached. The Suprema did not trust the Commissioner, but sent copies of the brief to all the tribunals, with instructions to notify the Ordinaries and the prelates of the Orders, so that confessors might be duly informed. A month later, in January, 1577, it ordered the brief to be published in all the churches.[82] Eventually, however, its anxieties were removed by a clause in the bulas of the Cruzada specifically excepting heresy from the faculties granted to confessors, a form which they have retained to the present day, long after the extinction of the Holy Office.[83]
The Cruzada indulgence was a special financial favor to the Spanish monarchy which it could virtually control, but it was otherwise with the jubilee indulgences which, about this period, the popes began to publish—plenary remissions of sins such as were obtainable by pilgrimage to Rome at the jubilees celebrated every twenty-five years. St. Pius V set the example of this, on his accession in 1566, which has since been followed by his successors, together with special jubilees decreed at decreasing intervals. The jubilee published in 1572, on the accession of Gregory XIII, excepted heretics and readers of prohibited books and added a positive declaration that in it and all that might be subsequently issued the absolution was only in the forum of conscience and did not affect the judicial forum.[84] Taking advantage of this, when another jubilee indulgence appeared, in 1578, the Suprema ordered it to be published with the omission of all that concerned the Inquisition, in accordance with the declarations of Gregory.[85] Subsequent jubilees, however, of 1589, 1592 and 1595 included heresy and called forth unavailing protests from Spain until finally, in the latter year, preachers were ordered to declare, as of their own motion, that, under the general clause of the jubilee, absolution could not be had for heresy.[86] While the Roman Inquisition made no protest against these indulgences, the Spanish persistently objected to them and it seemed impossible to harmonize the conflict. When Alexander VII, on his accession, in 1655, published a jubilee, it contained the obnoxious clause; Cabrera, the agent of the Suprema in Rome, warmly remonstrated with him and he promised in future to except heresy; this did not satisfy Cabrera who asked for a constitution excepting heresy from all jubilees. Alexander promised to investigate the matter, but apparently his investigations were resultless for the subject continued till the end of the century to furnish occasion for repeated discussion.[87]
Heresy was an elastic term and the Inquisition stretched it to extend its exclusive jurisdiction in all directions. It did the same to shield itself from investigation and restraint. We are told that, in the numerous cases of appeal to the throne for injustice suffered at its hands, if the king ordered the inquisitor-general to report on the subject so that it might be submitted to a junta composed of members of the Suprema and Royal Council, the first business of the Suprema was to examine whether the question arose from a matter of faith, or was in any way dependent upon faith, or concerned the free exercise of the duties of the Holy Office. There were not many things that could not be brought within this charmed circle and then a consulta was addressed to the monarch protesting that he could not refer it to a junta, because its nature precluded its consideration by laymen and it would be a violation of the secrecy of the Inquisition, so that it had to be submitted to the Suprema alone, which would make a verbal report to him. It was on record that, in a case of this kind, Philip II pledged his royal word that he and Don Cristóval de Mocera alone should be admitted to the confidence and, in 1645, Philip IV could only obtain from Arce y Reynoso a verbal explanation.[88] Thus between exclusive cognizance and inviolable secrecy the Inquisition realized the ideal of spiritual jurisdiction—it judged all and was judged by none.
OVER the laity the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was complete. No one was so high-placed as to be exempt, for heresy was a universal leveller. Theoretically the king himself was subject to it, for it was based on the principle of the supremacy of the spiritual over the temporal power. The piety of the Spanish monarchs prevented occasion for putting this to the test, for we may safely reject as fables the stories concerning Juana la loca and Don Carlos, but no station exempted him who was suspect in the faith from prosecution and from punishment if he was found guilty. In Valencia, nobles who sought to protect their Morisco vassals from the raids of the Inquisition were tried as fautors of heresy, the most conspicuous of these being Don Sancho de Córdova, Admiral of Aragon and allied to the noblest blood of Spain. At the age of 73 he was compelled to abjure for light suspicion of heresy, he was fined and confined in a convent, where he died.[89] We shall have occasion to consider in detail the still more remarkable case of Don Gerónimo de Villanueva, Prothonotary of Aragon and favorite of both Olivares and of Philip IV and, even when the Inquisition was far gone in its decline, we shall see how it took steps to assail Don Manuel de Godoy, Prince of the Peace and all powerful favorite of Carlos IV.
