As the eighteenth century advanced, confiscation gradually grew obsolete. Heresy had been so successfully extirpated that relaxation and reconciliation grew rarer and rarer. In the records of the Toledo tribunal, extending to 1794, there is no sentence of confiscation later than 1738.[1086] In the census of all the tribunals, about the year 1745, there is but a single juez de los bienes, though occasionally we find that office tacked on to an inquisitorship, as in Valencia in 1795, where an addition of 52ll. 10s. is made to the salary in consequence, but that it was a sinecure is apparent from the fact that, in a record of the sentences of that tribunal from 1780 to 1820, there is not a case of confiscation.[1087]

It is not without interest to examine what was the use made of the large receipts during the early period, when they were controlled by Ferdinand and Charles V, and before the Suprema monopolized them for the support of the tribunals, save an occasional concession extorted by the crown. Pulgar and Zurita loyally assure us that, large as they were, the sovereigns employed them solely for the advancement of the faith—the war with Granada, the maintenance of the Inquisition and other pious uses.[1088] Supported by these authorities, modern writers assume that no covetousness can be attributed to the sovereigns in the employment of these means for the public weal.[1089]

Unfortunately, the records do not bear out these flattering assurances. The Inquisition, of course, had the first claim on the product of its labors and its expenses were defrayed from this source. I have met with but two cases, one in 1500 and one in 1501, where a salary was paid from the royal treasury and in both of these the recipient was Diego López, member of the Suprema and royal secretary—a duplicate position which might justify calling upon either source of supply.[1090] During the war with Granada, ending with 1491, undoubtedly the funds derived from the industry of the Holy Office were largely employed in its prosecution which, according to the standards of the age, was not only a patriotic but an eminently pious use. While this drain continued it is not likely that much of the confiscations was otherwise employed, and I have met with but one or two pious gifts—in 1486 a thousand sueldos to aid in the construction of an infirmary for the Franciscan convent of Santa Maria de Jesus and, in 1491 a rent of five hundred sueldos a year to the church of San Juan of Calatayud.[1091] After the conquest of Granada we find occasional grants to convents and churches, but they are not frequent and, as a rule, are meagre in comparison with the profusion lavished on courtiers and servants. The only large recipient of bounty seems to have been Ferdinand’s favorite Geronimite convent of Santa Engracia of Saragossa to which, in 1495, he gave thirteen thousand sueldos for the purchase of certain lands and gardens and, in 1498, ten thousand more. There was, in addition, a yearly allowance of six thousand sueldos for the maintenance of the frailes; the payment of this was suspended, in 1498, on account of lack of funds, but Ferdinand, after some hesitation, made this good by transferring to the convent certain censos that had been appropriated to the Inquisition.[1092] In his correspondence of this period, up to 1515, there occur a few more pious expenditures, but all are of moderate amount and in no way justify the assertion that the confiscations were largely expended in this manner.

The acquisitive secretary Calcena was a much more frequent beneficiary. His position gave him exceptional facilities for watching the confiscations and of profiting by his knowledge. His name continually recurs as the recipient of gifts of censos, houses and money, and he had indirect means of participating, as we have seen when he shared in the ruin of the Archdeacon of Castro. Some light is thrown on the methods in vogue when, in 1500, the estate of Francisco López of Calatayud was confiscated. In this certain houses, valued at ten thousand sueldos, were included, which the son of López hoped to save, as belonging to his mother’s dowry, but the father’s papers had been seized and the marriage settlement was inaccessible. The son thereupon promised Calcena a third of the valuation for a copy of the document; the effort failed, the houses were confiscated and Ferdinand, compassionating Calcena’s loss, not only gave him the promised third but pledged himself to defend the title in case it should be attacked.[1093] This suggests a possible source of profit in favoring the sufferers by confiscation. Many instances have been cited above of Ferdinand’s kindly consideration in mitigating exceptional cases of hardship, and we shall have occasion to refer to others; it would be pleasant to attribute them wholly to a side of his character that has not hitherto revealed itself in history, but one cannot escape an uneasy suspicion that, as Calcena was the channel through which these bounties flowed, in some cases, at least, the successful petitioners were those who had made it worth his while to aid them.

