Preachers were as liable as professors to prosecution for their utterances, and Spanish pulpit eloquence, as we have seen it illustrated in the case of Fray Joseph de Sigüenza, afforded ample field for censure. The auditor who took exception to anything heard in a sermon had only to denounce the speaker and, if the proposition was exceptionable, prosecution followed. Thus, in 1580, Fray Juan de Toledo, a Geronimite of the convent of Madrid, was denounced to the Toledo tribunal for having, in a sermon before Philip II, asserted that the royal power was so absolute that the king could take his vassals’ property and their sons and daughters to use at his pleasure. Possibly this exuberance of loyalty might have escaped animadversion, had not the preacher called attention to the enormous revenues of the bishops, squandered on their kindred, and urged that the king and pope should unite to reduce them to apostolic poverty. On trial he admitted his remarks in a somewhat less offensive form; he attempted to disable the witnesses and presented evidence of good character without much success. The consulta de fe voted in discordia, and the Suprema sentenced him to abjure de levi, to recant, in the pulpit on a feast-day, the propositions, in a formula drawn up for him, to be recluded in a convent for two years, to be suspended from preaching for five years, and to perform certain spiritual penances.[371]

The severity of this sentence shows how little ceremony there was in restraining the eccentricities of the Spanish pulpit, even when it would be difficult to discern where suspicion of heresy came in. The formula of retraction prescribed rendered the humiliation of the ceremony most bitter. There were forms suited for the different characters of propositions, but all bore the essential feature that the culprit in the pulpit admitted having uttered the condemned expression; that the inquisitors had ordered him to retract it; that he recognized that it ought to be retracted and, as an obedient son of the Church and in fulfilment of the command, he declared, of his own free will, that he had uttered a proposition heretical and contrary to express passages of Holy Writ and, as such, he retracted and unsaid it and confessed that he did not understand it when he said it nor, for lack of knowledge, did he understand the evil contained in it, nor did he believe it in its heretical sense, nor understand that it was heresy and, as he had spoken evil and given occasion to be justly suspected that he said it in an heretical sense, he was grieved and begged pardon of God and the holy Roman Catholic Church, and begged pardon and mercy of the Holy Office. A notary with a copy followed his words and, if the performance was correct, made an official attestation of the fact.[372]

Instances of this sharp censorship of pulpit eloquence were by no means rare. Thus in the single tribunal of Toledo, after Madrid had been separated from it, Fray Juan de Navarrete, Franciscan Guardian of Talavera, was sentenced, December 19, 1656, for an heretical proposition in a sermon, to make a retraction. On April 21, 1657, Fray Diego Osorio, regent of studies in the Augustinian convent of Toledo, was required to retract, was suspended for two years from preaching and was banished for the same period from Madrid and Mascaraque. On April 23, 1659, the Mercenarian, Maestro Lucas de Lozoya, Definidor General of his Order and synodal judge of the province, was condemned to retract, was suspended from preaching for two years and was exiled from Madrid and Toledo. Similar sentences were pronounced July 14, 1660, on the Trinitarian Jacinto José Suchet, and August 31st on the Franciscan Juan de Teran. The Trinitarian, Juan de Rojas Becerro, December 24, 1660, was allowed to retract in the audience-chamber, but was suspended and banished for one year. Juan Rodríguez Coronel, S. J., on June 28, 1664, was suspended and banished for two years, but was not required to retract. These instances will suffice to indicate the frequency of these prosecutions and the manner in which such cases were treated. They offer a curious contrast to the mercy shown, January 31, 1665, to Sebastian Bravo de Buiza, assistant cura of Fresno la Fuente, who was only reprimanded and required to explain in the pulpit the most offensive proposition that the Virgin was a sinner and died in sin.[373]

