where he made his deposition. To the end, however, the tribunal maintained the position that, if any constraint was used, it would resist and protect the familiar unless a competencia decided to the contrary.[1184]
It was not the secular courts alone that had these perpetual conflicts with the Inquisition. Like Ishmael, its hand was against every man and every man’s hand was against it—but, in fact, this was to a great extent the case between all the different jurisdictions among which the various classes of society were parcelled out by their several privileges and exemptions. Next to the royal courts ranked the spiritual courts in the number and complexity of debatable questions with the Inquisition. With these there were two sources of contention, for they not only claimed by prescriptive right exclusive jurisdiction in all temporal matters over all who wore the tonsure, but there was a broad field for discussion in the somewhat hazy delimitation of spiritual offences justiciable by one or the other. This latter subject will engage our attention hereafter; at present we are concerned only with the questions arising from the personnel of the Holy Office. Notoriously lax as were the episcopal courts with offenders of the cloth, the Inquisition had the reputation of still greater indulgence with those who were under its protection; clerics who were also officials therefore preferred its tribunals, giving rise to frequent quarrels in which the inquisitors treated their clerical opponents as remorselessly as they did the secular officials and judges. The episcopal Ordinaries, provisors and vicars-general contended that they had, except in cases of faith, exclusive jurisdiction over all clerics; that the temporal jurisdiction of the Inquisition was a royal grant which could not supersede the canon law and that the papal commissions only gave faculties for punishing official malfeasance. To this unanswerable argument the inquisitors paid little heed and the prelates were worse off than the judges for these at least had the Councils of Castile or Aragon to struggle for them, but the Councils admitted that they had no standing in ecclesiastical quarrels. The natural recourse of the prelates for protection was to Rome, but this was a subject of intense jealousy, traditional in the Spanish monarchy, and Philip III, in a cédula of January 21, 1611, addressed to all the prelates of his dominions, told them that they must appeal only to the Suprema and forbade them to carry any case to the Holy See.[1185]
THE SPIRITUAL COURTS
There could thus be no competencia; the conflicts between the two jurisdictions were one-sided and were conducted by the tribunals with the same overbearing arrogance as that displayed towards secular magistrates. The first summons on the provisor or vicar-general inhibited him, under pain of excommunication and a heavy fine, from further action, ordering him, within twenty-four hours, to remit the case to the Inquisition and to discharge the prisoner under bail to present himself before the tribunal, while the notary was required to surrender all the papers. If this was not obeyed, it was followed by another, commanding obedience within six hours, in default of which all beneficed priests were required, under similar penalties, to publish the provisor and notary as excommunicates and to place their names on the lists as such. A circular letter was also addressed to all priests, chaplains and sacristans of the district, to admonish all persons, within six hours and under pain of excommunication, to avoid the provisor and notary, to make no pleadings before them, to hold no communication with them and not to furnish them with bread or wine, fish or flesh, while a public edict to the same effect was issued to all the people. In case of continued obduracy, these measures were promptly followed by an edict to all the clergy, ordering them to anathematize the provisor and notary with tolling bells and extinguished candles, proclaiming them accursed of God and his saints—“accursed be the bread that they eat and the bed on which they sleep and the beasts on which they ride, and may their souls perish in hell like the candles in the water: let them be comprehended in the sentence of Sodom and Gomorrha and of Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed for disobedience, and may all the curses of Psalm Deus laudem meam (Ps. CVIII, a fearful commination) light on them!” If this did not suffice within twenty-four hours, an interdict followed, tolling bells and performing divine service in low tone with locked doors, until otherwise ordered. In case this failed, the last step was a cessatio a divinis, or cessation of church services in the city where the offenders lived, in order to coerce them with popular clamor.[1186] It was difficult for either lay or clerical officials to contend with opponents who wielded such weapons as these.
The irresponsible exercise of such powers inevitably led to their abuse. In the Concordia of 1568 it is highly suggestive to find a clause forbidding inquisitors to issue, as they have been accustomed, to familiars and officials, general inhibitions protecting them from the ecclesiastical courts; such inhibitions are to be special and issued only in each case as it may occur. Equally significant is another which says that in no case belonging by law to the provisor shall the inquisitor intervene against his will.[1187] The strained relations resulting between the ecclesiastical body and the Holy Office are alluded to in the project of reform, presented to the Suprema in 1623, which says that the clerical commissioners and their notaries bring about many conflicts with the ecclesiastical judges and, as there are no Concordias, the inquisitors are wont to arrogate to themselves greater jurisdiction than belongs to them, which causes much murmuring and resentment of the prelates and clergy. The writer piously wishes that this could be avoided, but he evidently has no remedy to propose.[1188]
A conflict caused by one of these local notaries in 1609 amply justified the murmurs of the prelates. The priest of Cabra, who occupied the almost nominal position of local notary, was a notorious incestuous concubinarian, who had not for eight years celebrated mass or recited prayers. The provisor of Córdova commenced a prosecution and threw him into the episcopal gaol, when he claimed the fuero of the Inquisition. The provisor had been on friendly terms with the three inquisitors and sought an amicable settlement of the matter when, by a trick, they obtained possession of the papers and inhibited him from further proceedings. He appealed to the Suprema and was excommunicated. Four times the Suprema ordered the inquisitors to abandon the case and remove the censure, but they persistently disobeyed. All the officials of the episcopal court were ordered to hold no communication with him, which threw the whole business of the diocese into confusion, for the bishop was absent and the provisor was his representative. The culprit escaped from the episcopal gaol and was harbored by the tribunal. Passion was becoming acute; a band of familiars and officials broke into the episcopal palace and endeavored to carry off the provisor, but he was rescued by the canons in a dilapidated condition and took to his bed. Then the inquisitors pronounced the magic word—a matter of faith—which brought to their aid the corregidor and municipal authorities, who came with a troop of soldiers and carried him off on his bed, to the sound of drums and trumpets. He was taken to the Inquisition and confined for two months in a small cell, tried without opportunity for defence and sentenced to forfeit his office of provisor, to four years of banishment and other penalties, and copies of the sentence were circulated throughout the city. The bishop had sought to come to his rescue by excommunicating the inquisitors; they disregarded the censures, threatened to prosecute him if he did not remove them and did prosecute some of the canons as conspiring against the Inquisition, because they had been elected by the chapter to aid the bishop in defending the provisor.[1189]
THE SPIRITUAL COURTS
Such a sentence against a church dignitary of high rank required confirmation by the Suprema, which must have been given, for appeal was made to Philip III. He rendered some satisfaction by dismissing and banishing all secular officials who had been concerned in the arrest and wounding of the provisor, but the inquisitors, whose mere tools they had been, were left undisturbed.[1190] Yet it was impossible that an affair which had aroused the attention of all Spain should pass without an attempt to prevent the recurrence of such scandals. There had been a threat, and possibly more than a threat, to appeal to Rome in defence of the bishop and clergy of Córdova, which led to the cédula of January 21, 1611, alluded to above, restricting their recourse to the Suprema. In urging this the Suprema, in a consulta of November 15, 1610, admitted that these troubles arose from the aggressions of the tribunals and their unnecessary multiplication of nominal officials; it had recently issued three cartas acordadas on the subject and had written to all the bishops asking reports of such excesses so as to remedy them. Philip in reply authorized the Suprema to draft such a cédula as it desired but ordered it to be so framed