With the exception of bishops, of whom more hereafter, the secular clergy were equally at the mercy of the Holy Office. Even when, as we have seen, in the bitter quarrels between the tribunal of Majorca and the clergy of the islands, the latter obtained the protection of special papal briefs, these exempted them only from the royal jurisdiction of the Inquisition and did not affect their liability in matters of faith, against which they raised no protest. The regular clergy, however—the members of the religious Orders—made long and persistent struggles to escape subjection, preferring the milder discipline of their own prelates. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the monastic establishments had, for the most part, obtained exemption from episcopal jurisdiction and were amenable only to the Holy See. When the Mendicant Orders were organized, in the thirteenth century, they were likewise subject immediately to the pope. It is true that, in 1184, Lucius III, in his Verona decree, had abolished this immunity in matters of faith and had remanded, in so far, the regulars back to episcopal jurisdiction, for as yet the Inquisition had not been thought of,[90] but, when the Mendicants claimed that this did not apply to their subsequently founded Orders, Innocent IV, in 1254, subjected them to the Inquisition, which by that time was in full operation. Boniface VIII emphatically confirmed this, even declaring that for heresy they were to be punished more severely than laymen, as the Spiritual Franciscans found to their cost under John XXII.[91] As inquisitors acted under delegation from the pope, there would be no question as to their jurisdiction over the regulars, but, in the case of the Dominican Master Eckart, tried, in 1327, by the Archbishop of Cologne, it was settled that the episcopal Inquisition also had cognizance.[92] Yet, about 1460, Pius II granted to the Franciscans the privilege of being tried only by the vicar-general of their Order and, in 1479, Sixtus IV, in view of the inveterate hostility between Franciscans and Dominicans, from which Orders nearly all inquisitors were drawn, prohibited those of one Order from prosecuting members of the other.[93]
Such was the situation when the Spanish Inquisition was founded. Conversos were numerous in the Orders and many were prosecuted. Under Torquemada, himself a Dominican, the inquisitors were largely Dominicans and the Franciscans naturally claimed the privileges of the papal decrees of 1460 and 1479; when, in 1487, some Observantine Franciscans were prosecuted, Innocent VIII ordered their release and repeated the provisions of 1479.[94] In the following year, however, by a motu proprío of May 17, 1488, he declared that none of the Orders were exempt and specially mentioned the Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans.[95] Even before this, Torquemada had treated the regulars as under his jurisdiction for, though he had granted to the Geronimite prelates power to try some of their frailes he revoked this, May 3, 1488, and commissioned the inquisitors of Toledo to prosecute them.[96] In Rome the influence of the regular Orders was great; that of the growing Spanish power was steadily increasing, and the contest between these opposing forces is seen in the fluctuating policy of the Holy See. The motu proprio of 1488 remained in force for a considerable time, but, after the death of Ferdinand, the Franciscans in 1517 obtained from Leo X the renewal of their old privileges, which probably also included the Dominicans.[97] The Augustinians soon followed, for a letter of the Suprema, May 7, 1521, directs the tribunals, in view of their privileges to be tried by their prelates, to obtain from the superiors delegated power to act in their cases, or to get a fraile assigned to sit as assessor, or to remit the cases to the Suprema as they may deem best.[98] Apparently these exemptions were not always respected, for Clement VII, by a brief of January 18, 1524, emphatically confirmed the Franciscan privileges and ordered all their cases pending in the tribunals to be transferred within six days to the prelates of the accused.[99] So when, in a brief of March 19, 1525, he prohibited descendants of Jews and heretics from acquiring dignities in the Observantine branch of the Order, he gave as a reason that the provincials are judges of their subjects.[100]