This last case suggests that favoritism sometimes intervened to shield culprits and this would seem to be confirmed by the leniency shown, in 1696, to Fray Francisco Esquerrer. He was the leading Observantine preacher and theologian in Valencia and teacher of theology in the convent of San Francisco in Játiva. It was an episode in the quarrel between Dominicans and Franciscans over the Immaculate Conception, when, November 13, 1695, the Dominican Fray Juan Gascon denounced him to the Valencia tribunal for having defended at Játiva, October 9, 1693, the proposition that Christ, in the three days of his death, was sacramented alive in the heart of the Virgin; that he who should die in defence of the Immaculate Conception would die a martyr, for it was a point of faith settled by Scripture, by the Council of Trent, by the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem and by the cult of the Church. Gascon had denounced this at the time, but the tribunal had taken no notice of it, and he now repeated the charge, adding that Esquerrer, preaching in 1693 at Olleria, had held it to be a point of faith that the adoration of latria was due to St. Francis; in the same year at Játiva he preached that Christ owed more to St. Antony of Padua than St. Antony owed to Christ. Also, when preaching about an image known as the Virgin of Salvation, he said that she was rather the Mother of Salvation than the Mother of Christ. Then, on August 28, 1695, preaching to the Augustinians of Játiva, he proved logically that the wisdom of St. Augustin was greater than the wisdom of the Logos and, on November 6, 1695, to the Franciscans of Játiva, he declared that the Immaculate Conception had been made a point of faith by Alexander VII and Innocent XI. Then the tribunal at last was spurred to action; it gathered evidence and procured from the calificadores a definition that some of the propositions were blasphemous, others heretical and others ill-sounding. Early in 1696 Esquerrer was thrown into the secret prison; he endeavored to explain away the propositions; the trial proceeded with unwonted celerity and, on September 9th, the case was suspended with merely the usual reprimand and the suppression of the propositions of October 9, 1693.[374] Apparently the Inquisition was content to have the people fed upon such doctrines.

It was probably less to favoritism than to indolence that we may attribute the outcome of the case of the Minim, Fray N. Serra, lector in the Barcelona convent of S. Francesco de Paula. On St. Barbara’s day, December 4, 1721, he preached a sermon in which, among various other ineptitudes, he said that St. Barbara was a virgin and yet pregnant, and that Christ was the fourth person of the Trinity. An artillery regiment in quarters had been taken to the church and, in the evening, some of the officers, visiting Doña Bernarda Vueltaflores, amused themselves by repeating his grotesque utterances. A week later she chanced to mention the matter to Fray Antonio de la Concepcion and he, for the discharge of his conscience, carried the tale to the tribunal. Doña Bernarda was sent for, told what she remembered and furnished the names of the witnesses. They were summoned and gave their evidence. The fiscal fussed over it, said that he had only two concurrent witnesses, and wanted others of the audience looked up and examined, which was not done. The registers were searched, but no former complaints against Fray Serra were found. Then the fiscal asked that all the other tribunals of Spain be written to, which was postponed. On April 22, 1722 he had the propositions submitted to calificadores, five of whom unanimously pronounced that the one relating to Christ was formally heretical and the others scandalous and irreverent, rendering the culprit vehemently suspect and of little sense. Then ensued a pause until 1726, when in July replies were received from all the tribunals that they had nothing against Fray Serra. Then followed another pause, until June 27, 1728, when the inquisitors resolved that the case should be suspended after consulting the Suprema, which assented with the mild rebuke that, as the sumaria had been formed in 1721, it should have been acted upon at once, in place of waiting until 1728.[375]

Cognizance of the more or less trivial utterances of individuals continued to the last and formed an increasing portion of inquisitorial business as Judaism gradually disappeared. How the people were still taught to keep a watch over their fellows is exhibited in the case of Manuel Ribes, of Valencia, in 1798. He was a boy only nine years of age, attending a primary school, who was denounced by a fellow-pupil for an heretical expression. That the case was seriously considered is inferable from the fact that it was suspended, not dismissed, and remained of record against the child in case of future offences. How keen, moreover, was the inquisitorial eye to discern peril to the faith, is visible in the prosecution at Murcia, in 1801, of Don Ramon Rubin de Celis y Noriega, a dignitary of the cathedral of Cartagena and rector of the conciliar seminary, for a proposition concealed in his printed plan for instruction in Latin.[376]

Under such impulses it is not a matter for surprise that, in this later period “propositions” furnished half the business of the tribunals. In the register compiled in Valencia of all the cases tried in Spain, after 1780 until the suppression of the Inquisition in 1820, the aggregate is 6569 cases, out of which 3026, or not far from one-half, are designated as for propositions. Of these latter 748 are noted as suspended or laid aside in Valencia, leaving 2278 carried on through trial. Of the 3543 cases for other offences, 1469, as we have seen, were for solicitation, leaving only 2074 as the total number for the miscellaneous business of the tribunals. Those accused for propositions represent every sphere of life, but a larger portion than of old belong to the educated classes—clerics, professional men, officers of the army, municipal officials, professors in colleges and the like.[377]

