This atrocious tissue of misrepresentation would be utterly negligible and contemptible were it not for the fact—as has been said—that it was written in good faith (the good faith of a bigot) and reflects what was currently believed, fostered by the envy which is plainly revealed when Bernaldez alludes to the occupations of the Jews and the New-Christians—all of whom he assumes to be false to the faith they have embraced.

Isabella must have been conscious of this feeling, and she must have rated it at its proper value. She had received in 1474 a very pitiful narrative poem of the New-Christian Anton Montoro, which painted with terrible vividness a slaughter of the conversos and implored justice upon the assassins, protesting the innocence of the New-Christians and the sincerity of their conversions. Her gentle nature must have been moved to compassion by that lament, and her acute mind must have perceived the evil passions and the envy that were stirring under the fair cloak of saintly zeal.

All these considerations being weighed, she resisted the representations of Ojeda.

But weightier than any may have been the reflection of the power which the tribunal of the Inquisition must place in the hands of the clergy. Already and very bravely she had expressed her resentment of clerical usurpation of royal rights in Spain, and to repress it she had not hesitated to front the Pope himself. If she acceded now to Ojeda’s request, she would be permitting the priesthood to set up a court which, not being subject to any temporal law, must alienate from her some portion of that sovereignty which so jealously she guarded.

Thus she came to dismiss the petition of the Dominican, and there can be little doubt when all the circumstances are considered—as presently they shall be—that in this she had the entire support of the Cardinal of Spain, Don Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Seville, who was with her at the time.

Ojeda withdrew, baffled, but by no means resigned. He awaited a more favourable season, what time he kept the popular feeling in a state of ferment. And no sooner had Ferdinand come to rejoin his Queen in Seville than the Dominican renewed his importunities.

He hoped to find an ally in the King. Moreover he was now supported by Fr. Filippo de’ Barberi, the Sicilian Inquisitor. The latter had newly arrived in Spain, where he came to seek at the hands of the Catholic Sovereigns—who were rulers of Sicily—the confirmation of an ancient decree promulgated in 1223 by the Emperor Frederic II. By virtue of this decree one-third of the confiscated property of heretics became the perquisite of the Inquisition; and it also ordained that the governors of all districts should afford protection to the inquisitors and assistance in their work of prosecuting heretics and any Jew who might have contracted marriage with a Christian.

These privileges the Sovereigns duly confirmed, accounting it their duty to do so since they related to the Inquisition as established by Honorius III. But not on that account did Isabella yet lean towards the introduction of the tribunal into Castile.

It happened, however, that to the arguments of Ojeda and Barberi were added the persuasions of the papal legate a latere at the court of Castile—Nicolao Franco, Bishop of Trevisa—who conceived, no doubt, that the institution of the Inquisition here would be pleasing to Pope Sixtus IV, since it must increase the authority of the Church in Spain.

To Ferdinand it is probable that the suggestion was not without allurement, since it must have offered him a way at once to gratify the piety that was his, and—out of the confiscations that must ensue from the prosecution of so very wealthy a section of the community—to replenish the almost exhausted coffers of the treasury. When the way of conscience is also the way of profit, there is little difficulty in following it. But, after all, though joint sovereign of Spain and paramount in Aragon, Ferdinand had not in Castile the power of Isabella. It was her kingdom when all was said, and although his position there was by no means that of a simple prince-consort, yet he was bound by law and by policy to remain submissive to her will. In view of her attitude, he could do little more than add his own to the persuasions of the three priestly advocates, and amongst them they so pressed Isabella that she gave way to the extent of a compromise.

She consented that steps should be taken not only to check the Judaizing of the New-Christians, but also to effect conversions among the Jews themselves; and she entrusted the difficult task of enforcing the observance of the Christian faith and the Catholic dogmas to the Cardinal of Spain—than whom, from a Christian and humanitarian point of view, no man of his day could have been more desirable, which is as much as to say that from the point of view of his Catholic contemporaries no man could have been less so.

Isabella’s announcement of her determination in the matter must have come as something of a shock to Ojeda, who conceived himself on the way to prevail with her. This concession to his wishes was far from being the concession that he sought, since it passed over the heads of the preaching friars, who had made such work—by their own methods—their special mission.

The Queen, however, had decided, and there was no more to be said. The Cardinal of Spain went about his task in that sincere Christian spirit and with that zeal for truth and justice that is associated with his name. He compiled for the purpose of his mission an instrucción, which has not survived, but which Ortiz de Zuñiga52 and Pulgar53 inform us was in the form of a catechism.

In this “he indicates,” says Pulgar, “the duties of the true Christian from the day of his birth, in the sacrament of baptism as in all other sacraments which it is his obligation to receive, as well as what he should be taught, what believe and what perform as a faithful Christian at all times and on all days until the day of his death.”

Mariana, Zurita, and other historians, upon the word of Paramo54 and of Salazar de Mendoza, have ventured to ascribe the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile to the Cardinal of Spain. Their object in so doing has been to heap honour and glory upon his name and memory; for in their opinion he could have had no greater claim than this to the gratitude and reverence of humanity. But the justice of a less bigoted age demands that truth shall prevail in this respect, and that his memory be deprived of that very questionable honour. The Cardinal’s contemporaries do not justify what Paramo claims for him. And, to reduce the argument to its lowest plane, it would have been extremely unlikely that Cardinal Mendoza should advocate the establishment of a court that must deprive him and the other Spanish bishops of the jurisdiction in causas de Fé hitherto vested in themselves.