It required but a few months to change all this. The Inquisition was restive under this restriction on its jurisdiction. Inquisitor-general Manrique, in a letter of June 30, 1524, asserted that a revocation of the Augustinian privileges would be procured and he proved a true prophet.[101] The services of Charles V in stemming the tide of the Lutheran revolt were indispensable and his demands could not be refused. A brief of April 13, 1525, subjected the frailes again to the Inquisition, but softened the blow by providing that the provincials should appoint assessors to sit with the tribunals in their cases. This did not satisfy Spain and, two months later, a brief of June 16th subjected them absolutely to the inquisitor-general.[102] That the Inquisition thus obtained and exercised jurisdiction over the regulars is seen in an order by the Suprema, July 18, 1534, requiring that it should be consulted and the testimony be submitted to it, before proceedings were instituted against a fraile—an order repeated, June 10, 1555, and subsequently extended to all ecclesiastics.[103]
In issuing this the Suprema evidently was unaware that some three weeks earlier there had occurred another shifting of the scales. The frailes had not been idle; the Franciscans, and presumably the other Orders, had won a victory. A brief of Clement VII, June 23, 1534, recites the various exemptions granted by preceding popes to the Franciscans, while numerous complaints showed that some inquisitors continued to prosecute them, to their great perturbation and scandal, wherefore it was ordered that whenever any of the frailes were suspected of heresy they must be remitted to their superiors for punishment, notwithstanding all privileges granted to the Holy Office. Confirmation of this was procured from Paul III, November 8th of the same year, but apparently these commands received slender attention, for another confirmation was obtained, December 15, 1537, with the addition that all cases pending in the Inquisition must be surrendered to the superiors of the Order within six days and all sentences in derogation of this were declared invalid.[104] Even this did not keep the Inquisition in check and Paul issued, March 6, 1542, another decree reciting cases in contempt of his orders, wherefore all inquisitors, in every part of the world, were commanded, under penalty of excommunication, deprivation of benefice and disability for preferment, not to proceed against the frailes and to deliver up any who might be imprisoned. All bishops and prelates were made executors of the brief, with power to invoke the aid of the secular arm.[105]
The rigor of these provisions is the measure of the resistance encountered and, in singular contrast to them is the fact that, but a fortnight later, Paul, by a brief of March 21st, annulled all the exemptions of the Mendicant Orders in Upper Italy and the Island of Chios, and subjected their members, with the exception of bishops, to the Inquisition, in matters of faith.[106] This put the Spanish Inquisition at a disadvantage in comparison with the newly organized Roman Congregation, although its order of June 10, 1555, above referred to, would indicate that it paid but little attention to the papal utterances. It fully recovered its lost ground, however, when the Holy See recognized that it was the only tribunal that could be relied upon to check the prevalent vice of “solicitation” or seduction in the confessional—the principal offenders being frailes. When, as an experiment, Paul IV, in 1559, empowered the tribunal of Granada to prosecute these cases, he withdrew all privileges and exemptions, not only in this offence but in all heretical crimes; he authorized the inquisitors to degrade the culprits and to deliver them to the secular arm for execution and the provisions of this brief were extended by Pius IV, in 1561, to all the tribunals in the Spanish dominions.[107] This rendered the Inquisition master of the situation, while, at the same time, the inclusion of solicitation among heretical crimes made the regular Orders still more solicitous to escape from its jurisdiction.