That this class of business should increase was natural in view of the infiltration of the irreligious philosophy and liberal ideas of the later eighteenth century, which escaped the censorship and watchfulness at the ports. The Napoleonic war poured a flood of this upon the land, traversed in almost every part by armies, whether hostile like the French or heretic allies like the English. After the Restoration, the duty of the Inquisition was largely the extirpation of these seeds of evil in a political as well as a spiritual sense, and propositions antipoliticas, as we shall see, were as freely subject to its jurisdiction as the irreligiosas. The punishments inflicted were not usually severe, but the trial itself was a sufficient penalty, for the accused was thrown into the secret prison during the dilatory progress of his case, his property was embargoed and his career was ruined, while in most cases he was subsequently kept under strict surveillance, for which the inquisitorial organization furnished special facilities.

As a typical case it will suffice to allude to that of two merchants of Cádiz, Julian Borrego and Miguel Villaviciosa, sentenced in 1818 by the Seville tribunal, for “propositions and blasphemies,” to abjure de vehementi and to ten years’ exile from Cádiz, Seville and Madrid, including service in a presidio. In consideration, it is said, of the extraordinarily long imprisonment which they had endured, the service of the former was only to be four years in Ceuta and of the latter six years in Melilla. As was so frequently the case at this time, the Suprema interposed in favor of leniency and reduced the term to presidio for both to two years. They were married men; the trial and sentence virtually meant ruin, and probably influence was exerted in their behalf for, after six months, the Suprema allowed them to return to Spain to support their families.[378]

What was the precise nature of the propositions the record does not inform us, but, had the offence been political, it is improbable that this mercy would have been shown. If it were religious, it may have been the deliberate expression of erroneous belief, or a hasty ejaculation called forth by an ebullition of wrath for, as of old the Inquisition took cognizance of everything and, in its awe-inspiring fashion, undertook to discipline the manners as well as the faith of the people. In 1819, the sentence of Bartolomé López of Córdova, for propositions, warns him on the consequences of his unbridled passion for gambling and lust, which had caused his offence, and, in another case, the culprit’s inconsiderate utterances are ascribed to his quarrels with his wife, with whom he is urged to reconcile himself.[379]

Thus to the last the Inquisition, in small things as in great, sought to control the thoughts and the speech of all men and to make every Spaniard feel that he was at the mercy of an invisible power which, at any moment, might call him to account and might blast him for life.

CHAPTER VIII.

SORCERY AND OCCULT ARTS.

When the Roman domination in Spain was overthrown by the Wisigoths, the Barbarians brought with them their ancestral superstitions, to be superadded to the ancient Ligurian beliefs and the more recent Christianized paganism. The more current objectionable practices are indicated by the repressive laws of successive Wisigothic monarchs, and it illustrates the imperishable nature of superstitions that under their generalizations can be classed most of the devices that have endured the incessant warfare of the Church and the legislator for a thousand years. The Wisigothic ordinances were carried, with little change, into the Fuero Juzgo, or Romance version of the code, but their moderation was displeasing to Ramiro I, who, in 943, prescribed burning for magicians and sorcerers and is said to have inflicted the penalty in numerous instances.[380] It is not probable that this severity was permanent for, as a rule, medieval legislation was singularly lenient to these offences, although, about the middle of the thirteenth century, Jacobo de las Leyes, in a work addressed to Alfonso X, classes among the worst offenders those who slay men by enchantment.[381]

Alfonso himself, in the Partidas, treated magic and divination as arts not involving heresy, to be rewarded or punished as they were used for good or for evil.[382] In no land were they more widely developed or more firmly implanted in popular belief, for Spain not only preserved the older errors of Wisigothic times but had superadded those brought by the Moors and had acquired others from the large Jewish population. The fatalism of Islam was a fruitful source of devices for winning foreknowledge. The astrologer and the diviner, so far from being objects of persecution, were held in high honor among the Moors, and their arts were publicly taught as essential to the general welfare. In the great school of Córdova there were two masters who taught astrology, three of necromancy, pyromancy and geomancy, and one of the ars notoria. Seven thousand seven hundred Arabic writers are enumerated on the interpretation of dreams, and as many on goetic magic, while the use of amulets as preservatives from evil was universal.[383] Spain was the classic land of magic whither, during the middle ages, resorted for instruction from all Europe those who sought knowledge of its mysteries, and the works on the occult arts, which were circulated everywhere, bore for the most part, whether truly or falsely, the names of Arabic authors.