The Primate pursued, then, the task imposed upon him, causing his “catechism” to be expounded and taught by all parish priests in all pulpits and schools.

But however zealous his methods, they were not the methods desired by Ojeda and the papal legate. The Dominican, vexed by the turn of events, and determined to return to the assault as soon as ever occasion offered, cast about him for fresh arguments that should prevail with the Sovereigns.

And then there befell an incident in Seville to supply his fanatical needs and place in his hands the very weapon that he sought.

A young nobleman of the famous house of Guzman had engaged in an amorous intrigue with the daughter of a New-Christian. In the pursuit of this amour he repaired secretly to her father’s house on the night of Thursday in Holy Week of that year 1478, and was admitted by the girl. But the lovers being disturbed by voices in the house, Guzman was driven to conceal himself. From his concealment he overheard the conversation of several Judaizers who were being entertained by the father of his mistress. He heard them vehemently denying the divinity of Christ and as vehemently blaspheming His name and the Holy Faith.

Having quitted the house, he went straight to the Prior of the Dominicans to relate what he had overheard and to denounce the blasphemers.

This young Castilian is so very interesting a type that a slight digression to consider him more closely may be permitted. It is of assistance to understand the mental attitude, the crass complacency of the bigot. He knew that the highest virtue that a Christian could practise was the virtue of chastity, and, conversely, that the worst offence against God into which he could fall was that of unchastity. Or at least he had been taught these things, and he accepted them in a sub-conscious, automatic sort of way. Yet since the sin was his own, it gave his consciousness no uneasiness that he should perpetrate it, that he should slink like a thief into the house of this New-Christian to debauch his daughter. But let him hear this New-Christian or his friends express opinions of disbelief in this God whom he believed in and—by his own lights—insulted, and behold him outraged in all his feelings against those unspeakable fellows. Behold him running hot-foot to Prior Ojeda to relate with horror the tale of this vileness that he had overheard, so little concerned about the vileness through which he himself had acquired his knowledge that he makes no effort to conceal it. And, apparently, the Dominican, in a like horror at the New-Christians’ offence against a God in whom they do not believe, accounts of little moment the Castilian’s offence against the God in whom he does believe.

It is a nice illumination of the contrast between the theory and the practice of Christianity.

Upon the young man’s information Ojeda instituted an inquiry, and six Judaizers were arrested. They confessed their guilt, and begged to be reconciled to the Church. As the Inquisition had not yet been established, with its terrible decree against “relapsos,”55 their prayer was granted, after the fulfilment of the penance imposed.56

With the tale of this “execrable wickedness” Ojeda repaired at once to Cordova, whither the Sovereigns had by now withdrawn. The story would lose nothing in its repetition by this pious and saintly man, and he was in a position to add to it that the good folk of Seville were almost in revolt from indignation at that happening in their midst.

Having shown thus how urgently it was required, he once more implored the Sovereigns to establish the Inquisition. And it is not to be doubted that his petition would be backed by that of the legate Franco, who was at the Court.

Yet Isabella still showed repugnance, still hesitated to consent to the extreme course advocated.

But at this moment, according to Llorente,57 another advocate appears upon the scene to plead the cause of the Faith—a figure in the white habit and black cloak of the Dominican Brotherhood, a man in his fifty-eighth year, tall and gaunt and stooping slightly at the shoulders, mild-eyed, of a cast of countenance that is gentle, noble, and benign.

This is Frey Tomás de Torquemada, Prior of the Dominican Convent of Holy Cross of Segovia, the nephew of the late illustrious Juan de Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto.

His influence with the Queen is vast; his eloquence fiery; his mental energy compelling. Ojeda looks on, and his hopes grow confident at last.

CHAPTER VII
THE PRIOR OF HOLY CROSS

If ever a name held the omen of a man’s life, that name is Torquemada. To such an extraordinary degree is it instinct with the suggestion of the machinery of fire and torture over which he was destined to preside, that it almost seems a fictitious name, a nom de guerre, a grim invention, compounded of the Latin torque and the Spanish quemada, to fit the man who was to hold the office of Grand Inquisitor.

It was derived from the northern town of Torquemada (the Turre Cremata of the Romans), where the illustrious family had its beginnings. This family first sprang into historical distinction with the knighting by Alfonso XI of Lope Alonso de Torquemada (Hijodalgo a los Fueros de Castilla), and thereafter was maintained in prominence by several members who held more or less distinguished offices. But the most illustrious bearer of the name was the cultured Dominican Juan de Torquemada (Lope Alonso’s great-grandson), who was raised to the purple with the title of Cardinal of San Sisto. He was one of the most learned, eminent, and respected theologians of his age, an upholder of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the most ardent champion since Thomas Aquinas of the doctrine of papal infallibility. He enriched theological literature by several works, the best known of which is his “Meditations.”

Fr. Tomás de Torquemada was the son of the Cardinal’s only brother, Pero Fernandez de Torquemada. He was born at Valladolid in 1420, and after a scholastic career of some distinction—if Garcia Rodrigo is to be believed in this particular58—he followed in his uncle’s footsteps, soliciting the habit of the Order of St. Dominic, which he assumed in the Convent of St. Paul of Valladolid upon completing his studies of philosophy and divinity, and receiving a doctor’s degree.