The abuse of making to favorites grants out of confiscations antedated the establishment of the Inquisition. The Córtes of 1447 petitioned against it and Juan II assented in a fashion too equivocal to hold out much prospect of improvement.[1094] It continued and, when the property of the New Christians came pouring in, Ferdinand yielded to the greed of his courtiers and nobles with a profuseness which explains where much of the products of confiscation disappeared. His recklessness in this matter is illustrated by a complaint, in 1500, of the Admiral of Castile, representing that he had been given a censo on his vizcondado of Cabrera, confiscated in the estate of Juan Beltran, but that certain parties to whom it had also been granted were suing him for it. Ferdinand evidently kept no record of these heedless gifts, for he could remember nothing as to this duplication, and he applied to the tribunal for a list of the provisions respecting the estate so that he could decide between the claimants.[1095]

His only serious collision with the Inquisition arose from this source and he found its censures more effective than his own. His lavishness kept the tribunals drained to the point that frequently there was no money to pay the salaries. As early as 1488 the inquisitors assembled at Valladolid complained of this and supplicated the sovereigns to order receivers to provide for salaries before honoring royal drafts; if they failed to keep sufficient funds on hand for salaries they should be subject to removal by inquisitors.[1096] This was ineffective; the royal treasury was chronically bankrupt, endurance ceased to be a virtue and the question came to a head at the close of 1497. On November 15th, Ferdinand wrote to receiver Juan Royz of Saragossa to pay some small amounts, less than a hundred ducats in all, chiefly needed for an inspection and reform of Franciscan convents then on foot. He knew, he said, that the Saragossa tribunal was in great straits, but he could not furnish the money himself and means must be found to raise it, without compelling him to write again. Royz however refused to make the payments, stating that the inquisitors-general had placed him under excommunication if he should pay any royal grants. Ferdinand shifted the order to the receiver of fines and penances, but the inquisitors-general had been beforehand with him by removing that official. Thus baffled, he wrote to them, January 28, 1498, telling them that these payments were absolutely necessary and he had nothing wherewith to meet them; besides, there were other pressing demands. The Córtes were about to meet at Saragossa and he had ordered certain alterations in the Aljafería to accommodate him during his residence, the cost of which Royz refused to pay and the work was stopped. There was also the tomb of his father and mother, with alabaster statues, which he was building at the abbey of Poblet (the burial-place of the kings of Aragon) at a cost of fifteen hundred ducats; five thousand sueldos were due to the architect, Maestre Gil Morlan, and when Royz refused to pay this from the confiscations, Ferdinand ordered the amount to be collected from the ground-rent of Parascuellos, but it chanced that Royz himself owed that ground-rent and was in no haste to pay it. Meanwhile the salaries were paid, but the excommunication still hung over Royz and he refused obstinately to furnish money for these needs and for some more that were crowding in. February 28th, Ferdinand vainly endeavored to induce the inquisitor to make Royz yield by excommunicating him, and he then appealed to Suárez de Fuentelsaz, one of the inquisitors-general, but equally without success. Finally, on March 30th, he wrote to Torquemada by a special messenger, with orders to bring an answer, telling him that, as the salaries were paid, the excommunication must be lifted, for he would not permit it. This was successful and, on April 10th, he wrote again, promising that in future he would not make grants from the confiscations and penances. On April 20th he communicated to Royz the removal of the excommunication and urged the speedy completion of the alterations of the Aljafería and the payment to Santa Engracia of what was due.[1097] Thus ended this episode, which sheds a curious light on the relations of Ferdinand with the Inquisition and on the precarious nature of public finance at the time.

The excommunication had not been confined to Saragossa, nor was it removed elsewhere when Saragossa paid its salaries. In July, 1500, we find Ferdinand arguing with the obdurate Juan de Montaña, receiver of Huesca and Lérida, that it did not apply to the completion of an old donation to the church of Lérida, which had never been fully paid. We hear nothing subsequently of the censure, though complaints continued of salaries in arrears, and the Archdeacon of Almazan, who was inquisitor at Calatayud, was consequently unable to pay his debts when, in 1500, he was transferred to Barcelona. The tribunal of Valencia was hopelessly bankrupt when, in 1501, there came a lucky composition with the heirs of Juan Macip, for sixty thousand sueldos, which Ferdinand ordered to be applied to its liabilities so that, for once, it might be out of debt.[1098] It is scarce necessary to add that Ferdinand’s promise to make no more grants was violated almost as soon as made.

