ecclesiastical and royal jurisdictions rendered it the sole judge of all that concerned its officials, show that the old spirit still lingered and found expression whenever it dared.[1223] Carlos III, however, was even more assertive of the royal prerogative than his brother Fernando. We have seen his orders of 1763 concerning municipal and police regulations which included the prohibitions of carrying concealed weapons and exporting money, in all of which familiars were wholly removed from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, and in 1775 a competencia in Córdova caused him emphatically to order the inviolable observance of this decree.[1224] All this led to the change in the commissions of familiars as regards carrying arms, which was brought about, in 1777, by the authorities of Alcalá la Real and Seville refusing to register commissions issued by the tribunals of Toledo and Seville, because they were not in accordance with the new regulations. In place, as of old, of blustering and coercing the magistrates, the Suprema collected from all the tribunals the formulas employed by them and framed a new one, phrased in a very different spirit and in accordance with the royal edicts.[1225]
That the endless quarrels which we have been considering ought to be settled in an amicable manner was so self-evident that, from an early period, persistent efforts had been made to accomplish it, resulting in the “competencia” so frequently alluded to above. Originally it would seem that there was no established procedure and that the Inquisition settled for itself all questions arising with the magistrates. After the first opposition had been broken down these were not numerous, until the attribution of the fuero to the officials, and the enormous multiplication of familiars and other unsalaried officers, gave occasion for collisions with the courts. The earliest attempt that I have met to provide a method of settlement is a cédula, issued about 1535 by the empress-regent in the absence of Charles V, ordering that, when there was a dispute about jurisdiction, the president and judges of the royal court should meet the inquisitors and arrange matters harmoniously, so that it should not be known that there had been a difference between them. It was in conformity with this that, in 1542, when Joaquin de Tunes was tried in Barcelona for the murder of Juan Ballell, a familiar, the inquisitor, Miguel Puig, held a conference with the regent and judges of the royal chancellery, prior to the arrest, and the custody of the accused was settled without difficulty. It was impossible, however, to preserve peace between classes mutually jealous, and we have seen (p. 435) the troubles which Prince Philip endeavored to settle by the cédula of May 15, 1545. This favored the royal jurisdiction and produced complaints from the Suprema as when, in 1548, it represented to Charles V that in Granada the judges made the cédula a pretext to intervene in the business of the tribunal, whenever any one made a complaint, requiring the inquisitors to interrupt their work and come to the Audiencia, when they were ordered not to proceed and, if this was disobeyed, the judges raised a great disturbance. All this would cease if the old rule were restored that any one feeling aggrieved must appeal to the Suprema where he would get justice.[1226] Prince Philip’s cédula of 1553 settled this as far as concerned matters of faith, but neither it nor the Castilian Concordia of the same year could prevent disputes over the immunities of the officials and familiars which the Inquisition was persistently endeavoring to extend. The Concordia, however, endeavored to provide for the settlement of these by the process described above (p. 436) which became technically known as competencia. It is remarkable that, in the Valencia Concordia of 1554, there is no such provision, but in that of 1568, for the Aragonese kingdoms, it appears in the slightly different form that the regent of the Audiencia and the senior inquisitor should consult and endeavor to come to some agreement. If they could not do so, the regent was to send his side of the case to the Council of Aragon and the inquisitor his to the Suprema, when the king would arrange how the matter should be decided.[1227] The two formulas were combined in practice and remained the established method of settling conflicts of jurisdiction.
This should have produced peace but we have seen that it only gave occasion for fresh subjects of discord. The inquisitors were restive under any restraint on their arbitrary methods and already in 1560, a carta acordada of November 14th warns them that they are not to proceed with censures against the judges, when the latter offer competencias, but are to send the papers to the Suprema and await the result, under a penalty of twenty ducats for every infraction of the rule.[1228] The inquisitors however avoided competencias as far as they could and, when obliged to concede them, the opportunity was taken of humiliating the royal judges and make them feel their inferiority in a manner most galling to men so tenacious of the respect due to position and so insistent on courtesy. When de Soto Salazar reports of the inquisitors of Barcelona that, when they had occasion to notify the lieutenant of the king or the regent of the Audiencia, they sent a messenger to summon him and then kept him waiting in the antechamber and that sometimes they called the judges before them and scolded them without cause, we can readily appreciate the intensity of the hatred thus excited.[1229]
COMPETENCIAS
So, when the Inquisition established its formula for competencias, they were sedulously framed to be as arrogantly insulting as possible. The first mandate inhibits peremptorily the judge from action and orders him to remit the case to the tribunal within twenty-four hours. If an arrest has been made the prisoner is to be discharged on bail to present himself before the inquisitors and any property seized or sequestrated is to be released. If the secular judge has any reason to allege to the contrary he is to present himself in person or by procurator to the tribunal, which will render justice, and all this is under holy obedience and the threat of major excommunication and a heavy fine. If there are any papers in the case the scrivener is ordered to surrender them, and the accuser or plaintiff is to appear within a time specified and receive justice, in default of which the case will be heard without him and without further notice. Then, if a reply is made to this alleging reasons for not obeying, a second mandate is issued pronouncing them insufficient and ordering the first one to be obeyed within a specified time under the above penalties. If the judge then proposes a competencia, a mandate is sent to him reciting the previous ones and saying that, to avoid, troubling the higher powers, he is ordered to surrender all papers and suspend all action, or the excommunication and fine will be enforced on his person and property. The next mandate accepts the competencia, states that the tribunal is ready to forward its papers and orders the judges to send their side within twelve days, adding a threat of excommunication and fine if any additional testimony be taken in the case. All this is phrased in the most mandatory fashion as of a superior addressing a subordinate and all these missives are ordered to be returned to the tribunal. If, after a competencia was formed, the familiar or official accepted the jurisdiction of the secular court, he was deprived of his commission. As we have frequently seen, there was no hesitation, at any stage of the proceedings, to excommunicate the judges, to anathematize them and to lay an interdict on the city, followed by a cessatio a divinis.[1230]
In addition to the gratification of thus humiliating the magistrates, there was also in this truculence the object of rendering the process so offensive as to make them shrink from resisting the encroachments of the Inquisition. When this failed the tribunal had abundant sources of annoyance in raising interminable questions of precedence and formalities, which were sometimes fought so bitterly and long as virtually to supersede the original case. The points that could be raised were endless. In 1602, the Count of Benavente, then Viceroy of Valencia, issued letters ordering a conference over the arrest of Gerónimo Falcon; the tribunal surrendered him, admitting that the case did not pertain to it, but demanded that the viceroy and chancellery should cancel the letters on their records and, on refusal, it excommunicated the regent. The matter was carried up to the Suprema and Council of Aragon, when the king decided that the letters must be expunged and it was done in presence of a secretary of the Inquisition. The same humiliation had been inflicted on the count’s father, when he was viceroy, and also on the Duke of Segorbe.[1231]
This arrogance continued until Carlos III, in his decree of 1775, informed the Inquisition that the royal jurisdiction which it exercised was on precisely the same level as that of his judges and magistrates; there must be entire equality between them; all threats of excommunication and fines must be abandoned; there must be free interchange of papers, mutual courtesy and no assumption of superiority. It was difficult for the tribunals to abandon the formulas which flattered their vanity and a second command was necessary, issued in 1783, on