Long after these pursuits had fallen elsewhere under the ban of the Church, the medieval spirit of toleration continued in Spain. Until the fourteenth century was drawing to an end, astrology, we are told, was in general vogue among the upper classes, while the lower placed full confidence in the wandering mountebanks who overspread the land—mostly Moorish or Jewish women—who plied their trade under the multifarious names of saludadores, ensalmadores, cantadores, entendederas, adivinas and ajodadores, earning a livelihood by their various arts of telling fortunes, preserving harvests and cattle, curing disease, protecting from the evil eye, and exciting love or hatred.[384] So little blame attached to these pursuits that Miguel de Urrea, Bishop of Tarazona from 1309 to 1316, was popularly known as el Nigromántico, and his portrait in the episcopal palace of Tarazona had an inscription describing him as a most skilful necromancer, who even deluded the devil with his own arts.[385]

The Church, however, did not share in this tolerant spirit and was preparing to treat these practices with severity. There is comparative mildness, in 1317, in the definition of its policy by Astesanus, the leading canonist of his time who, after reciting the ferocious imperial legislation, adds that the canons impose for these arts a penance of forty days; if the offender refuses to perform this he should, if a layman, be excommunicated and, if a cleric, be confined in a monastery. If he persists in his evil ways, he should, if a slave be scourged and, if a freeman, be imprisoned. Bishops should expel from their dioceses all such persons and, in some places, this is laudably accompanied with curtailing their garments and their hair. Yet the uncertainty still prevailing is indicated by the differences among the doctors as to whether priests incurred irregularity who misused in magic rites the Eucharist, the chrism and holy water, or who baptized figurines to work evil on the parties represented, and in this doubt Astesanus counsels obtaining a dispensation as the safest plan.[386]

All doubts as to such questions were promptly settled. Pope John XXII divided his restless activity between persecuting the Spiritual Franciscans, warring with the Visconti, combating Ludwig of Bavaria and creating a wholesome horror of sorcery in all its forms. Imagining that conspirators were seeking his life through magic arts, he ordered special inquisitors appointed for their extermination and urged the regular appointees to active persecution. In various bulls, and particularly one known as Super illius specula, issued about 1326, he expressed his grief at the rapid increase of the invocation and adoration of demons throughout Christendom, and ordered all who availed themselves of such services to be publicly anathematized as heretics and to be duly punished, while all books on the subject were to be burnt. The faithful were warned not to enter into compacts with hell, or to confine demons in mirrors and rings so as to foretell the future, and all who disobeyed were threatened with the penalties of heresy.[387] Thus the Church asserted authoritatively the truth of the powers claimed by sorcerers—the first of a long series of similar utterances which did more, perhaps, than aught else to stimulate belief and foster the development of the evil. The prosperity of the sorcerer was based on popular credulity, and the deterrent influence of prospective punishment weighed little against the assurance that he could in reality perform the service for which he was paid.

There was no Inquisition in Castile, and the repression of these unhallowed arts rested with the secular power, which was irresponsive to the papal commands. The Partidas, with their quasi approval of magic, were formally confirmed, by the Córtes of 1348, as the law of the land, and remained the basis of its jurisprudence. Yet the new impulse from Rome commenced soon afterwards to make itself felt. About 1370 a law of Enrique III declared guilty of heresy and subject to its penalties all who consulted diviners.[388] In this the injection of heresy is significant of the source of the new policy, reflected further in a law of Juan I, in 1387, which asserts that all diviners and sorcerers and astrologers, and those who believe in them, are heretics to be punished as provided in the Partidas, laymen by the royal officials and clerics by their prelates.[389] That these laws accomplished little is indicated by the increasing severity of the pragmática of April 9, 1414, which ordered all royal and local judges, under pain of loss of office and one-third confiscation, to put to death all sorcerers, while those who harbored them were to be banished and the pragmática itself was to be read monthly in the market-places so that no one could pretend ignorance.[390] Even the Mudéjares assimilated themselves in this to their Christian conquerors, threatening the practice of sorcery with death, and warning all to avoid divination and augury and astrology. This accomplished little, however, and, after their enforced conversion, the Moriscos continued to enjoy the reputation of masters of the black arts.[391]