In the profusion which kept the tribunals exhausted it by no means followed that those who had no influence profited by the royal favor. In 1493, Ferdinand granted to Leonor Hernández two thousand sueldos as a marriage-portion. Under various pretexts, payment was evaded. Leonor married and died, leaving the claim to her husband and brother who, in 1502, procured from Ferdinand an order for its immediate settlement, but whether this was honored is problematical.[1099] Even more delayed was a concession, in 1491, to Martin Marin of Calatayud, of three thousand sueldos on the confiscations of his father and mother-in-law; in 1512 Marin represented that he had never been able to obtain it and Ferdinand ordered its payment forthwith. These postponements were not always due to poverty. In 1491, a grant was made to Anton del Mur, royal alguazil, of a vineyard, forming part of the confiscated estate of Pascual de Santa Cruz. Receiver Royz of Saragossa made answer that the vineyard had been sold, but when the king ordered him to make over the proceeds to del Mur, the latter got nothing and Royz managed fraudulently to keep the vineyard in the hands of a third party. After nineteen years, del Mur, in 1510, revived the matter, when Ferdinand ordered the inquisitor and receiver to find out who held the vineyard and by what title and, if it was not found that Royz had sold it for a just price, del Mur was to be placed in possession.[1100]

The eagerness for these spoils was such that claims for them were put in without waiting for confiscation to be decreed, and it is evident that, when a man of wealth was arrested, there were agencies to convey the news to the expectants and the prey was divided before the quarry was killed. After Isabella’s death, in 1504 these grants were an economical way to secure the fluctuating allegiance of the Castilian nobles, which Philip of Austria was ready to exploit and the nobles eager to profit by. When the Licenciado de Medina, of Valladolid, was arrested, the Admiral of Castile, Fadrique Enríquez, petitioned him at once for the confiscation and Philip from Brussels, May 5, 1505, granted the request, repeating it six months later. While awaiting Juana’s confinement, before sailing for Spain, the two spouses, on September 12th, sent orders to all the cities, the nobles and officials not to obey Ferdinand or to pay taxes to him, and the receivers of the tribunals were specially told to withhold from him the confiscations.[1101] Philip’s orders from Flanders, however, received scant respect and his reign in Castile was too transitory for him to exercise any notable influence on the disposition of the confiscations.

As for Ferdinand, what he granted with one hand he withheld with the other. February 23, 1510, he issued a cédula to all receivers saying that, in consequence of the falling off in confiscations, if all the grants which he had made and was making were paid, the officials would not receive their salaries and would abandon the work, to the great disservice of God, wherefore in future, no matter what orders he or the inquisitor-general might issue, no grants were to be paid until all officials had received their salaries and ayudas de costa and, when such grants were presented, he or the inquisitor-general was to be consulted. The rule was to be that debts must be paid first, then salaries and grants not until the last.[1102] Yet, on the day previous, he had given to Fernando de Mazueco, a member of the Suprema, certain olive orchards and censos confiscated on Gonzalo Ximenes of Seville; the same day he ordered the receiver of Jaen to deduct twenty thousand maravedís from the appraised value of some confiscated houses wanted by Dr. Juan de Santoyo, former judge of confiscations of Jaen, and he continued making gifts with reckless prodigality as though the royal treasury were overflowing and the Inquisition were richly endowed. In January, the Admiral of Castile had had a grant of houses valued at eight or nine thousand sueldos and, on April 2nd, he ordered the receivers of Toledo, Seville, Córdova and Jaen each to pay 375,000 maravedís, or 1,500,000 in all to his servant Juan Rodríguez de Portocarrero.[1103] Apparently it was exceptional for the Inquisition to enjoy the product of its exertions for, in May, we find him assuring the Suprema that no one had asked him for a confiscation of 100,000 maravedís just made in Valladolid, and that he will reserve it for the known necessities of that tribunal and, in July, that, although he has been much importuned for another confiscation, he will make no grant of it, so that the officials shall not suffer want.[1104] It is needless to point out what a stimulus this state of things gave to the condemnation of those whose estates promised relief.

