The History of the Inquisition of Spain from the Time of its Establishment to the Reign of Ferdinand Part 12

The inquisitor-general Manrique, being informed that the sect of sorcerers made great progress in different parts of the Peninsula, added several articles to the edict of denunciation: the substance of them was, that all Christians were obliged to declare to the Inquisition:

First, If they had heard that any person had familiar spirits, and that he invoked demons in circles, questioning them and expecting their answer, as a magician, or in virtue of an express or tacit compact; that he had mingled holy things with profane objects, and wors.h.i.+pped in the creature that which belongs only to the Creator.

Secondly, If he had studied judicial astrology to discover the future, by observing the conjunction of the stars at the birth of persons.

Thirdly, If any person in order to discover the future, had employed _geomancy_, _hydromancy_, _aeromancy_, _piromancy_, _onomancy_, _necromancy_, or sorceries by beans, dice, or wheat.

Fourthly, If a Christian had made an express compact with the devil, practised enchantments by magic, with instruments, circles, characters, or diabolical signs; by invoking and consulting demons, with the hope of a reply, and placing confidence in them; by offering them incense, or the _smoke_ of good or bad substances; by offering sacrifices to them; in abusing sacraments or holy things; by promising obedience to them, and adoring or wors.h.i.+pping them in any manner.

Fifthly, If any one constructed, or procured mirrors, rings, phials, or other vessels, for the purpose of attracting, enclosing, and preserving a demon, who replies to his questions, and a.s.sists him in obtaining his wishes; or who had endeavoured to discover the future, by interrogating the demons in possessed people; or tried to produce the same effect by invoking the devil under the name of _holy angel_ or _white angel_, and by asking things of him with prayers and humility; by practising other superst.i.tious ceremonies with vases, phials of water, or consecrated tapers; by the inspection of the nails, and of the palm of the hand rubbed with vinegar; or by endeavouring to obtain representations of objects by means of phantoms, in order to learn secret things, or which had not then happened.

Sixthly, If any one had read or possessed, or read or possessed at present, any ma.n.u.script or book on these matters, or concerning all other species of divination, which is not performed by natural and physical effects.

Although the edicts and punishments for sorcery were extremely severe, they have appeared from time to time in different parts of Spain. The history of the sorceresses of the valley of Bastan, in Navarre, has been particularly celebrated. These women were taken before the Inquisition of Logrono, and confessed the greatest extravagancies. They were condemned to an _auto-da-fe_, in 1610; their history was published at Madrid, in 1810, with very pleasant remarks by the Moliere of Spain, Don Leandro de Moratin, who deserves a better fate than he experiences.

_History of a famous Magician._

The history of Doctor Eugene Torralba, a physician of Cuenca, ought not to be pa.s.sed over, as it offers several remarkable events, and is mentioned in the _History of the famous knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha_. This person is also introduced in different parts of a poem, ent.i.tled, _Carlos Famoso_[10], composed by Louis Zapata, dedicated to Philip II., and printed at Valencia, in 1556.

The author of _Don Quixote_, in the adventure of the Countess Trifaldi, represents that famous knight, as mounted upon _Clavileno_, with Sancho Panza behind him, having their eyes covered; the squire wishes to uncover his eyes to see if they had arrived at the region of fire. Don Quixote says, "Take care not to do it, and remember the true history of the licentiate Torralba, who being mounted on a cane, with his eyes covered, was conveyed through the air by devils, and arrived at Rome in twelve hours, and descended on the tower of Nona, which is in a street of that city, where he saw the tumult, a.s.sault, and death of the Constable de Bourbon, and returned to Madrid before morning, where he gave an account of what he had seen. He also related that while he was in the air, the devil told him to open his eyes, and that he saw himself so near the moon that he might have touched it with his hand, and that he did not dare to look towards the earth for fear of fainting."