In the kingdoms of Aragon the secular power seems to have been negligent, and the duty reverted to the episcopate, which was for the most part indifferent. It was not wholly so, however, for, in 1372, Pedro Clasquerin, Archbishop of Tarragona, ordered an investigation of his province by testes synodales, and among the matters to be inquired into was whether there were sorcerers. Even Inquisitor Eymerich appears to consider it as in no way the business of the Holy Office, when he seeks to impress upon all bishops the duty of searching for such enemies of Christ, and of punishing them with all severity.[392]

In Castile, while all the arts of sorcery were reckoned heretical, jurisdiction over them remained secular, even after the establishment of the Inquisition although, among Isabella’s good qualities, is enumerated her exceeding abhorrence of diviners and sorcerers and all practitioners of similar arts.[393] There was evidently no thought of diverting the Inquisition from its labors among the New Christians, when a royal decree of 1500 ordered all corregidors and justicias to investigate as to the existence in their districts of diviners and such persons, who were to be arrested and punished if laymen, while if clerics they were to be handed over to their prelates for due castigation.[394]

The question of jurisdiction, in fact, was a difficult one, which required prolonged debate to settle. It is true that, in 1511, a case in Saragossa shows the Inquisition exercising it, but a discussion to which this gave rise indicates that as yet it was a novelty. Some necromancers were condemned by the tribunal and the inquisitors asked whether confiscation followed. Inquisitor-general Enguera decided in the affirmative, but referred to Ferdinand for confirmation. The king instructed the archbishop to assemble the inquisitors and some impartial lawyers to discuss the question and report to him; their conclusion was in favor of the crown and not till then did he order the receiver to sequestrate and take possession of the property, which was considerable. The fact that it had not been sequestrated indicates that there had been no precedent to guide the tribunal.[395] Soon after this, in Catalonia, there came a demand for the more effective jurisdiction of the Inquisition, in order to repress sorcery. When the Concordia of 1512 was arranged, one of the petitions of the Córtes was that it should put into execution the bull Super illius specula of John XXII, and that the king should procure from the pope the confirmation of the bull. There was no objection to this, and Leo X accordingly revived the bull and ordered its enforcement in Aragon.[396] It must have been immediately after this that the Edict of Faith, in the Aragonese kingdoms, required the denunciation of sorcery, for, in the Sicilian instructions of 1515, issued to allay popular discontent, it was provided that this clause should only be operative when the sorcery was heretical.[397] Convictions, however, were few, at least in Aragon, for after those of 1511 there were no relaxations for sorcery until February 28, 1528, when Fray Miguel Calvo was burnt; the next case was that of Mossen Juan Omella, March 13, 1537, and no further relaxations occur in the list which extends to 1574.[398]

Castile followed the example of Aragon, and Archbishop Manrique (1523-1538) added to the Edict of Faith six clauses, giving in full detail the practices of magic, sorcery and divination.[399] Yet, as late as 1539, Ciruelo seems to regard the crime as subject wholly to secular jurisdiction, for he warns sovereigns that, as they hold the place of God on earth, they should have more zeal for the honor of God than for their own, and should chastise these offenders accordingly, being certain that they would be held to strict account for their negligence.[400]

The question, in fact, was a somewhat intricate one, admitting of nice discussion. In 1257, not long after the founding of the Old Inquisition, Alexander IV was asked whether it ought to take cognizance of divination and sorcery, when he replied that it must not be diverted from its proper duties and must leave such offenders to their regular judges, unless there was manifest heresy involved, a decision which was repeated more than once and was finally embodied in the canon law by Boniface VIII.[401] There was no definition, however, as to what constituted heresy in these matters, until the sweeping declaration of John XXII that all were heretical, but in this there was a clear inference that his bulls were directed solely to malignant magic working through the invocation and adoration of demons. This, however, comprised but a small portion of the vast array of superstitious observances, on which theological subtilty exhausted its dialectics. Many of these were perfectly harmless, such as the simple charms of the wise-women for the cure of disease. Others were pseudo-scientific, like the Cabala, the Ars Notoria and the Ars Paulina, by which universal knowledge was attained through certain formulas. Others again taught spells, innocent in themselves, to protect harvests from insect plagues and cattle from murrain. There were infinite gradations, leading up to the invocation and adoration of demons, besides the multiplied resources of the diviner in palmistry, hydromancy, crystallomancy and the rest—oneiroscopy, or dream-expounding, being a special stumbling-block, in view of its scriptural warrant. To define where heresy began and ended in these, to decide between presumable knowledge of the secrets of nature and resort to evil spirits, was no easy matter, and by common consent the decision turned upon whether there was a pact, express or implied, with the demon. This only created the necessity of a new definition as to what constituted pact and, in 1398, the University of Paris sought to settle this by declaring that there was an implied pact in all superstitious observances, of which the result could not reasonably be expected from God or from nature.[402] This marked a distinct advance in the conception of heretical sorcery, but it still left open the question as to what might or might not be reasonable expectation, and it was merely an opinion, albeit of the most authoritative theological body in Europe.