He filled with distinction the chair of canon law and theology, and in the fullness of time was elected Prior of the Convent of Santa Cruz of Segovia. He so distinguished himself in the discharge of the duties of this office by his piety, his learning, and his zeal, that he was repeatedly re-elected, there being at the time no rule of the order to inhibit it. Such was the austerity of his character that he never ate meat, or used linen either in his clothing or on his bed.59 He observed the rule of poverty imposed by his order so rigorously that he was unable to provide his only sister with an endowment suitable to her station, and could allow her no more than would permit her to live as a nun under the rule of the tertiary order of St. Dominic.

At what epoch the Prior of Holy Cross first became the confessor of the Infanta Isabella it is not now possible to ascertain. Jaime Bleda tells us that in the fulfilment of this office he had extracted from her, during her youth at the Court of her brother King Henry IV, a promise that should she ever come to the throne she would devote her life to the extirpation of heresy from her realm.60

This may be dismissed as one of those popular fictions that arise concerning the intimate affairs of princes, for it cannot be said that it is borne out by the circumstances under consideration.

Isabella’s reluctance to proceed to extreme—or even vigorous—measures against those of her subjects accused of Judaizing is admitted by every serious student of her reign, however opinions may vary as to the motives that swayed her in this course.

There remains, however, out of Bleda’s anecdote, the fact that Torquemada had been Isabella’s confessor in early years—which in itself bears out the statement that the Dominican had achieved distinction. It follows by virtue of his having occupied this office that he must have acquired over the mind of a woman so devout a considerable ascendancy where matters connected with the Faith were concerned.

This influence he came now to exert.

To support it he brought an indubitable sincerity and disinterestedness of motives; he brought a reputation for sanctity derived from the rigid purity of his life and the stern asceticism which he practised—a reputation which could not fail to act upon the imagination of a woman of Isabella’s pious temperament; and, finally, he brought the dominant, masterful personality and the burning eloquence that were his own.

When all this is taken into account it is not surprising that the Queen’s resistance, weakened already by the onslaughts of Ojeda and his associates, the King and the papal legate, should at last have broken down; and that under the compelling persuasion of the Prior of Holy Cross she should reluctantly have consented to the establishment of the Holy Office in her dominions.

Thus it befell that by order of the Catholic Sovereigns their Orator at the Pontifical Court, D. Francisco de Santillana, applied to Sixtus IV for a bull that should empower Ferdinand and Isabella to set up the tribunal of the Inquisition in Castile, to enable them—as Bernaldez puts it—to proceed to the extirpation of heresy “by the way of fire”—por via del fuego.

This bull was duly granted under date of November 7, 1478.

It gave the Sovereigns the faculty of electing three bishops or archbishops or other God-fearing and upright priests, regular or secular, of over forty years of age, who must be masters or bachelors of divinity and doctors or licentiates of canon law, to make inquisition throughout the kingdom against heretics, apostates, and their abettors.

His Holiness accorded to the men so elected the requisite jurisdiction to proceed according to law and custom, and he further empowered the Sovereigns to annul such nominations as they might make and to replace their nominees as they saw fit.61

The Sovereigns were in Cordova when the bull reached them in the following month of December. But they did not at once proceed to act upon it. Before doing so, Isabella made one last effort to repress the Judaizing and apostatizing movement by the gentler measures concerted with the Cardinal of Spain in 1477.

To the task of continuing with increased vigour the teachings of the “catechism” drawn up by Mendoza she now appointed Diego Alonso de Solis, Bishop of Cadiz, D. Diego de Merlo, Coadjutor of Seville, and Alonso de Ojeda, to whom these royal orders must have been a fresh source of disappointment and chagrin.

Torquemada, we must assume, had withdrawn once more to his convent of Segovia, and perhaps the removal of his stern influence enabled the Queen to make this last effort to avoid the course to which he had all but constrained her.

Having concluded these arrangements, the Sovereigns repaired to Toledo. There, in the spring of the year 1480, the Cortes assembled to make oath of fealty to the infant Prince of Asturias to whom Isabella had given birth in June of 1478. Whilst this oath was the chief motive of the assembly, it was by no means the only business with which it had to deal. Many other matters received attention; amongst them the necessity for remedying the evils arising out of the commerce between Christians and Jews was seriously considered.

It was decreed that the old laws concerning the Jews, which lately had been falling into partial desuetude, should be re-enforced, particularly those which prescribed that all Jews should wear the distinguishing badge of the circlet of red cloth on the shoulders of their gabardines; that they should keep strictly to their Juderias, always retiring to these at nightfall; that walls to enclose these Juderias should be erected wherever they might still be wanting, and that no Jew should practise as a doctor, surgeon, apothecary, or innkeeper.

Beyond that, however, the Cortes did not go; and the institution of the Inquisition to deal with Judaizers was not so much as mentioned, which circumstance Llorente accepts as a further proof of the Queen’s antipathy to the Holy Office.

Coming at a time when the Jews were once more beginning to taste the sweets of freedom, there can be little doubt that these provisions, which thrust them back into bondage and ignominy, must have been extremely galling to them. It is possible that these measures against the men of his race spurred a New-Christian to the rash step of publishing a pamphlet in which he criticized and censured the royal action in the matter. Carried away by his feelings, the writer—intentionally or not—fell into heresy in the course of his writings, to which the Jeronymite monk, Hernando de Talavera, published a reply.