The Doctor Eugene Torralba was born in the town of Cuenca. In an examination he stated, that at the age of fifteen he went to Rome, where he was made a page of Don Francis Soderini, Bishop of Volterra, who was made a cardinal in 1503. He studied medicine under several masters, who in their disputes attacked the immortality of the soul, and though they did not succeed in convincing him, caused him to incline to pyrrhonism.

Torralba was a physician in 1501, at which period he became intimately acquainted with Master Alphonso of Rome, who had renounced the law of Moses for that of Mahomet, which he quitted for the Christian doctrine, and finished by preferring natural religion. Alphonso told him that Jesus Christ was only a man, and supported his opinion with several arguments: this doctrine did not entirely eradicate the faith of Torralba, but he no longer knew on which side the truth lay.

Among the friends he acquired at Rome, was a monk of St. Dominic, called Brother Peter. This man told him one day that he had in his service one of the good angels, whose name was _Zequiel_, so powerful in the knowledge of the future, that no other could equal him; but that he abhorred the practice of obliging men to make a compact with him; that he was always free, and only served the person who placed confidence in him through friends.h.i.+p, and that he allowed him to reveal the secrets he communicated, but that any constraint employed to force him to answer questions made him for ever abandon the society of the man to whom he had attached himself. Brother Peter asked him if he would not like to have _Zequiel_ for his friend, adding that he could obtain that favour on account of the friends.h.i.+p which subsisted between them; Torralba expressed the greatest desire to become acquainted with the spirit of Brother Peter.

_Zequiel_ soon appeared in the shape of a young man, fair, with flaxen hair, dressed in flesh colour, with a black surtout; he said to Torralba, _I will belong to thee as long as thou livest, and will follow thee wherever thou goest_. After this promise _Zequiel_ appeared to Torralba at the different quarters of the moon, and whenever he wished to go from one place to another, sometimes in the figure of a traveller, sometimes like a hermit. _Zequiel_ never spoke against the Christian religion, or advised him to commit any bad action; on the contrary, he reproached him when he committed a fault, and attended the church service with him: he always spoke in Latin or Italian, although he was with Torralba in Spain, France, and Turkey: he continued to visit him during his imprisonment but seldom, and did not reveal any secrets to him, and Torralba desired the spirit to leave him, because he caused agitation and prevented him from sleeping; but this did not prevent him from returning and relating things which wearied him.

Torralba went to Spain in 1502. Some time after he travelled over all Italy, and settled at Rome under the protection of Cardinal Volterra; he there acquired the reputation of a good physician, and engaged the favour of several cardinals. He studied chiromancy, and acquired some knowledge of the art. _Zequiel_ revealed to Torralba the secret virtues of several plants in curing certain maladies; having made use of this information to procure money, _Zequiel_ reproached him for it, saying, that as these remedies had cost him no labour, he ought to bestow them gratuitously.

Torralba having appeared sad sometimes because he was in want of money, the angel said to him, _Why are you sad for want of money?_ Some time after, Torralba found six ducats in his chamber, and the same thing was repeated several times, which made him suppose that _Zequiel_ had placed them there, although he would not acknowledge it when questioned.

The greatest part of the information which _Zequiel_ communicated to Torralba related to political occurrences. Thus, when Torralba returned to Spain in 1510, being at the court of Ferdinand the Catholic, _Zequiel_ told him that this prince would soon receive disagreeable news. Torralba hastened to inform the Archbishop of Toledo, Ximenez de Cisneros, and the great captain Gonzales Fernandez de Cordova; and the same day a courier brought letters from Africa, which announced the failure of the expedition against the Moors, and the death of Don Garcia de Toledo, son of the Duke of Alva, who commanded it.

Ximenez de Cisneros having learnt that the Cardinal de Volterra had seen _Zequiel_, expressed a wish to see him also, and to become acquainted with the nature and qualities of this spirit. Torralba, to gratify the archbishop, entreated the angel to appear to him under any human form: _Zequiel_ did not think proper to do so; but to soften the severity of his refusal, he commissioned Torralba to inform Ximenez de Cisneros that he would be a king, which was in a manner verified, as he became absolute governor of the Spains and the Indies.