Ferdinand went on precisely as before and it would be superfluous to multiply instances of his reckless profusion, save that we may mention a gift to his wife Queen Germaine, in 1515, of 10,000 florins from the confiscations of Sicily and we may recall his attempted grant of 10,000 ducats to the Marquis of Denia from the composition of Córdova.[1105] In this general scramble for fragments of the spoils, there is one point that may be noted—the demand for attractive slave-girls. How their existence came to be known to those who asked for them we can only guess, and it would be indiscreet to enquire why reverend members of the Suprema seem to be especially desirous of such acquisitions. April 7, 1510, Ferdinand writes to the receiver of Cartagena that he is told that, in the confiscated property of Ramado Martin de Santa Cruz, there is a Moorish female slave named Alia; if this is so she is to be delivered to Doctor Pérez Gonzalo Manso, of the Suprema, to be his property as a gift. March 18, 1514, the Licenciado Ferrando de Mazuecos, of the Suprema, petitions for a Moorish slave-girl, confiscated among the property of Juan de Tena of Ciudad Real, and Ferdinand orders her to be given to him, to do what he pleases with her. There was some contest over Fatima, a white Moorish slave-girl confiscated in the estate of Alonso Sánchez del Castillo. The Marquis of Villena asked for her and Ferdinand granted his request, June 15, 1514, but when the order was sent to Toledo, the deputy receiver refused to obey it, alleging that it was obtained by false representations, as the Suprema had already given her to the fiscal, Martin Ximenes. This was promptly answered, in a letter signed not only by Calcena but by the members of the Suprema, reiterating the grant to Villena and ordering the receiver to compensate Ximenes for her value.[1106] It is suggestive that no such eagerness is shown to obtain male slaves.

Ferdinand himself was not above appropriating articles found among the spoils of his subjects. In 1502 we find him taking fifty-five pearls from Sardinia, a part of the confiscation of Micer Rejadel, burnt for heresy. Sometimes he did not even wait for the conviction of the owner, as in the case of a horse which, in 1501, he gave to the inquisitor of Córdova, and then, on learning that the animal would be serviceable to him in the chase, he had it sent to him and ordered four thousand maravedís to be paid to the inquisitor wherewith to buy a horse or mule.[1107] He was even more unscrupulous, in 1501, when in Granada, on hearing of the death of Bernaldalla, a prisoner not yet convicted, he ordered that the garden belonging to him in the Rambla should be seized and given to the Princess Juana for her pastime, although he did not know whether it had been sequestrated.[1108] It manifests the abiding confidence felt in the conviction of all who fell into the hands of the Inquisition.

Yet it would be unjust to Ferdinand not to allude again to the numerous cases in which he softened the hardships of confiscation by concessions to the sufferers or their representatives—and this when, as we have seen, his own treasury was empty. No doubt in many instances the influence of Calcena was purchased but, as a whole, they are too numerous not to find their origin in a kindliness which has been deemed foreign to the stern consolidator of the Spanish monarchy, nor could Calcena have ventured to presume too far, during a long series of years, in making his master an unconscious almoner. Two or three examples of this must suffice to show the spirit actuating him. In 1509, Juan de Peralta of Segovia betrothed himself to Francisca Nuñez, daughter of Lope de Molina and his wife, who were prisoners of the tribunal of Jaen. They were condemned and burnt, their estate was confiscated and Peralta petitioned the king, saying that he could not marry without a dowry and begging an allowance out of the estate, whereupon Ferdinand ordered the receiver to give them two hundred thousand maravedís. The Inquisition was not to be balked; Francisca in turn was tried and reconciled with confiscation. Peralta made another appeal and this time Ferdinand granted twenty thousand maravedís.[1109] October 21, 1500, he writes to the receiver of Leon to release to Leonor González, reconciled, a vineyard confiscated on her, of the value of two thousand maravedís, because she is poor and has a daughter to marry.[1110] In 1510, he instructs receiver Badia of Barcelona to collect from the Bishop of Urgel ninety libras due to the confiscated estate of Guillen Dala, and, in view of the poverty and misery of Beatriz, Violante, Isabel and Aldonza his daughters, the money is to be paid to them. There was also an old debt due to Dala by Ferdinand’s father, Juan II; this he orders to be collected from the rents of property set aside for the benefit of Juan’s soul and to be also paid to the daughters.[1111] These are only examples of numerous similar acts, which afford a welcome sense of relief as mitigations in some small degree of the miseries inflicted on thousands of the helpless through the pitiless enforcement of the cruel laws of the Church.