Discussion continued as lively as ever. In 1492, Bernardo Basin, a learned canon of Saragossa, considered it necessary to prove by logic that all pact with the demon, implicit or explicit, if not heresy was yet to be treated as heresy.[403] In 1494, the Repertorium Inquisitorum in quoting the canon law, that sorcery must savor of heresy to give jurisdiction of the Inquisition, still admits that there is no little difficulty in defining what is meant by savoring of heresy, while even at the close of the sixteenth century Peña tells us that no question excited more frequent debate.[404] It is true that, in 1451, Nicholas V had conferred on Hugues le Noir, Inquisitor of France, cognizance of divination, even when not heretical, but this had been a special provision, long since forgotten.[405]

The tendency, however, was irresistible to extend the definition of heretical sorcery, and to bring everything under the Inquisition. In 1552 Bishop Simancas argues that the demon introduces himself into all superstitious practices and charms, even without the intention of the man; he admits that many jurists argue that it is uncertain whether divinations and sorceries savor of manifest heresy, and therefore inquisitors have not cognizance of them, but the contrary is accepted by law, reason and custom, for it is a well-known rule that, when there is a doubt whether a judge has jurisdiction, the jurisdiction is his, and this matter is not exceptional; inquisitors can proceed against all guilty of these offences as suspect of heresy and this is received in practice.[406] Yet in practice these conclusions were reached tentatively. In 1537 Doctor Giron de Loaysa, reporting the results of a visitation of the Toledo tribunal, says that he has examined many processes for sorcery and desires instructions, for there are a number which are more foul and filthy than heretical; and even as late as 1568 the Suprema, in acting on the Barcelona visitation of de Soto Salazar, reproves Inquisitor Mexia for inflicting a fine of ten ducats and spiritual penances on Perebona Nat, for having used charms and uttered certain words over a sick woman; such cases, it says, do not pertain to the Inquisition, and in future he must leave all such matters to the Ordinary, to whom they belong.[407]

The tribunals evidently were less doubtful than the Suprema as to their powers. Among the practitioners who speculated on popular credulity there were some called zahories, who claimed a special gift of being able to see beneath the surface when it was not covered with blue cloth, and who were employed to discover springs of water, veins of metal, buried treasure and corpses, as well as aposthumes and other internal diseases. There was no pretence of magic in this but, in 1567, Juan de Mateba, a boy of 14, who claimed among other gifts to be a zahori, was sentenced by the Saragossa tribunal to fifty lashes in the prison, to six years’ reclusion in a convent under instruction, and subsequently to a year’s exile, together with prohibition, under pain of two hundred lashes through the streets, to cure by conjurations, or to claim that he has grace to effect cures, to divine the future, or to see corpses and other things under the earth.[408]

Whatever doubts existed rapidly disappeared. It would be difficult to see where the heresy lay which earned, from the Saragossa tribunal, in 1585, a public scourging for Gracia Melero, because she kept the finger of a man who had been hanged, together with a piece of the halter, thinking that they would bring her good luck.[409] In fact, by this time the omnipresent demon was held accountable for everything. A case exciting considerable attention in 1588 was that of Elvira de Cespedes, tried by the tribunal of Toledo, who, as a slave-girl at the age of 16, was married to Cristóval Lombardo of Jaen and bore to him a son, still living at Seville. Subsequently at San Lucar she fell in love with her mistress and seduced her, as well as many other women. Running away, she assumed male attire and, during the rebellion of Granada served as a soldier in the company of Don Luis Ponce. In Madrid she worked in a hospital, obtained a certificate as a surgeon and practised the profession. At Yepes she offered marriage to a girl, but the absence of beard and her effeminate appearance caused her sex to be questioned; she was medically examined, pronounced to be a man and the Vicar of Madrid granted a licence under which the marriage was solemnized. Doubts, however, still continued; she was denounced to the magistrates of Ocaña, who arrested her and handed her over to the Inquisition. In the course of her trial she was duly examined by physicians, who declared her to be a woman and that her career could only be explained by the arts of the demon. This explanation satisfied all doubts; she was sentenced to appear in an auto, to abjure de levi, to receive two hundred lashes and to serve in a hospital ten years without pay. In this the tribunal was merciful, for hermaphrodites customarily had a harsher measure of justice.[410]