The development of the Society of Jesus and the unbounded favor which it enjoyed with the Holy See introduced a new factor in the struggle. In 1587 the Inquisition discovered that the Jesuits claimed exemption. The Compendium of their privileges stated that Gregory XIII, vivæ vocis oraculo, on March 18, 1584, had conferred on their General, with power of subdelegation, faculty for absolving his subjects from heresy, even in cases of relapse; any one knowing the heresy of another was therefore to denounce him to his superior and not to the Inquisition and it was broadly asserted that the members were subject to no judge, episcopal or inquisitorial.[108] It was impossible for the Inquisition to overlook such denial of its authority and it promptly ordered the suppression of the Compendium and of all regulations incompatible with its jurisdiction, giving rise to considerable correspondence with Rome.[109]
The case which led to this proceeding is too suggestive not to deserve relation in some detail. Solicitation being subjected to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Inquisition it became, under the Edict of Faith, the duty of every one, under heavy penalties, to denounce to the nearest tribunal any case coming to his knowledge. In 1583, the Jesuits of the college of Monterey, in Galicia, learned that one of their number, the Padre Sebastian de Briviesca, had been guilty of it with certain beatas and also of some Illuminist practices. Padre Diego Hernández was sent to Segovia to report the matter to Antonio Marcen, the Provincial of Castile. To avert from the Society the disgrace of the prosecution of a member, Hernández was ordered to return and get the evidence in legal shape, so that Briviesca could be secretly tried and punished, but Marcen warned him that all consultation and action must be under pretext of confession, so as to be covered by the seal. Hernández went back to Monterey and consulted with Padres Francisco Larata and Juan López, who said it was a dangerous business; the case belonged to the Inquisition and but for the seal of confession, they would be bound to denounce Briviesca, however damaging it might be to the Society. Profound secrecy was enjoined on the beatas; Hernández took the evidence to Marcen, gave it to him under the seal and was sent with it to Salamanca, where it was submitted, without names, to the theologians of the Jesuit college. They reported that the culprit must be denounced to the Inquisition and that the beatas could not be absolved unless they denounced him but, on being told that the Society was involved, they reversed their opinions. Hernández was sent to Monterey, where he absolved the beatas, while Marcen imprisoned Briviesca, obtained a partial confession, gave him dismissory letters and the habit of a secular priest, and sent him with a companion to Barcelona, where he was shipped to Italy. He had previously been guilty at Avila of the same practices.
Hernández had dutifully obeyed orders, but he was becoming thoroughly frightened. He begged Marcen to allow him to denounce the matter to the Inquisition and was told that if through him harm came to the Society he would be imprisoned for life in chains. He persisted and then reports were spread that he was insane and possessed by the devil; he was sent to the college at Oviedo, where there was no Inquisition and no means of communicating by post, and for a year he was unable to discharge his conscience, for the confessors were forbidden to absolve him unless he pledged submission to his superiors. Then promises were tried and he was told that whatever he asked for would be obtained for him from the General, and he was further informed that the beatas had retracted their testimony.
How the Inquisition obtained knowledge of the affair is not stated, but it was probably through the garrulousness of the beatas who could not be kept from talking. As soon as it obtained sufficient evidence it acted vigorously. Marcen, Larata and López were imprisoned and put on trial, in 1585; in the progress of the case it was found that this was by no means the first time that Marcen had defrauded the Inquisition of its culprits. Padre Cristóbal de Trugillo had been guilty of the same offence and Marcen had simply dismissed him from the Society. Also Padre Francisco de Ribera had repeatedly uttered heretical propositions for which some of the brethren demanded that he should be denounced to the Inquisition, but Marcen dismissed him from the Society and gave him money to betake himself to Italy, for all of which his defence was that he only obeyed the orders of the General.[110]
The case was a clear one; Marcen and his colleagues were convicted, but the Inquisition had not the satisfaction of punishing them. The Society did not venture to question the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but its influence at Rome was great and it probably had little difficulty in convincing Sixtus V that the interests of religion required the suppression of the scandal, for which he had only to exercise his right of evoking the case to himself. He did so, in 1587, and when the Suprema tried its usual dilatory tactics, the impetuous pontiff notified Cardinal Quiroga that, if the prisoners and the papers were not surrendered forthwith, he would be deprived of both the cardinalate and the inquisitor-generalship. Sixtus was not a man to be trifled with and the surrender was made.[111] The treatment of Briviesca, Trugillo and Ribera serve to explain why the frailes were so anxious to avoid the inquisitorial jurisdiction of which the familiars were so eager to avail themselves.