It would be wrong not to bear testimony also to the spirit of justice which is apparent in many of Ferdinand’s decisions of questions brought before him. Thus on January 8, 1502, in instructing a receiver about a censo in dispute with Galceran de Santangel, he concludes by telling him to act without legal delays, so that justice may be administered with rectitude and promptitude, and that nothing may be taken but what belongs to the fisc, without wronging any one. September 12, 1502, he wrote that Garcí Corts complains that he had granted him certain censos and then, by a second letter, had stopped the transfer, whereupon he now orders the matter to be settled according to justice, without reference to what he may have written to the contrary, for it is not his will to inflict wrong on any one.[1112] It would be easy to multiply these examples, from his confidential correspondence with officials, when there could have been no possible object in a hypocritical affectation of fairness. If he not infrequently rebuked inquisitors and receivers for negligence in gathering in confiscations, it may be truly said that he more often scolded them for undue harshness and delay in settling honest claims.

The pressure on Ferdinand for grants from the confiscations continued to the last and was yielded to more often than prudence would dictate. The courtiers maintained intelligence with the tribunals to obtain advices in advance of the arrest or condemnation of wealthy Conversos, in order to make early application, and occasional letters from the king to receivers asking information as to such estates and forbidding their sale without further orders, indicate a growing sense on his part of the necessity of caution. One of his latest utterances, as mortal sickness was stealing over him, is a letter of September 23, 1515, to the receiver of Toledo, in reply apparently to a statement thus furnished. He had received, he says, the information as to the confiscated property of Pero Díaz and his wife, and also the representation as to the pressing needs of the tribunal, in consideration of which he will change his mind and make no grants from it except of a hundred thousand maravedís to his treasurer Vargas to reimburse him for certain outlays.[1113] Thus to the end was maintained the struggle between those who labored for the harvest and those who sought to reap its fruits.

When, after his death, Ximenes sought to bring order into the finances of the Inquisition, he seems to have felt that his conjoined power as inquisitor-general and governor was insufficient to remedy these abuses, and he procured from the young King Charles a pragmática dated at Ghent, June 14, 1517, which was assuredly drafted by him. This recites that the salaries and ordinary expenses of the Inquisition are defrayed by the confiscations, but experience shows that often they cannot be paid, in consequence of the grants made by the crown; this must be remedied, or the Inquisition cannot be sustained, to the great damage of the royal conscience, and therefore, during the good pleasure of the king and until the salaries and ordinary expenses are provided for, no graces, donations or reliefs are to be complied with, under pain of a thousand gold ducats. Copies of this are to be sent to every tribunal and all officials are exhorted to see to its enforcement.[1114] The gloss put on this by Cardinal Adrian, when sending it to the tribunal of Sicily, shows that there was no scruple in construing its provisions most liberally. He says that he has heard that many are obtaining grants on the Sicilian confiscations; what was collected under Ferdinand must be used as he had ordered, which was to buy rents for the support of the tribunal. The new pragmática postpones all grants to the salaries and charges of the Inquisition and, as Sicily must provide for the support of the Suprema and of some of the home tribunals, it can be alleged in refusing to pay all grants that are presented, wherefore none must be paid without consulting him.[1115]

Having issued this pragmática, Charles proceeded to nullify it with all convenient speed, but it served as a justification to the receivers in withstanding him. Three months later, on September 19th, he landed in Spain, surrounded by a crowd of hungry and greedy Flemish favorites, eager to enrich themselves at the expense of their master and his subjects. This reinforcement of the importunate native beggars made the profusion of Ferdinand seem niggardly by comparison. Peter Martyr tells us that the Flemings, in less than ten months after their arrival, had already sent home eleven hundred thousand ducats, drawn partly from the indulgence of the Santa Cruzada and partly from the Inquisition, for they obtained grants not only of estates confiscated but also of those of prisoners still under trial—showing how promptly they established relations which gave them secret information of the operations of the tribunals, and how little chance of escape had the unlucky prisoners whose estates would have to be refunded if they were not convicted. This was one of the abuses of which the cure was sought in the project of reform in 1518, which failed through the death of Jean le Sauvage.[1116]

The booty thus secured by the Flemings shows how the confiscations had increased under this pressure, especially as the Spaniards were no less eager, if not quite so fortunate. This thoughtless prodigality of Charles is emphasized by the fact that he was impoverished in the midst of his profuseness. July 5, 1519, we find him ordering the receiver of Cartagena to pay the paltry sum of thirty ducats to Fernando de Salmeron, receiver-general of the Suprema, to reimburse him for a loan of that amount.[1117] The receivers did all that they could to check these extravagant liberalities for, large as were the receipts, the tribunals were threatened with bankruptcy. Saragossa, in reporting, March 18, 1519, to the Suprema, some impending convictions, endeavored to avert the dissipation of the results by representing its poverty; the salaries of most of the officials were more than a year in arrears and, if the king did not exercise more restraint, the tribunal could no longer be maintained.[1118]