Rodrigo62 assumes that this heretical pamphlet put an end to the Queen’s patience. It may very well have been the case, or at least it may have afforded Ferdinand and the others who desired the Inquisition a final argument whereby to overcome what reluctance still lingered with her.

Be that as it may, it was very soon after this—September 27, 1480—that the Sovereigns, who at the time were at Medina del Campo, acted at last upon the papal bull which had now been in their hands for nearly two years, and delegated their faculty of giving inquisitors to Castile to the Cardinal of Spain and Fr. Tomás de Torquemada.

Mendoza and Torquemada proceeded at once to carry out the task entrusted to them, and appointed as inquisitors of the faith for Seville—where Judaizing was represented to be most flagrant—the Dominican friars Juan de San Martino and Miguel Morillo. The latter was the Provincial of the Dominicans of Aragon, and was already a person of experience in such matters, having acted as inquisitor in Rousillon. To assist them in the discharge of their office, the secular priest Juan Ruiz de Medina, a doctor of canon law, and Juan Lopez de Barco, one of the Queen’s chaplains, were appointed, the former to the position of assessor, the latter to that of fiscal.

It is necessary, in view of the much that has been written, and although the danger be incurred of labouring the point, to examine more closely the attitude of the Sovereigns towards the tribunal which they now sanctioned.

Isabella’s zeal, both pious and political, urged her, as has been said, to proceed in such a way as should set a term to the unrest arising out of the public feeling against Judaizers and apostatizing Moriscoes (baptized Moors). Ferdinand not only shared her feelings, but pious zeal in him went to the lengths of bigotry, and he aimed essentially at a political unity that should be inseparably allied and interwoven with religious unity.

Isabella would have laboured slowly, preferring, even at the sacrifice of time, to achieve her ends by gentle means and the exercise of that patience which was so very necessary if good results were to be obtained. Ferdinand, perhaps less pitiful, perhaps—to do him full justice—less hopeful of the power of argument and indoctrination, lending an ear to the priestly assertion “contra negantes veritatis nulla est disputatio,” would have proceeded at once to the introduction into Castile of the stern repressive measures already being exerted in his native Aragon.

On the score of their different attitudes the Sovereigns might have found themselves in conflict, but that in this matter they had a ground of common interest. Both were agreed that in no case should Spain be brought under the ecclesiastical sway which the establishment of the usual form of Inquisition must set up. If this were to be—as usual hitherto—under pontifical control, its officers would be appointed by the Pope, or, vicariously, by the Dominican provincials, and a proportion of the confiscations consequent upon conviction would be gathered into the pontifical coffers.

For all his bigotry and his desire to see the Holy Office instituted in Castile, Ferdinand was as averse as Isabella to its introduction in a form that must restore the clerical usurpations they had been at such pains to repress.

If Isabella admitted the Inquisition as a last means of quelling the disturbing elements in her kingdom, it must be an Inquisition on lines entirely different from those which hitherto had obtained elsewhere. The appointment of its officers must no more rest with the Pope than the bestowal of Spanish benefices. It must be the prerogative of the Sovereigns themselves, and it must carry with it the power to depose and replace, where necessary, such inquisitors as they might appoint. Further, Rome must have no share in the property confiscated from Spanish subjects, the disposal of this being entirely controlled by the Sovereigns.

It has been argued that here was the cause of all Isabella’s hesitancy: that greed and statecraft were the mainsprings of her conduct in the matter, and that humanitarian considerations had no part in it; that the bull had been applied for earlier than has been generally supposed, and that the delay had resulted from the Pope’s disinclination to grant any such terms as were demanded.

The latter statement may not be without foundation. But to say deliberately that no humanitarian considerations governed the Queen’s conduct is to say a great deal more than the circumstances warrant. To establish this hypothesis it would be necessary to advance some adequate reason for her reluctance to act upon the bull when once it was in her hands. For the bull of November 1478 conceded all that the Sovereigns demanded, all that they desired. Yet Isabella allowed nearly two years to pass before proceeding to exercise the faculties conferred by it, and during that time Cardinal Mendoza and his co-operators diligently pursued the work of effecting conversions by means of his “catechism.”

The conclusion that this was dictated by humane considerations on the part of the Queen is the only one that appears reasonable, nor is any alternative put forward to account for the delay of nearly two years.

When the Cardinal of Spain and the Prior of Holy Cross, acting jointly on behalf of the Sovereigns, appointed the first inquisitors for Castile, they instructed these to set up a tribunal in Seville, which of all the cities of Spain was the one where Judaizing was alleged to be most flagrantly conducted.63

The Sovereigns issued on October 9 a command to all loyal subjects to afford the two inquisitors every assistance they might require on their journey to Seville and all facilities there for carrying out their mission.

The subjects, however, were so little loyal on this occasion that upon the arrival of the inquisitors at Seville, these found a reception of all solemnity awaiting them and every respect accorded to them, but no assistance. To such an extent was this withheld that they found it quite impossible to set about the business upon which they came. They complained of this state of things to the King, and as a result he sent special orders on December 27 to the Coadjutor of Seville and the civil authorities of the district, commanding them to lend the inquisitors every support.