Another time when he was at Rome, the angel told him that Peter Margano would lose his life if he went out of the city. Torralba had not time to inform his friend; he went out, and was a.s.sa.s.sinated.

_Zequiel_ told him that Cardinal Sienna would come to a tragical end, which was verified in 1517, after the sentence which Leo X. p.r.o.nounced against him.

When he returned to Rome in 1513, Torralba had a great desire to see his intimate friend Thomas de Becara, who was then at Venice. _Zequiel_, who knew his wish, took him to that city, and brought him back to Rome in so short a time, that the person with whom he was in the habit of a.s.sociating did not perceive his absence.

The Cardinal de Santa Cruz, in 1516, commissioned Torralba to pa.s.s a night with his physician, Doctor Morales, in the house of a Spanish lady named _Rosales_, to ascertain if what this woman related of a phantom which she saw every night in the form of a murdered man, was to be believed; Doctor Morales had remained a whole night in the house, and had not seen anything when the Spanish lady announced the presence of the ghost, and the Cardinal hoped to discover something by means of Torralba. At the hour of one the woman uttered her cry of alarm; Morales saw nothing, but Torralba perceived the figure, which was that of a dead man; behind him appeared another phantom with the features of a woman.

Torralba said to him with a loud voice, _What dost thou seek here?_ The phantom replied, _A treasure_, and disappeared. _Zequiel_, on being questioned, replied that under the house there was the body of a man who had been a.s.sa.s.sinated with a poignard.

In 1519, Torralba returned to Spain, accompanied by Don Diego de Zuniga, a relation of the Duke de Bejar, and brother to Don Antonio, grand prior of Castile, who was his intimate friend. At Barcelonetta, near Turin, while they were walking with the secretary Acebedo (who had been marshal of the camp in Italy and Savoy), Acebedo and Zuniga thought they saw something pa.s.s by Torralba which they could not define; he informed them that it was his angel _Zequiel_, who had approached to speak to him.

Zuniga wished much to see him, but _Zequiel_ would not appear.

At Barcelona, Torralba saw, in the house of the Canon Juan Garcia, a book on chiromancy, and in some notes a process for winning money at play. Zuniga wished to learn it, and Torralba copied the characters, and told his friend to write them himself on paper with the blood of a bat, and keep them about his person while he played.

Being at Valladolid in 1520, Torralba told Don Diego that he would return to Rome, because he had the means of getting there in a short time, by being mounted on a stick and guided through the air by a cloud of fire. Torralba really went to that city, where Cardinal Volterra and the grand prior requested him to give up his _familiar spirit_ to them.

Torralba proposed it to _Zequiel_, and even entreated him to consent, but without success.

In 1525 the angel told him that he would do well if he returned to Spain, because he would obtain the place of physician to the infanta Eleonora, queen dowager of Portugal, and afterwards married to Francis I., King of France. The doctor communicated this affair to the Duke de Bejar, and to Don Stephen-Manuel Merino, Archbishop of Bari; they solicited and obtained for him the place which he aspired to.

Lastly, on the 5th of May in the same year, _Zequiel_ told the doctor that Rome would be taken by the imperial troops the next day. Torralba entreated his angel to take him to Rome to witness this important event; he complied, and they left Valladolid at the hour of eleven at night: when they were at a short distance from the city, the angel gave Torralba a knotted stick, and said to him, _Shut your eyes, do not fear, take this in your hands, and no evil will befal you_. When the moment to open his eyes arrived, he found himself so near the sea, that he might have touched it with his hand; the black cloud which surrounded them was succeeded by a brilliant light, which made Torralba fear that he should be consumed. _Zequiel_ perceiving his fear, said, _Rea.s.sure yourself, fool!_ Torralba again closed his eyes, and when _Zequiel_ told him to open them, he found himself in the tower of Nona in Rome. They then heard the clock of the Castle St. Angelo sound the fifth hour of the night, which is midnight according to the manner of computing time in Spain, so that they had been travelling one hour. Torralba went all over Rome with _Zequiel_, and afterwards witnessed the pillage of the city: he entered the house of the Bishop Copis, a German, who lived in the tower of St. Ginia; he saw the Constable de Bourbon expire, the Pope shut himself up in the Castle of St. Angelo, and all the other events of that terrible day. In an hour and a half they had returned to Valladolid, where _Zequiel_ quitted him, saying, _Another time you will believe what I tell you_. Torralba published all that he had seen; and as the court soon received the same news, Torralba (who was then physician to the Admiral of Castile) was spoken of as a great magician.