The ascription to the Inquisition of the crime of solicitation naturally stimulated the desire of the frailes to recover their exemption and Marcen’s case rendered the Jesuits especially active. A prolonged agitation in Rome was the result, which finally took the shape of submitting to the Congregation of the Inquisition the question whether, in this crime, the jurisdiction of the Holy Office was exclusive or whether it was cumulative with that of the prelate, depending on the first possession of a case. The decision was made, December 3, 1592, in the presence of Clement VIII, declaring that the jurisdiction of the Inquisition was exclusive, that the prelates could not exercise it and that all members of the Orders were bound to denounce offenders to the tribunals. The victory of the Inquisition was complete, but the pope expressed to the Suprema, through a cardinal, his desire that the inquisitors would exercise their functions with the prudence, circumspection and moderation that would preserve the cult due to the sacrament of penitence and, at the same time, the good repute of the frailes.[112]
Still the regulars could not be brought to submit to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and Paul V, by a brief of September 1, 1606, evoked to himself all pending cases and committed them to it, at the same time decreeing that it should have exclusive jurisdiction in all cases of suspected heresy; whenever, during a visitation, any member of an Order was found to be suspected he was at once to be denounced and any superior refusing obedience was threatened with deprivation and perpetual disability. Moreover this decree was to be read in all chapters of the Orders. Even this was deemed insufficient and was supplemented, November 7th, with another prohibiting superiors, under any pretext or custom, from receiving denunciations or taking cognizance in any way of cases pertaining to the Inquisition. Every member, whether superior or subject, was required, without consulting any one, to denounce to the Inquisition or to the Ordinary all who were suspected, however lightly, of heresy.[113]
Some details in this would seem to point to the Society of Jesus as the chief recalcitrant and this is confirmed by a brief of Alexander VII, July 8, 1660, which condemns, as pernicious and rash, opinions calling in doubt the obligation to denounce and the pretexts employed of fraternal correction to prevent denunciation. Even the Company of Jesus is ordered to obey the constitution of Paul V; no superiors are to molest or oppress their subjects for performing this duty but must exhort them to it. Disobedience is threatened not only with the penalties provided by Paul V but with deprivation of office, the right of voting and being voted for, perpetual disability and other punishments at the discretion of the pope and removable only by him. The decree is to be read annually on March 1st at the public table and notarial attestation of the fact is to be sent to the nearest tribunal or to Rome and a copy is to be posted where all can read it. The Inquisition lost no time in publishing this and the decree of November 7, 1606, in an edict commanding their observance and pointing out that the alternative of denunciation to the Ordinary was invalid in Spain, where the Inquisition had exclusive jurisdiction. It further ordered that in all books where contrary opinions were taught there should be noted in the margin “This opinion is condemned as pernicious and rash by our Holy Father, Alexander VII.”[114]
No further papal utterances seem to have been asked for; indeed there was nothing that the Holy See could add to these comprehensive decrees. In time, however, they seem to have been conveniently forgotten for, in 1732, Inquisitor-general Juan de Camargo reissued them in an edict saying that some persons were ignorant, or affected ignorance, of the doctrines expressed in them, wherefore he ordered them to be posted in the sacristies of all churches, with the announcement that all contraventions would be punished with the utmost rigor.[115] Of course it is impossible to say how many frailes may have escaped prosecution through the indisposition of the Orders to recognize the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, but, from the numbers who appear in the registers of the tribunals, it is charitable to assume that evasion in this way was exceptional.
The completeness of the domination assumed by the Inquisition over the religious Orders is illustrated by its intervention in a matter which would appear wholly beyond any possible definition of its jurisdiction. The internecine strife between the different bodies had long been an inextinguishable scandal. The old hatred between Franciscans and Dominicans was inflamed to white heat by the quarrel over the Immaculate Conception. The immense success of the Jesuits brought upon them the virulent enmity of the older communities, which regarded them as upstarts and were repaid with interest. The new Moral Philosophy of the Probabilists was a fresh source of active discord. These mutual antagonisms found free expression in the press, the pulpit and the professorial chair, where the rivals derided and insulted each other, to the grief of the faithful and the amusement of the godless. The Inquisition appeared to be the only authority that could restrain the expression of the mutual wrath of the good fathers, though it might not be easy to define on what grounds it could claim authority on such a matter. Scruples as to this, however, rarely gave it concern and it undertook to effect what popes had repeatedly failed to accomplish.