In consequence of this they were at last enabled to establish their court and proceed to the business upon which they came.64

The very rumour of their approach had filled the New-Christians with anxiety, and a glimpse of the gloomy funereal pageant—the white-robed, black-hooded inquisitors, with their attendant familiars and barefoot friars, the procession headed by a Dominican carrying the white cross—on its way to the Convent of St. Paul, where they took up their quarters, was enough to put to flight some thousands of those who had cause to fear that they might become the objects of the attention of that fearful court.

These fugitives sought refuge in the feudal lordships of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, of the formidable Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, Marquis of Cadiz, and of the Count of Arcos.

But in all ages it had been the way of the Inquisition not only to suspect readily, but to allow suspicion to usurp the place that elsewhere is reserved for proof. And so they proceeded to construe into evidence of guilt this flight of the timorous, as is shown by the edict they published on January 2 of 1481.

In this—having set forth their appointment by the Sovereigns, and the terms of the bull under which such appointment had been made—they announced that, inasmuch as it had come to their knowledge that many persons had departed out of Seville in fear of prosecution upon grounds of heretical pravity, they commanded the Marquess of Cadiz, the Count of Arcos, and the other nobles of the Kingdom of Castile, that within fifteen days of the publication of this edict they should make an exact account of the persons of both sexes that had sought refuge in their lordships or jurisdictions; that they should arrest all these and bring them safely to the prison of the Inquisition in Seville, confiscating their property and placing this together with an inventory in the hands of some person of trust, to be held by them at the disposal of the inquisitors; that none should dare to shelter any fugitive, but comply exactly with the terms of this edict under pain of greater excommunication and the other penalties by law established against abettors of heretics, amongst which penalties was that of the annulment of their dignities and offices, their subjects and vassals being absolved of all vassalage and subjection; and the inquisitors reserved to themselves and their superiors the power of absolution from the ecclesiastical censure incurred by all who might fail to obey the terms of this edict.

CHAPTER VIII
THE HOLY OFFICE IN SEVILLE

The stern purpose of the inquisitors and the severity with which they intended to proceed were plainly revealed by that edict of January 2, 1481. The harsh injustice that lay in its call upon the authorities to arrest men and women merely because they had departed from Seville before departure was in any way forbidden is typical of the flagrantly arbitrary methods of the Inquisition. That it should have struck terror into the New-Christians who had remained in Seville, and that it should have moved them to take measures to protect themselves against a court in which justice seemed little likely to be observed, and to whose cruel mercies the most innocent might find himself exposed at any moment, is not surprising—particularly when it is considered how great was the number of New-Christians who occupied positions of eminence in Seville.

A group of these prominent citizens assembled at the invitation of Diego de Susan, one of the wealthiest and most influential men of Seville, whose fortune was estimated at ten million maravedis. They came together to consider what measures should be taken for the defence of themselves, their persons and property, from the unscrupulous activities of this tribunal, and they determined that if necessary they would resort to force.

Among those who entered into this conspiracy were some ecclesiastics, and several who held office under the Crown, such as the Governor of Triana, Juan Fernandez Abolafio, the Captain of Justice and farmer of the royal customs, his brother Fernandez the licentiate, Bartolomé Torralba, and the wealthy and well-connected Manuel Sauli.

Susan addressed them. He reminded them that they were the principal citizens of Seville, that they were wealthy not only in property but in the good-will of the people, and that it but required resolution and solidarity on their part to enable them to prevail against the inquisitors in the event of these friars making any attempt upon them.

All concurring, it was concerted that each of the conspirators should engage himself to provide a proportion of the men, arms, and money and what else might be necessary for their purpose.

But Susan to his undoing had a daughter. This girl, whose beauty was so extraordinary that she was surnamed la hermosa fembra, had taken a Castilian lover. What motives may have actuated her, what part the lover may have played in these, does not transpire. All that is known is that she betrayed the conspiracy to the inquisitors—“impiously violating the natural laws engraved by God’s finger upon the human heart.”

Susan and his unfortunate confederates were seized as a consequence of that infamous delation; they were lodged in the cells of the Convent of St. Paul, which meanwhile did duty as a prison, and brought to trial before the Court of the Holy Office sitting in the convent.65

They were tried for heresy and apostasy, of course; since upon no other grounds was it possible for the Holy Office to deal with them. It is unfortunate that Llorente should have unearthed no record of this trial—one of the first held by the Inquisition in Castile—and that nothing should be known of what took place beyond the fact that Susan, Sauli, Bartolomé Torralba, and the brothers Fernandez were found guilty of the alleged offence of apostasy and were delivered up to the secular arm for punishment.

Garcia Rodrigo has devoted a couple of pages of his “Historia Verdadera” to an elaborate piece of fiction in which he asserts that these men were persistent in their error in spite of the strenuous efforts made to save them. He invests the fanatical Ojeda with the character of an angel of mercy, and represents him hovering round the condemned, exhorting them, almost with tears, to abjure their error, and he assures us that although the Dominican persevered in his charitable efforts up to the last moment, all was vain.