One or two instances of the struggles between the receivers and the recipients of the royal bounty will illustrate the existing conditions, and incidentally show how Adrian and the Suprema were forced to bow to the tempest and to connive at the pillage of the resources of the Holy Office. A letter of Charles, January 19, 1519, to Juan del Pozo, receiver of Toledo, relates how he had granted to M. de Cetebrun, of his body-guard, the confiscation of Alonso de Baena and had ordered Pozo to convert it into money and pay it to him; how Pozo had subsequently been notified that Cetebrun had sold it to Iñigo de Baena, son of Alonso, and had been ordered to deliver it to the latter; how neither of them had been able to make him surrender it; how another royal order had been served on him and then one from Adrian and the Suprema, with no result save an assertion that he had no funds; how Baena had made four journeys to Madrid, to his great loss and expense, the whole winding up with a peremptory command to obey the repeated mandates without further delay or excuse. It is probable that still more energetic measures were requisite to get the property, for Pozo was an obstinate man. A letter from Charles to him, September 5, 1519, refers to an order on him for six hundred ducats, in favor of M. Baudré which remained unpaid, in spite of repeated commands from the king and Cardinal Adrian, whereat Baudré is much aggrieved, especially as he has been keeping a man in Toledo, at his expense, to collect it. Charles now orders it to be paid within sixty days, in default of which Pozo must, within twenty days thereafter, present himself at the court, wherever it may chance to be, with all his books and papers for examination. This was a most formidable threat and perhaps brought Pozo to terms for, on December 2nd we find him ordered to pay on sight four hundred ducats to La Chaulx, as procurator of the Toison d’Or and, the next day, five hundred more to Jean Vignacourt, a gentleman of the royal chamber.[1119]

Cristóval de Prado, receiver of Cuenca, was another troublesome subject. Charles granted to Cortavila and Armastorff, two of his chamberlains, the confiscated estate of Francisco Martínez and his wife. It must have been a large one, for a suggestion was made of giving the courtiers four thousand ducats and reserving two thousand to pay the salaries, but they demanded the whole and Charles, April 10, 1518, ordered it to be turned over to them and, if any part had been converted to the use of the Inquisition, it was to be made good out of other confiscations. Prado staved it off for nearly eighteen months, pretending to hesitate about including the dowries and marriage portions of the children, until Charles, September 5, 1519, ordered all these to be swept into the grant. Soon after this, on November 9th, there was another crop of confiscations at an auto de fe at Cuenca when, in preparation for fresh bounties, Salmeron, the receiver-general, was ordered to report as to their value and also as to the condition of the salaries and other indebtedness. This probably deprived Prado of excuses for awhile, and we hear of no more refusals to pay until April 16, 1520. The Duke of Escalona had asked for the confiscations of three of his vassals at Alarcon, amounting to three hundred and fifty ducats, but Prado alleged that only two of the parties named had been condemned and that the order therefore must be surreptitious. He wrote in this sense to Charles and to the Suprema but, on September 7th he was commanded to pay it, and the letter was signed by Doctor Manso of the Suprema and countersigned by Cardinal Adrian. Cuenca, at this time, must have been a mine of wealth. Just before sailing from Coruña, Charles, on May 8, 1520, ordered Prado to pay a thousand ducats to Antoine de Croy, two hundred to Henri d’Espinel, four hundred to Simon Fisnal, mayordomo to Charles de Croy, Prince of Chimay, and five hundred to Adolf Duke of Cleves. On October 23rd Charles writes that his secretary Gui Morillon, who had been charged with these collections, reported that Prado refused to pay them, but he adds that, as there are now funds sufficient, after paying salaries and expenses, and the thousand ducats to Cardinal Adrian, they must be paid in preference to subsequent grants. As Adrian had been given an interest in this heavy raid on Cuenca, it is probable that Prado was coerced into obedience.[1120]