It is thus easy to understand how the definition of pact by the University of Paris came to be so extended as to cover every possible act that might be classed as superstitious—all the old women’s cures and all the traditional usages and beliefs that had accumulated through credulous generations trained to place confidence in unintelligible phrases and meaningless actions—for any result greater than could naturally be produced, if not attributable to God was perforce ascribed to pact with the demon. Torreblanca thus assures us that, in the cure of disease, pact is to be inferred when nothing, either natural or supernatural, is employed, but only words, secretly or openly uttered, a touch, a breathing, or a simple cloth which has no virtue in itself. So it is with prayers and verbal formulas approved by the Church, but used for purposes other than those for which they were framed, or even exorcisms or conjurations against disease and tempests and caterpillars and drought, employed without the rites prescribed by the Church, or by those who have not the Order of Exorcists. There is pact in the use of idle prayers, as to stop bleeding with In sanguine Adæ orta est mors, or Sanguis mane in te ut sanguis Christi mansit in se; or of false ones, as for head-ache Virgo Maria Jordanum transivit et tunc S. Stephanus ei obviavit; or of absurd ones as the old Danatadaries, or the more modern Abrach Haymon etc., or that inscribed on bread Irivni Teherioni etc.; or that against the bite of mad dogs, Hax, Pax, Max. Suspect of pact are pious and holy prayers, in which some extraneous or unknown sign is introduced, written and hung on the neck, or anything by the wearing of which protection is expected from sudden death or imprisonment or the gallows: also the use of natural objects which, by their nature are not fitted for the expected results, or which are inefficient of themselves and are supposed to derive virtue from words employed, or are applied with prayers and observances not prescribed by the Church and, finally, all cures of disease which physicians cannot explain.[411] Moreover, theologians decided that in sorcery there was no parvitas materiæ, or triviality, which redeemed it from being a mortal sin.[412]

Thus all wise-women and charlatans became subject to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and no richer field for the folklorist can be found than in their numerous trials, where all the details of their petty devices and spells and charms are reported at length. There was the corresponding duty imposed on it to exterminate all popular superstitions throughout the land, and possibly it might have had a measure of success in this if it could have treated these practitioners as impostors. Unfortunately its jurisdiction over them was based on the reality of their exercising demonic powers, and their persecution only tended to confirm popular belief in the efficacy of their ministrations, while the public reading of their sentences con meritos spread abroad the knowledge of their powers and formulas.

If aught was lacking to strengthen belief in sorcery and divination it was furnished, in 1585, by Sixtus V, in his solemn bull Cœli et Terræ. In this he denounced astrology and all other species of divination, all magic incantations, the invocation and consultation of demons, the abuse of the sacraments, the pretended imprisonment of demons in rings, mirrors and vials, the obtaining of responses from demoniacs or lymphatic or fanatic women; he commanded all prelates and bishops and inquisitors diligently to prosecute and punish all who were guilty of these illicit divinations, sorceries, superstitions, magic, incantations and other detestable wickedness, even though hitherto they had no faculty to do so, and the rules of the Tridentine Index, prohibiting all works on divination and magic were to be strictly enforced.[413] The Spanish Inquisition, as we have seen, had long before exercised all the faculties conferred by the bull, and it is difficult to understand why, in 1595, it obtained for the first time, in the commission issued to Inquisitor-general Manrique de Lara, a clause covering all who practised these diabolical arts, and all who believed and employed them—a clause retained in all subsequent commissions.[414] The Inquisition, in fact, had not welcomed the bull, possibly in fear of claims based on it of cumulative episcopal jurisdiction. It did not allow it to be published in Spain until 1612 when, for some reason, a Romance version was printed and sent to all the tribunals with orders for its publication and enforcement, leading subsequent writers to attribute to it the cognizance of these matters by the Inquisition.[415]