There is not a grain of evidence to support the statement, nor does Garcia Rodrigo pretend to advance any. As a matter of fact, Bernaldez, the only available authority who mentions Susan’s end, tells us specifically that he died a Christian. And when it is considered that Bernaldez is an ardent admirer and champion of the Inquisition, such a pronouncement from his pen is sufficient to convict the inquisitors Morillo and San Martin of having proceeded in a manner that was vindictive and ultra vires. For at this epoch it was not yet decreed that those who had relapsed (relapsos) should suffer capital punishment unless they persisted in their apostasy—as Rodrigo, obviously for the purpose of justifying the inquisitors, unwarrantably asserts did Susan and his confederates.

Llorente considers the blood-lust of the inquisitors established by these merciless convictions, urging that it is incredible that all the prisoners should have refused to recant and to submit themselves to penance—even assuming that they were actually guilty of apostasy as alleged. For when all is considered it must remain extremely doubtful whether they had Judaized at all, and it is not improbable—from what we see of the spirit that actuated the inquisitors—that Morillo and San Martin may have construed the action of those men into an offence against the Faith for the purpose of bringing them within the jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

They were condemned to be the chief actors in the first Auto de Fé that was held in Seville. This took place on February 6.66

There was about this Auto comparatively little of that pomp and ceremonial, that ghastly theatricality that was presently to distinguish these proceedings. But the essentials were already present.

Susan and his fellows were led forth barefoot, in the ignominious, yellow penitential sack, a candle in the hand of each. Hemmed about by halberdiers, they were paraded through the streets of a city in which they had won the goodwill and respect of all, to be gazed upon by a people whose eyes must have been filled with horror and dismay. To head the procession went a black-robed Dominican holding aloft the green cross of the Inquisition, now swathed in a veil of crape; behind him, walking two by two, came the familiars of the Holy Office, members of the Confraternity of St. Peter the Martyr; next followed the doomed men amid their guards; and last came the inquisitors with their attendants and a considerable body of Dominicans from the Convent of St. Paul, headed by their prior, the fanatical Ojeda.

The procession headed for the Cathedral, where the sufferers were taken to hear Mass and forced to listen to a sermon framed for the occasion which was preached by Ojeda, and must have increased the exquisite torment of their protracted agony. Thence they were conducted—once more processionally—out of the city to the meadows of Tablada. There they were attached to the stakes that had been erected, fire was set to the faggots, and thus they perished miserably, to the greater honour and glory of the Catholic Apostolic Church.67

Ojeda may have looked with satisfaction upon that holocaust, upon those cruel flames which more than any man in Spain he had been instrumental in kindling, and which being kindled would continue to cast their lurid glow over that fair land for close upon four centuries. It was the first burning that Ojeda witnessed, and it was the last. His own hour was at hand. His mission, whatever ends it had to serve in the eternal scheme of things, was completed there on the meadows of Tablada, and he might now depart. A few days later he lay dead, stricken down by the plague that was ravaging the south of Spain, and sought him out for one of its first victims.

And from the pulpits of Seville the Dominicans thundered forth declarations that this pestilence was a visitation of God upon an unfaithful city. They never paused to consider that if that were indeed the case either God’s aim must be singularly untrue since the shafts of His wrath overtook such faithful servants as Ojeda, or else....

But an incapacity to conduct its reasonings to a logical conclusion, and an utter want of any sense of proportion, are the main factors in all fanaticism.

Lest they should themselves be stricken by these bolts of pestilence launched against the unfaithful, behold next the inquisitors scuttling out of Seville! They go in quest of more salubrious districts, and, presumably upon the assumption that these—since they remain healthy—are escaping divine attention, the Dominicans zealously proceed to light their fires that they may repair this heavenly oversight.68

But that villegiatura of theirs did not take place until they had transacted a deal more of their horrible business in Seville. Great had been the results of the edict of January 2. The nobles, not daring to run the risk of the threatened ecclesiastical censure, proceeded to effect the arrests demanded, and gangs of pinioned captives were brought daily into the city from the surrounding country districts where they had sought shelter. And in the city itself the familiars of the Holy Office were busily effecting the capture of suspects and of those against whom, either out of bigotry or malice, delations had been made.

So numerous were the arrests that by the middle of the month of January already the capacity of the Convent of St. Paul was strained to its utmost, and the inquisitors were compelled to remove themselves, their tribunal and their prison to the ampler quarters of the Castle of Triana, accorded to them by the Sovereigns in response to their request for it.69

The edict of January 2 was soon succeeded by a second one, known as the “Edict of Grace.” This exhorted all who were guilty of apostasy to come forward voluntarily within a term appointed, to confess their sins and be reconciled to the Church. It assured them that if they did this with real contrition and a firm purpose of amendment, they should receive absolution and suffer no confiscation of property. And it concluded with a warning that if they allowed the term of grace to expire without taking advantage of it, and they should afterwards be accused by others, they would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.

Amador de los Rios is of opinion that Cardinal Mendoza was “instrumental” in having this edict published, in which case it would hardly be too much to assume that he was the instrument of Isabella in the matter. Nor is it too much to assume that the inspiration was purely merciful, and that there was no thought in the mind of either Queen or Cardinal of the edict’s being turned, as it was, to treacherous account.

The response was immediate. It is estimated that not less than 20,000 conversos who had been guilty of Judaizing came forward to avail themselves of its promise of amnesty and to secure absolution for their infidelity to the religion they had embraced. They discovered to their horror that they had walked into a trap as cruel as any that smooth-faced, benign-voiced priestcraft had ever devised.