Our old friend Villacis of Seville was wary and experienced and accustomed to hard blows. He gave the courtiers infinite trouble, but the cases in which he was involved were too numerous to be detailed here and space can only be found for one of five hundred ducats to Francisco Guzman and Antonio Tovar, gentlemen of the king’s chamber. This had originally been drawn on Cuenca, but Prado had been found too impervious and it was transferred to Seville. Villacis evaded it until Charles, on May 6, 1519 threatened him with merced—being placed at the king’s mercy—if it was not paid at once. This was serious, but Villacis was unmoved and merely replied that he had no money to pay the overdue salaries, besides large sums owing for services and for judgements rendered against the confiscations. The affair dragged on until, on August 23, 1520, Adrian and the Suprema ordered immediate settlement, in default of which an agent would be sent, at his expense, to do it personally. This was probably effective, as we hear no more of it.[1121]

Aliaga of Valencia was one of Ferdinand’s oldest and most trusted receivers and had given evidence of similar powers of resistance, if we may judge from the anticipatory measures taken when the interests of the powerful favorite, the Prince of Chimay, were involved. When news was brought to the court of the reconciliation and confiscation of the wealthy Alonso de Abella of Valencia, a speedy partition was made among the vultures. Eight hundred ducats were assigned to Jean de Baudré and Philibert de la Baulme, gentlemen of the chamber, three hundred to another gentleman, Jayme de la Trullera, and the rest of the estate to the Prince of Chimay, after paying salaries, if they could not be met out of other confiscations. Orders to this effect were despatched to Aliaga, July 5, 1519, with a pressing letter from Charles to the inquisitors. Apparently the beneficiaries felt that more active measures were necessary; Simon Tisnot, the prince’s majordomo, was empowered to receive the property and, as his agent, Gui Morillon was sent to Valencia, July 9th, with letters to the inquisitors, to the Governor of Valencia and to Aliaga. The inquisitors were told that, as the clause concerning salaries might be so construed as to consume the whole, they must order Aliaga, under pain of excommunication, to deliver to Chimay’s agent, within three days, all the property, goods, debts and money of the confiscation, except the eleven hundred ducats to the other courtiers; if the necessities of the tribunal required any portion, it must be very moderate so that Chimay, if possible, might get the whole. The governor was ordered to help Tisnot and to urge the inquisitors to compel Aliaga to obey. Aliaga was told that, under pain of deprivation of office, he must deliver the estate to Morillon within three days and must strain every nerve to meet the needs of the tribunal from other sources, so that Chimay may suffer no deduction. If the salvation of the monarchy had depended on the realization of the grants, the letters could scarce have been more vehement. Yet it was all in vain; Aliaga was imperturbable and, on December 8th, Charles expressed his displeasure that the eleven hundred ducats had not yet been paid though he had postponed to them the grant to Chimay, but it is not likely that his vague threats, in case of further delay, proved effective.[1122]

In this carnival of plunder, there is small risk in assuming that the pressure on the tribunals gave a stimulus to the prosecution of the richer class of the Conversos and that wealth became more than ever a source of danger. In fact, the number of large estates referred to in these transactions would seem to indicate that few escaped whose sacrifice would supply needful funds to the Inquisition, while ministering to the greed of the courtiers. It need occasion no surprise, therefore, if the threatened New Christians, in their despair, appealed to Leo X and rendered it worth his while to remonstrate with Charles. Yet the latter, while scattering ducats by the thousand among his sycophants, had the effrontery to instruct his envoy, Lope Hurtado de Mendoza, September 24, 1519, to disabuse the pope as to the accusation that the Inquisition was prosecuting the rich for the confiscations, the truth being that all, or nearly all, of those prosecuted were poor, and that the fisc had to support them while in prison and to pay their advocates and procurators.[1123]

After Charles’s departure, in May, 1520, to assume the imperial dignity, we hear of few new grants. He was rapidly ripening under the weight of the tremendous responsibilities accumulated upon him and was recognizing that his position implied other duties than the gratification of his courtiers’ greed. It would seem that he willingly shifted upon the inquisitor-general and Suprema the burden of such trivial matters, and left it to them to assent to or dissent from such graces as he might bestow. A grant from a confiscation at Saragossa, dated at Brussels, October 1, 1520, bears the formula that it is with the assent and advice of the inquisitor-general and Council of Aragon, and, though it is signed by Ugo de Urries by order of the emperor, it has the vidimus of Cardinal Adrian.[1124] Practically thus the control was lodged with the Suprema, whose needs, as we have seen, prevented any accumulations in the tribunals and we hear little or nothing subsequently of this dissipation of the confiscations.

