the ecclesiastical judge before it and his disregard of the summons was followed by a decree of banishment and seizure of temporalities. The inquisitors denied their liability to this, the Catalans asserted it, and the endeavor to enforce it was a serious cause of quarrel. It was not without influence, for a memorial, in 1632, from the inquisitors complains that the Duke of Maqueda, when viceroy in 1592, had employed it against the tribunal, since when the veneration felt for the latter had greatly declined, and a complaint of the Catalan authorities to Carlos II, in 1695, describes it as the sole refuge and protection of the people from the oppression of the inquisitors and ecclesiastical judges.[1122]
We have already seen the Concordia reached in 1512, abolishing most of the then existing abuses; how it was sworn to by king, inquisitor-general and inquisitors, and how a similar oath was to be taken by all future inquisitors; how Leo X obligingly released them all from their oaths; how Ferdinand, just before his death, accepted the conditions, in December, 1515, and the complaisant pontiff, in the bull Pastoralis officii, confirmed them, and how Barcelona, in return, bound itself to a yearly subvention of six hundred ducats. It is well to recall these facts in view of the bare-faced denials with which subsequently the Catalan complaints of non-observance were persistently met. Even while the papal dispensation from the oaths was still in force, the Instructions issued by Inquisitor-general Mercader, in 1514, prescribed rules which, if observed, would have removed the leading causes of complaint. Any official or familiar committing a crime deserving of corporal punishment was to be denounced to him, when he would dismiss the culprit and punish the inquisitor who tolerated it. The civil suits of officials were to be brought in the court of the defendant; if the official was plaintiff, all proceedings before an inquisitor were pronounced invalid and both official and inquisitor were to be punished; even when both parties to a contract agreed to accept the forum of the tribunal, inquisitors were forbidden, under pain of punishment, to entertain the case. Secular officials could arrest familiars caught in the act. Officials were forbidden to engage in trade, even through third parties, and were deprived of the fuero for all matters thence arising, and similarly if they purchased claims subject to suits, nor could they employ other officials to collect debts connected with their private estates.[1123] Although these Instructions were in force for only a year or two, they have interest as manifesting Ferdinand’s purpose that the Holy Office should not be distracted from its legitimate functions or be used to oppress his subjects or to minister to private greed. He could, at the same time, believe that it required special privileges, for it did not as yet inspire awe in so turbulent a population. In that same year, 1514, at Lérida, the inquisitor Canon Antist was besieged in his house and the assailants were with difficulty beaten off, after which they defiantly walked the streets, uttering challenges to his defenders.[1124]
A further victory was gained by the Catalans at the Córtes of Monzon in 1520, when, on December 28th, Cardinal Adrian, in the most solemn manner, not only swore to observe the articles of 1512 but presented for attestation a document from Queen Juana and Charles V, promising investigation and redress of charges brought against certain officials, and enacting that, to prevent such abuses for the future, all offences disconnected with the faith, committed by officials, should be tried by the ordinary courts, thus depriving them of the much-prized criminal passive fuero. This, too, Adrian swore to observe when the necessary papal confirmation should be obtained—a confirmation which the Inquisition probably had sufficient influence to prevent, as there appears to be no further trace of it.[1125]
CATALONIA
The articles of 1512 thus were a compact in which the Catalans, the king, the Inquisition and the pope all joined in the most solemn manner, pledging all future inquisitors to swear to them. For a while this latter clause was observed. Fernando Loazes, who was inquisitor of Barcelona for twenty years from about 1533, took the oath, but he was promptly involved in a quarrel with the magistrates in which Juan de Cardona, Bishop-elect of Barcelona, was induced, as papal commissioner, to prosecute him for perjury, and after that no inquisitor took the oath.[1126] In this they were wise for they emancipated themselves completely from the Concordia. The Córtes of 1547 complained of the inordinate multiplication of familiars, over the thirty allowed by it, and of the neglect to furnish lists or other means for their identification, together with other infractions, but Prince Philip replied that he would consult the Suprema and would reach appropriate conclusions, which of course ended the matter.[1127] How completely the provisions of the Concordia were ignored is manifest in 1551, when Catalina Murciana asked relief in the veguer’s court from suits brought against her in the Inquisition by the fiscal, the Abbot of Besalú, when she was entitled to her own court. On refusal of redress by the inquisitor, Juan Arias, a monitorio was obtained from the Banch Reyal, whereupon Arias threw the officials of the veguer’s court into prison and kept them there. The matter was carried up to the Royal Councils with the result that the judges of the Audiencia were ordered to erase all record of the affair from their dockets and appear in person before the inquisitor to report to him that it was duly expunged.[1128]
Thus supported by the monarch, the tribunal exercised its powers at discretion without regard to compacts. The report, in 1561, by Inquisitor Gaspar Cervantes of the visitation which he had just completed, describes the disorders which had long reigned in all departments. The last visitation had been made in 1550 and its recommendations had been wholly ignored. It had ordered a reduction in the number of familiars and that lists of them be sent to the Suprema, which had not been done; in fact the tribunal itself had kept no correct register; it had a hundred and eight names recorded for Barcelona, but when they were ordered to present their papers under penalty of being dropped, only sixty-eight of these came forward, while there were thirty-one who were not registered. The number, he said, should be reduced and more care be exercised in the selection; many of the laymen were bandits and the clerics were men of bad character, who sought the office to obtain exemption from their prelates. All this resulted in so much secular business that it seemed to be the real duty of the tribunal and that nothing else was attended to—in fact there was so little to do in matters of faith that the inquisitors could well be spared from Barcelona and employ themselves in visiting their district. All this is explicable by the exorbitance of the fees charged, about which there was much complaint. There was no authorized fee-bill. In civil cases the inquisitors charged from two and a half to ten per cent. on the amount at issue, depending on its magnitude, with a maximum of seventy-five libras; in criminal cases they received nothing but had the opportunity of inflicting fines. The officials had fees for every act, drawing and copying papers, serving notices, summoning witnesses, levying executions, etc., etc., and there was a standing quarrel between the notaries of the three departments—of the secreto, or tribunal of faith, of sequestrations and of the juzgado, or court of confiscations—as to which should have the business.[1129]
CATALONIA
That the Córtes of Monzon, in 1563–4, should protest energetically against these abuses was natural. Indeed, a Catalan named Gaspar Mercader carried the protest so far as to say, among other odious things, that the Inquisition had been introduced only for a limited time which had expired and that it should be abolished, for which the tribunal arrested, tried and punished him.[1130] In spite of this interference with the freedom of debate, the general disaffection, as we have seen, led to the visitation of de Soto Salazar. In Barcelona he found that not the slightest attention had been paid to the orders of the Suprema based on the report of Cervantes. Advocates, familiars and commissioners continued to be appointed in profusion, without investigation as to fitness. When an inquisitor visited his district he carried with him blank commissions which he distributed at will. All these, with their families, were protected and defended by the tribunal in civil and criminal cases, nor was this all, for it would seem that any one who claimed the fuero, whether he was entitled to it or not, was admitted and, in the absence of lists filed with the magistrates, the latter had no means of resisting the arrogant and peremptory demand of the tribunal to surrender cases. Instances were given which showed that the tribunal was a court where justice—or rather injustice—was bought and sold and there had been no reform in the excessive fees which had scandalized Cervantes.[1131]