The inquisitors had thought well to saddle the promised absolution and immunity from punishment with a condition which they had not published, a condition which they had secretly reserved to spring it now upon these self-convicted apostates at their mercy. They pointed out with infernal subtlety that the edict provided that the contrition of the self-accused must be sincere, and that of this sincerity the penitents must give the only proof possible by disclosing the names of all Judaizers known to them.

The demand was an infamy; for not even under the seal of private confession is a priest authorized to impose upon a penitent as a condition of absolution that he shall divulge the name even of an accomplice or a partner in guilt. Yet here it was demanded of these that they should go much further, and denounce such sinners as they knew; and the demand was framed in such specious terms—as the only proof they could offer of the sincerity of their own contrition—that none dared have taxed the inquisitors with malpractice or with subverting the ends and purpose of this edict they had been forced to publish.

The wretched apostates found themselves between the sword and the wall. Either they must perpetrate the infamy of betraying those of their race whom they knew to be Judaizers, or they must submit not only to the cruel death by fire, but to the destitution of their children as a consequence of the confiscation of their property. Most of them gave way, and purchased their reconciliation at the price of betrayal. And there were men like Bernaldez, the parish priest of Palacios, who applauded this procedure of the Holy Office. “A very glorious thing” (muy hazañosa cosa), he exclaims, “was the reconciliation of these people, as thus by their confessions were discovered all that were Judaizers, and in Seville knowledge was obtained of Judaizers in Toledo, Cordova, and Burgos.”70

Upon the expiry of the term of grace a further edict was published by Morillo and San Martin, in which they now commanded, under pain of mortal sin and greater excommunication, with its attendant penalties, the discovery of all persons known to be engaged in Judaizing practices.

And that there should be no excuse offered by any on the score of ignorance of such practices, these were published in thirty-seven articles appended to the edict, articles whose malign comprehensiveness left no man secure.

They set forth the following signs by which New-Christians guilty of Judaizing might be recognized:

I. Any who await the Messiah, or say that he has not yet come, and that he will come to lead them out of captivity into the promised land.

II. Any who after baptism have returned expressly to the Mosaic faith.

III. Any who declare that the law of Moses is as good as that of Jesus Christ and as efficient for salvation.

IV. Any who keep the Sabbath in honour of the law of Moses—of which the proof is afforded by their assuming clean shirts and more decent garments than on other days, and clean covers on the table, as well as by their refraining from lighting fires and from engaging in all work from Friday evening.

V. Any who strip the tallow or fat from meats that they are to eat and purify it by washing in water, bleeding it, or extracting the glandule from the leg of lambs or other animals slaughtered for food.

VI. Any who cut the throats of animals or poultry that are intended for food, first testing the knife on their finger-nail, covering the blood with earth, and uttering certain words that are customary among Jews.

VII. Any who eat meat in Lent and on other days on which it is forbidden by Holy Church.

VIII. Any who keep the great fast of the Jews known by different names, or the fast of Chiphurim or Quipur in the tenth Hebrew month—whereof the proof shall be their having gone barefoot during the period of the said fast, as is the custom of the Jews, their having said Jewish prayers, or asked pardon one of another, or fathers having laid hands upon the heads of their children without making the sign of the Cross or saying anything but “By God and by me be thou blessed.”

IX and X. Any who keep the fast of Queen Esther, which is observed by the Jews in memory and imitation of what they did in captivity in the reign of Ahasuerus, or the fast of Rebeaso.

XI. Any who shall keep other fasts peculiar to the Jews, such as those of Monday and Thursday, of which the proof shall be: their not eating on such days until after the appearance of the first evening star; their having abstained from meat; their having washed on the previous day or cut their nails or the points of their hair, keeping or burning these; their reciting certain Jewish prayers, raising or lowering their heads with their faces to the wall, after washing their hands in water or in earth; their dressing themselves in sackcloth and girding themselves with cords or strips of leather.

XII, XIII, and XIV concern any who keep the Paschal seasons; which is to be discovered by their setting up green boughs, inviting to table and sending presents of comestibles, and the keeping of the feast of candles.

XV to XIX concern any who observe Hebrew table-customs: whether they bless their viands according to the Jewish custom, whether they drink “lawful” wine—i.e. wine that has been pressed by Jews—and eat meat that has been slaughtered by Jews.

XX. Any who recite the Psalms of David without concluding with the versicle “Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritu Sancto.”

XXI. Any woman who abstains from going to church for forty days after delivery of child, out of reverence for the law of Moses.

XXII to XXVI concern any who circumcise their children, give them Hebrew names, or after baptism cause their heads to be shaven where anointed with the sacred oil, or any who cause their children to be washed on the seventh day after birth in a basin in which, in addition to the water, they have placed gold and silver, pearls, wheat, barley, and other things.

XXVII. Any who are married in the Jewish manner.

XXVIII. Any who hold the Ruaya—which is a valedictory supper before setting out upon a long journey.

XXIX and XXX. Any who carry Hebrew relics or make burnt-offerings of bread.

XXXI. Any who in articulo mortis have turned or been turned with their faces to the wall to die in this attitude.

XXXII. Any who wash a corpse in warm water or shave it according to the Jewish custom, and otherwise dress it for the grave as is prescribed by the Mosaic law.

XXXIII to XXXVI concern Jewish expressions of mourning, such as the abstaining from meat, the spilling of water from the jars in the dwelling of the deceased, etc.