If I have entered thus minutely into the details of this branch of inquisitorial activity, it is because its importance has scarce been recognized by those who have treated of the Inquisition. It not only supplied the means of support to the institution during its period of greatest activity, but it was recognized by the inquisitors themselves as their most potent weapon and the one most dreaded by the industrious classes which formed their chief field of labor. Its potency is the measure of the misery which it inflicted, through long generations, on the innocent and helpless, far transcending the agonies of those who perished at the stake. To it was largely owing the ultimate extinction of Judaism in Spain, for the exalted heroism which might dare the horrors of the brasero might well give way before the prospect of poverty to be endured by disinherited offspring. To it also is greatly attributable the stagnation of Spanish commerce and industry, for trade could not flourish when credit was impaired, and confidence could not exist when merchants and manufacturers of the highest standing might, at any moment, fall into the hands of the tribunal and all their assets be impounded. Even the liberality of the Spanish Inquisition, in not confiscating the debts due by the heretic, was but a slender mitigation of this, for the creditor was liable to ruin through the difficulties and delays interposed on the realization of his credits, and past transactions were not secure until protected by a proscription of forty years. The Inquisition came at a time when geographical discovery was revolutionizing the world’s commerce, when the era of industrialism was dawning, and the future belonged to the nations which should have fewest trammels in adapting themselves to the new developments. The position of Spain was such as to give it control of the illimitable possibilities of the future, but it blindly threw away all its advantages into the laps of heretic Holland and England. Many causes, too intricate to be discussed here, contributed to this, but not the least among them was the bleeding to anæmia, through centuries, of the productive classes and the insecurity which the enforcement of confiscation cast over all the operations of commerce and industry.

CHAPTER II.

FINES AND PENANCES.

Almsgiving in satisfaction of sin formed a feature of ecclesiastical practice and, in the middle ages, the schoolmen had no difficulty in proving that pecuniary penance was more efficacious than any other[1125]—and it certainly was more efficacious in the sense that the enormous possessions of the Church were largely gathered from this source. Moreover, the inquisitor inherited from his medieval predecessors an undefined duplicate function of confessor and judge—his culprits were penitents and the punishments he inflicted were penances.[1126] Even when the canon law required the hardened or relapsed heretics to be relaxed to the secular arm for burning, they are sometimes alluded to as penitenciados[1127] When, under the early Edicts of Grace, penitents by the thousand flocked to confess their sins and escape corporal penalties and confiscation, the inquisitor was instructed to make them give as “alms” a portion of their property, according to the quality of the person and the character and duration of his offences, and these penitencias pecuniarias were to be applied to the war with Granada as to the most pious of causes.[1128] Thus, at the start, pecuniary penance and almsgiving were regarded as convertible terms, both equally applicable to the discretionary fines which the inquisitor could impose on his penitent. There was a technical, though not a practical, distinction between these and the mulcts inflicted on offenders for other than spiritual offences, in the exercise of the royal jurisdiction conferred on the Holy Office. They formed together a common fund which was known as that of the penas y penitencias—the fines and penances—of which the former were drawn from the secular and the latter from the spiritual jurisdiction. This distinction at best was shadowy and though it was observed at first, in time the tribunals grew indifferent and recognized that penance was punishment.

The earliest formality is seen in the case of Brianda de Bardaxí, where the consulta de fe, March 18, 1492, pronounces her guilty of vehement suspicion, to be penanced at the discretion of the inquisitors. Accordingly, on March 20th, the inquisitors deliberated on the “penance” and pronounced an Impositio penitentie, consisting of five years’ imprisonment, with certain spiritual observances, “and moreover we penance her in the third part of all her property, which we apply to the coffer of penances of this tribunal and to the costs of her trial, which third part, or its true value, we order to be paid within ten days to Martin de Cota, receiver of penances.”[1129] By the middle of the sixteenth century this scruple was overcome. In the case of Mari Serrana, at Toledo in 1545, the consulta de fe, it is true, votes that she be “penanced” in a third of her property, but the public sentence, which customarily did not specify the amount, after enumerating certain spiritual observances, adds “also the pecuniary punishment imposed on her, for a certain reason is reserved for the present.” So, in the case of Mari Gómez, in 1551, it is stated that she is “condemned” in twenty ducats for the expenses of the tribunal, which she is to pay within nine days to the receiver. When the sentence was read to her in the audience-chamber, she asked how she was to pay the twenty ducats and was told it would come out of the property sequestrated at her arrest.[1130] Sequestration, we may observe, enabled the tribunal to help itself at discretion from the culprit’s property and to proportion the penalty to his ability.