March 9, 1634, the Suprema issued a decree which it printed and sent to all superiors with instructions to publish and make it known. This recited the evils arising from the discord and rivalry between the Orders, scandalous to the Christian people and dangerous as arising from the difference in the manners and customs of the various organizations. To bring about peace and concord the inquisitor-general proposed to assemble a council of the superiors of all the Orders and meanwhile rigorous proceedings were threatened against all who should provoke or foment these discords. Any religious who, by writing or words or in sermons or lectures, should insult another Order, or any of its members, would incur major excommunication and be recluded in a convent in another district, for a time proportioned to the gravity of the offence and moreover be incapable of holding any position in the Holy Office. Superiors were charged to expurgate all offensive expressions in books written by their subjects, before according the necessary licence to print or, if they had not authority to do this, they must refer the objectionable matter to the Suprema, and this was binding on those deputed to examine the MSS. The decree closed with a threat of rigorous punishment for all contravention of its provisions.[116]
Whether the council indicated was ever assembled or whether any offender was ever punished under this decree does not appear, but any effect which it may have produced was transient. The old passions and hatreds remained as vehement as ever and the controversy over the claims of the Carmelites to have been founded by Elijah furnished fresh material for acrimonious debate. In spite of this failure, the Inquisition maintained its claim to intervene and Inquisitor-general Valladares, June 24, 1688, issued another edict, incorporating that of 1634 and deploring that the old quarrels had become more virulent than ever. It was doubtful, he said, whether the previous utterances had been communicated to the Orders outside of Madrid, so a copy was ordered to be sent to every convent in Spain, with orders to be posted in a conspicuous place and the threat that it would be rigidly enforced. The belligerent ebullitions of the holy men were as little checked by this as by its predecessor and Inquisitor-general Rocaberti, October 19, 1698, took a further step by an edict in which he reprinted the previous ones and sent it to the tribunals with orders to publish it in all towns and have it posted on all church doors, thus taking the public into confidence and proclaiming to it not only the disreputable conduct of the frailes but the powerlessness of the Inquisition to reduce them to order and decency.[117] In fact, the Inquisition eradicated Judaism, it virtually expelled the Moriscos, it preserved Spain from the missionary zeal of Protestantism, but it failed ignominiously when it undertook to restrain the expression of aversion and contempt mutually entertained by Dominican and Franciscan, Jesuit and Carmelite.
THERE was, in Spain, but one class over which the Inquisition had no jurisdiction. Boniface VIII, at the close of the thirteenth century, had decreed that, when a bishop was suspect of heresy, the inquisitor could not prosecute. The most that he could do was to gather evidence and send it to the Holy See, which reserved to itself judgement on the episcopal Order.[118] This was embodied in the canon law and remained in force, although of course the pope could delegate his power or could enlarge inquisitorial commissions, as when, in 1451, Nicholas V responded to the request of Juan II and included bishops among those subjected to the inquisitors whom he appointed.[119] During the middle ages the question was one of scarce more than academic interest, but in Spain, where the conversos had attained so many lofty positions in the Church and where all of Jewish blood were regarded with suspicion, it might at any moment become of practical importance.[120] The influence and power of the Inquisition would manifestly be increased if it should be granted faculties to prosecute bishops and Torquemada seems to have applied for this, in 1487, intimating that there were suspects among the bishops. Innocent VIII, however, was not disposed to subject the whole episcopate of Spain to the Holy Office and replied, September 25th, reciting the decree of Boniface and telling him to examine carefully all the evidence collected by the inquisitors and, if in it he found what incriminated prelates or showed that they were defamed or suspected of heresy, he should send it in legal shape and carefully sealed to Rome, where it would be duly weighed and proper action be taken.[121]