These rumours were the cause of his denunciation; he was arrested at Cuenca by the Inquisition in the beginning of the year 1508. He was denounced by his intimate friend Diego de Zuniga, who, after having been as foolishly captivated as Torralba, with the miracles of the good angel, became fanatical and superst.i.tious. Torralba at first confessed all that has been related of _Zequiel_, supposing that he should not be tried for the doubts he had expressed of the immortality of the soul and the divinity of our Saviour. When the judges had collected sufficient evidence, they a.s.sembled to give their _votes_, but as they did not accord, they applied to the council, which decreed that Torralba should be tortured, _as much as his age and rank permitted_, to discover his motives in receiving and keeping near him the spirit _Zequiel_; and if he believed him to be a bad angel, as a witness declared that he had said so; if he had made a compact with him; what had pa.s.sed at the first interview; if at that time or afterwards he had employed conjurations to invoke him; immediately after this the tribunal was to p.r.o.nounce the definitive sentence.

Torralba had never varied, until that time, in his account of his familiar spirit, whom he always affirmed to be of the order of good angels, but the torture made him say, that he now perceived him to be a bad angel, since he was the cause of his misfortune. He was asked if _Zequiel_ had told him that he would be arrested by the Inquisition; he replied that he had told him of it several times, desiring him not to go to Cuenca, because he would meet with a misfortune there, but that he thought he might disregard this advice. He also declared that there was no compact between them, and that every circ.u.mstance had pa.s.sed as he had related it.

The inquisitors considered all these details to be true; and after taking a new declaration from Torralba, they suspended his trial for the s.p.a.ce of one year, from motives of compa.s.sion, and with the hope of seeing if this famous necromancer would be converted, and confess the compact and sorcery which he had constantly denied.

A new witness recalled the memory of his dispute, and his doubts of the immortality of the soul, and the divinity of Jesus Christ, which caused another declaration of the Doctor in January, 1530. The council being informed of it, commanded the Inquisition to commission some pious and learned persons to endeavour to convert the accused. Francisco Antonio Barragan, prior of the Dominican Convent at Cuenca, and Diego Manrique, a canon of the cathedral, undertook this task, and exhorted him vehemently. The prisoner replied that he sincerely repented of his faults, but that it was impossible for him to confess what he had not done, and that he could not follow the advice given him, to renounce all communication with _Zequiel_ because the spirit was more powerful than he was; but he promised that he would not desire his presence, or consent to any of his propositions.

On the 6th of March, 1531, Torralba was condemned to the usual abjuration of all heresies, and to suffer the punishment of imprisonment and the _San-benito_ during the pleasure of the inquisitor-general; to hold no further communion with the spirit _Zequiel_, and never to attend to any of his propositions: these conditions were imposed on him for the safety of his conscience and the good of his soul.

The inquisitor soon put an end to the punishment of Torralba, in consideration, as he said, of all that he had suffered during an imprisonment of four years: but the true motive of the pardon granted to Torralba was the interest which the Admiral of Castile took in his fate; he retained him as his physician for several years after his judgment.

The truth of the marvellous facts related by Torralba rests solely upon his confession, and the report of the witnesses whom he had induced to believe all that he had told them. Torralba cited none but deceased persons in eight declarations which he made, except Don Diego de Zuniga.

It was necessary to remark this to show the degree of confidence to be placed in some parts of his narration. It may be supposed that a great number of different accounts of this affair were spread, to which I attribute the additions and alterations in some circ.u.mstances which Louis Zapata introduced into his poem of _Carlos Famoso_, thirty years after the sentence pa.s.sed on Torralba, and of those details which Cervantes eighty years later thought proper to put in the mouth of Don Quixote.