XXXVII. Any who bury their dead in virgin soil or in a Jewish cemetery.71

Reference has already been made to the inherent character of many Jewish customs, which even the most sincere of New-Christians retained despite themselves; these customs, being racial rather than religious, were very far from signifying Judaic apostasy, since they contained nothing that was directly opposed to the Christian teaching. In the list published by the Seville inquisitors it will be seen that such customs were deliberately included as evidences of apostasy.

Consider Articles IV, V, and VII, concerning the assumption of clean linen on Saturdays and the stripping of fat from beef and mutton, which nowise offend against the Christian faith, and might well be the perpetuation of customs acquired before baptism was received.

Even more flagrant is Article XXXI, which lays it down as evidence of Judaizing that a man shall turn his face to the wall when at the point of death; but most flagrant of all is Article XXVIII, concerning the valedictory meal partaken of before setting out upon a journey, for it is a custom that at all times has been as much in vogue among Christians as among men of any other religion.

Clearly not a New-Christian in Seville was safe from the delations of the malevolent, since such ridiculously slight grounds of suspicion were set forth by the tribunal. So extravagant and absurd are some of these articles that one is forced to agree with Llorente, that in formulating them the inquisitors proceeded with deliberate malice. He contends that deliberately they cast a wide net that by their heavy draught they should satisfy the Queen that she had heard no more than the truth as to the extent to which Judaizing was rampant in Castile, and the urgent need there was for the introduction of the Inquisition.

Whether in this they proceeded according to instructions received from Torquemada or Ojeda does not transpire, but there can be little doubt that the results obtained must have been in accordance with the wishes of both, since they justified to the Queen the representations these friars had so insistently made to her.

And the system of espionage which the inquisitors set up to increase their haul of victims was as sly and cunning as anything in the history of spying. Conceive the astuteness of the friar who climbed to the roof of the Convent of St. Paul on Saturday mornings to observe and note the houses of New-Christians from whose chimneys no smoke was to be seen issuing, that he might lay the information thus obtained before the tribunal, which would proceed to arrest the inhabitants upon a strong suspicion that they were Judaizers who would not desecrate the Sabbath by lighting fires.72

“What,” asks Llorente, “could be expected of a tribunal that began in this way?” And he at once supplies the answer: “That which happened—neither more nor less.”

With the methods of procedure that obtained in the trials conducted by these inquisitors we need not just now concern ourselves. For the moment it is enough to say that to the vices inherent in such a judicial system must be added, in the case of the first inquisitors of Seville, a zeal—not only to convict, but actually to be burning heretics—so ferociously excessive as to proclaim that they were gratifying their hatred of these Jews.

This upon the word of that sober chronicler Pulgar, who, whilst in general terms approving the introduction of the Inquisition, as has been seen, denounces in the following particular terms the practices of Morillo and San Martin: “In the manner in which they conducted their proceedings they showed that they held those people in hatred.”73

The Auto of February 6 was followed by another on March 26, at which seventeen victims were burnt on the fields of Tablada. And now that the fires were lighted, the inquisitors saw to it that they were well supplied with human fuel. Burnings followed one another at such a rate that by the month of November—upon the word of Llorente—298 condemned had been sent to the flames in the town of Seville alone, whilst 79 others by reconciling themselves to the Church secured the commutation of their sentence to one of perpetual imprisonment.

Mariana, the historian who gave thanks to God for the introduction of the Inquisition into Castile, informs us with flagrant calm that the number of Judaizers burnt in the Archbishopric during that year 1481 amounted to 8,000, whilst some 17,000 were submitted to penance.

In addition to those burnt alive, many who had fled the country were burnt in effigy, having been tried and found guilty during an absence described as contumacious. And similarly the court went through the horrible farce of sitting in judgment upon many who were dead, and, having convicted them, it dug up their bones and flung these to the flames.

Such was the prodigious activity of the Holy Office, and to such an extent did its holocausts promise to continue, that the Governor of Seville ordered the erection on the fields of Tablada of a permanent platform of stone of vast proportions known as the Quemadero, or Burning-place. It was adorned by figures of the four Prophets. At each of its four corners towered one of these colossal statues of plaster, and Llorente tells us that they were not merely for ornament. He says that they were hollow and so contrived that a condemned person might be placed in each and so die by slow fire.74

This Quemadero remained standing, a monument to religious intolerance and fanatical cruelty, until the soldiers of Napoleon demolished it in the nineteenth century.75

So ruthless were Morillo and San Martin, and so negligent of equity or even the observance of the ordinary rules of judicial procedure, that in the end we find the Pope himself—in January of 1482—addressing a letter of protest to the Sovereigns.

The first edict commanding the nobles to arrest all those who had fled from Seville had had the effect of driving many of these fugitive New-Christians farther afield in their quest for safety. Some had escaped into Portugal, others had crossed the Mediterranean and sought shelter in Morocco, whilst others still had taken their courage in both hands and sought sanctuary in Rome itself, at the very feet of the Pontiff. Other fugitives followed presently, when the tribunal had already inaugurated its terrible work; and these came clamouring their grievances and protesting that in spite of their innocence they dared no longer remain in a State where no New-Christian was safe from the hatred and injustice shown by the inquisitors to men of their race. Therefore they were driven to seek from Christ’s Vicar the protection to which all Christians and true Catholics were entitled at his hands.