Not only had the Inquisition, as we have seen, exercised jurisdiction over sorcery, but as usual it claimed this to be exclusive and warned off all trespassers. As a matter of form it conceded that non-heretical sorcery was mixti fori—was subject to either the secular or spiritual court which first commenced action[416]—but non-heretical sorcery had become non-existent, and the Inquisition was as resolute in maintaining its exclusive claims in this as in all else. It mattered little that, in 1598, the Córtes petitioned for the total abolition of all kinds of sorcery, divination, auguries and enchantments, and that Philip II responded by ordering the revival and enforcement of the ferocious law of 1414 inflicting severe penalties on secular judges who did not put sorcerers to death.[417] If this produced any effect, which is doubtful, it was but temporary. Already, in 1594, we find the Toledo tribunal compelling the corregidor to surrender Isabel de Soto, after he had pronounced sentence. Her offences had been the giving of love-powders, which she asserted were holy and need not be confessed; curing a child with a parchment inscribed with crosses, and using certain divinations to bring a man from the Indies—all harmless enough frauds, for which she was sentenced to abjure de levi, to hear mass in the audience-chamber and to undergo six years of exile. This severity, however, was mercy itself in comparison with the corregidor’s sentence, which had been scourging and perpetual exile.[418]

This assertion of exclusive cognizance continued. In 1648, Ana Andrés was undergoing prosecution in both the secular and episcopal courts, when the Valladolid tribunal claimed her, took her and tried and sentenced her.[419] In 1659, Pedro Martínez Ruvio, Archbishop of Palermo, issued an edict in which he proposed to enforce a brief of Gregory XV, in 1623, directed against sorcerers. The Suprema promptly presented to Philip IV a consulta, representing that simple superstitions were justiciable by bishops but, where there was even light suspicion of heresy, the Inquisition had exclusive cognizance. It could inhibit him with censures it said, but a royal order prohibiting him from proceeding with so prejudicial an innovation was preferable as less demonstrative, and there can be no doubt that Philip signed whatever letters the Suprema laid before him.[420]

When dealing with the common run of officials, the Inquisition enforced its claims with its customary peremptory aggressiveness. In 1701, the Valencia tribunal learned that the paheres, or local officials of Tortosa, were trying for sorcery Jusepa Zorita, Francisca Caset and a girl. On November 30th they were ordered to cease proceedings under pain of excommunication and five hundred ducats for each official concerned, while Pedro Martin Aycart, archdeacon of the cathedral, was commissioned, in case of disobedience, to post them on the church doors as excommunicated, and to take possession of the accused in the royal prison and hold them until further orders. There was some delay and, on January 4, 1702, the authorities of Tortosa were served with a demand, under the same penalties, to surrender the prisoners and the papers to Aycart, with notification that prosecution would follow refusal. This was effectual; the prisoners were surrendered and were duly tried by the tribunal.[421]

Perhaps the most emphatic assertion of the authority of the Inquisition is to be seen in its treatment of astrology. All divination which pretended to reveal the future had long been regarded as heretical, on account of its denial of human free-will and its assertion of fate. This applied especially to astrology, with its array of horoscopes and its assumption that the destinies of men were ruled by the stars. It was on this ground that Pietro d’Abano, the greatest physician of his time, was prosecuted and only escaped condemnation by opportunely dying, in 1316, in Padua, and Cecco d’Ascoli, the foremost astrologer of the age, was burnt alive in Florence, in 1327. In spite of these examples, the profession of astrology continued to flourish unchecked, and astrologers were indispensable officials in the courts of princes and prelates. Theologians and canonists persevered in its condemnation. Ciruelo, while admitting that the study of the influence of the stars on the weather and on persons is lawful, like the practice of medicine, holds that foretelling from them what they cannot foreshadow can only be done by the aid of the demon, and all who practise this should be punished as half-necromancers.[422] Simancas classes astrology with all other methods of divination, which he attributes to the operation of the demon, and those who make everything depend upon the stars are perfected heretics.[423] These condemnations however were purely academical; the old prohibitions had become obsolete; belief in the science was almost universal; it was not only openly practised but openly taught, and there is significance in the fact that, in the Index of 1559, while there are general prohibitions of all books on necromancy and divination by lots, there is none of those on astrology, which must have been numerous, and only two obscure works on nativities are forbidden.[424] Indeed, one of the petitions of the Córtes of 1570 represents that in consequence of physicians not studying astrology many failed in their cures, wherefore the king was asked to order that in the universities no one should be graduated as a physician who was not a bachiller in astrology, to which the royal reply was that the Council would consult the universities and determine what was fitting.[425]