I terminate, by this account of Doctor Torralba, the history of the administration of Cardinal Don Alphonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville, who died in that city on the 28th of September, 1538, with the reputation of being a friend and benefactor to the poor. His charity and some other qualities worthy of his birth have gained him a place among the ill.u.s.trious men of his age. He had several natural children before he entered into orders: Don Jerome Manrique is cited as having been most worthy of his father; he successively attained the dignities of Provincial Inquisitor, Counsellor of the _Supreme_, Bishop of Carthagena and Avila, president of the Chancery of Valladolid, and, lastly, Inquisitor-general.

At the death of Don Alphonso Manrique, there were nineteen provincial tribunals; they were established at Seville, Cordova, Toledo, Valladolid, Murcia, Calahorra, Estremadura, Saragossa, Valencia, Barcelona, Majorca, in the Canaries, at Cuenca, in Navarre, Grenada, Sicily, Sardinia, in Tierra Firma, and the isles of the American Ocean.

The Inquisition of Jaen had been united to that of Grenada.

The Inquisition had afterwards three tribunals in America, at Mexico, Lima, and Carthagena. In the Indies they had been decreed but not organized.

By omitting the tribunals of America, Sardinia, and Sicily, we shall find that there were fifteen in Spain, which respectively burnt, annually, about ten individuals in person, five in effigy, and subjected fifty to different penances: so that in all Spain one hundred and fifty persons were burnt every year; sixty-five in effigy, and seven hundred and fifty suffered different canonical penances, which, multiplied by the fifteen years of the administration of Manrique, shows that two thousand two hundred and fifty individuals were burnt, one thousand one hundred and twenty-five in effigy, and eleven thousand two hundred and fifty condemned to penances; in all, fourteen thousand, six hundred and twenty-five condemnations. This number scarcely deserves to be mentioned in comparison with those of preceding times; but still it appears enormous, particularly if the excessive abuse of the secret proceedings is considered.

CHAPTER XVI.

OF THE TRIAL OF THE FALSE NUNCIO OF PORTUGAL, AND OTHER IMPORTANT EVENTS DURING THE TIME OF CARDINAL TABERA, SIXTH INQUISITOR-GENERAL.

_Quarrels of the Inquisition with the Court of Rome._

Charles V. appointed Cardinal Don Juan Pardo de Tabera, Archbishop of Toledo, to succeed Cardinal Manrique, in the office of inquisitor-general; his bulls of inst.i.tution were expedited in September 1539, and a month after he entered upon his office, so that the _Supreme_ Council governed the Inquisition for the s.p.a.ce of one year.

It was under the inquisitor Tabera, that the congregation of the holy office was founded at Rome, on the 1st of April, 1543. It gave the t.i.tle and privilege of inquisitors-general of the faith, for all the Christian world, to several cardinals; two of the number were Spaniards, Don Juan Alvarez de Toledo, Bishop of Burgos, a son of the Duke of Alva, and Don Thomas Badia, cardinal-priest of the t.i.tle of St. Silvestre, and master of the sacred palace. These two cardinals were of the order of St.

Dominic.

This new creation alarmed the Inquisition of Spain for its supremacy; but the Pope formally declared that it was not his intention to alter anything that had been established, and the inst.i.tution of the inquisitors-general would not interfere with the privileges of the other inquisitors. Yet the general Inquisition attempted several times to give laws to that of Spain, particularly in the prohibition of some writings which had been proscribed at Rome. The inquisitors-general wrote to those of Spain, to register the censure of the theologians, because they were to be looked upon as the most learned of the Catholic church, and because their opinion was supported by the confirmation of the supreme head of the church, whom the cardinals a.s.serted to be infallible when he acted (as in this case) as sovereign pontiff. He approved and commanded the decrees of the congregation of cardinals, to be received and executed with submission.