The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 23

[45] Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, nos. 322, 334, 341.--Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, pp. 92 et seq.

[46] Marina, Ensayo Historico-Critico, nos. 335-337.--Ordenancas Reales, lib. 1, t.i.t. 3, leyes 19, 20; lib. 2, t.i.t. 7, ley 2; lib. 3, t.i.t. 1, ley 6.--Riol, Informe, apud Semanario Erudito, loc. cit.--In the latter part of Henry IV.'s reign, a papal bull had been granted against the provision of foreigners to benefices. Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. vii. p. 196, ed Valencia.

[47] Riol, in his account of this celebrated concordat, refers to the original instrument, as existing in his time in the archives of Simancas, Semanario Erudito, tom. iii. p. 95.

[48] "Lo que es publico hoy en Espana e notorio," says Gonzalo de Oviedo, "nunca los Reyes Catholicos desearon ni procuraron sino que proveer e presentar para las dignidades de la Iglesia hombres capazes e idoneos para la buena administracion del servicio del culto divino, e a la buena ensenanza e utilidad de los Christianos sus vasallos; y entre todos los varones de sus Reynos asi por largo conoscimiento como per larga e secreta informacion acordaron encojer e elegir," etc. Quincuagenas, MS., dial. de Talavera.

[49] Salazar de Mendoza, Cron. del Gran Cardenal, lib. 1, cap. 52.--Idem, Dignidades de Castilla, p. 374.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap.

104.--See also the similar independent conduct pursued by Ferdinand, three years previous, with reference to the see of Taracona, related by Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 304.

[50] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 44.--See a letter from one of Henry's subjects, cited by Saez, Monedas de Enrique IV., p. 3.--Also the coa.r.s.e satire (composed in Henry's reign) of Mingo Revulgo, especially coplas 24-27.

[51] Pragmaticas del Reyno, fol. 64.--Ordenancas Reales, lib. 4, t.i.t. 4, ley 22; lib. 5, t.i.t. 8, ley 2; lib. 6, t.i.t. 9, ley 49; lib. 6, t.i.t. 10, ley 13.--See also other wholesome laws for the encouragement of commerce and general security of property, as that respecting contracts, (lib. 5, t.i.t. 8, ley 5,)--fraudulent tradesmen, (lib. 5, t.i.t. 8, ley 5,)-- purveyance, (lib. 6, t.i.t. 11, ley 2 et al.--Recopilacion de las Leyes, lib. 5, t.i.t. 20, 21, 22; lib. 6, t.i.t. 18, ley 1.--Pulgar, Reyes Catolicos, part. 2, cap. 99.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 312.--Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t. 11.)--The revenue, it appears, in 1477, amounted to 27,415,228 maravedies; and in the year 1482, we find it increased to 150,695,288 maravedies. (Ibid., Il.u.s.t. 5.)--A survey of the kingdom was made between the years 1477 and 1479, for the purpose of ascertaining the value of the royal rents, which formed the basis of the economical regulations adopted by the cortes of Toledo. Although this survey was conducted on no uniform plan, yet, according to Senor Clemencin, it exhibits such a variety of important details respecting the resources and population of the country, that it must materially contribute towards an exact history of this period. The compilation, which consists of twelve folio volumes in ma.n.u.script, is deposited in the archives of Simancas.

[52] One of the statutes pa.s.sed at Toledo expressly provides for the erection of s.p.a.cious and handsome edifices (_casas grandes y bien fechas_) for the transaction of munic.i.p.al affairs, in all the princ.i.p.al towns and cities in the kingdom. Ordenancas Reales, lib. 7, t.i.t. 1, ley 1.--See also L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, pa.s.sim,--et al. auct.

[53] "Cosa fue por cierto maravillosa," exclaims Pulgar, in his Glosa on the Mingo Revulgo, "que lo que muchos hombres, y grandes senores no se acordaron a hacer en muchos anos, _sola una muger_, con su trabajo, y gobernacion lo hizo en poco tiempo." Copla 21.

[54] The beautiful lines of Virgil, so often misapplied,

"Jam redit et Virgo; redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies," etc.

seem to admit here of a pertinent application.

[55] Carro de las Donas, apud Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. Il.u.s.t.

21.--As one example of the moral discipline introduced by Isabella in her court, we may cite the enactments against gaming, which had been carried to great excess under the preceding reigns. (See Ordenancas Reales, lib.

2, t.i.t. 14, ley 31; lib. 8, t.i.t. 10, ley 7.) L. Marineo, according to whom "h.e.l.l is full of gamblers," highly commends the sovereigns for their efforts to discountenance this vice. Cosas Memorables, fol. 165.

[56] See, for example, the splendid ceremony of Prince John's baptism, to which the gossipping Curate of Los Palacios devotes the 32d and 33d chapters of his History.

CHAPTER VII.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE MODERN INQUISITION.

Origin of the Ancient Inquisition.--Retrospective View of the Jews in Spain.--Their Wealth and Civilization.--Bigotry of the Age.--Its Influence on Isabella.--Her Confessor, Torquemada.--Bull authorizing the Inquisition.--Tribunal at Seville.--Forms of Trial.--Torture.--Autos da Fe.--Number of Convictions.--Perfidious Policy of Rome.

It is painful, after having dwelt so long on the important benefits resulting to Castile from the comprehensive policy of Isabella, to be compelled to turn to the darker side of the picture, and to exhibit her as accommodating herself to the illiberal spirit of the age in which she lived so far as to sanction one of the grossest abuses that ever disgraced humanity. The present chapter will be devoted to the establishment and early progress of the modern Inquisition; an inst.i.tution, which has probably contributed more than any other cause to depress the lofty character of the ancient Spaniard, and which has thrown the gloom of fanaticism over those lovely regions which seem to be the natural abode of festivity and pleasure.

In the present liberal state of knowledge, we look with disgust at the pretensions of any human being, however exalted, to invade the sacred rights of conscience, inalienably possessed by every man. We feel that the spiritual concerns of an individual may be safely left to himself as most interested in them, except so far as they can be affected by argument or friendly monition; that the idea of compelling belief in particular doctrines is a solecism, as absurd as wicked; and, so far from condemning to the stake, or the gibbet, men who pertinaciously adhere to their conscientious opinions in contempt of personal interests and in the face of danger, we should rather feel disposed to imitate the spirit of antiquity in raising altars and statues to their memory, as having displayed the highest efforts of human virtue. But, although these truths are now so obvious as rather to deserve the name of truisms, the world has been slow, very slow, in arriving at them, after many centuries of unspeakable oppression and misery.

Acts of intolerance are to be discerned from the earliest period in which Christianity became the established religion of the Roman empire. But they do not seem to have flowed from any systematized plan of persecution, until the papal authority had swollen to a considerable height. The popes, who claimed the spiritual allegiance of all Christendom, regarded heresy as treason against themselves, and, as such, deserving all the penalties, which sovereigns have uniformly visited on this, in their eyes, unpardonable offence. The crusades, which, in the early part of the thirteenth century, swept so fiercely over the southern provinces of France, exterminating their inhabitants, and blasting the fair buds of civilization which had put forth after the long feudal winter, opened the way to the Inquisition; and it was on the ruins of this once happy land, that were first erected the b.l.o.o.d.y altars of that tribunal. [1]

After various modifications, the province of detecting and punis.h.i.+ng heresy was exclusively committed to the hands of the Dominican friars; and in 1233, in the reign of St. Louis, and under the pontificate of Gregory the Ninth, a code for the regulation of their proceedings was finally digested. The tribunal, after having been successively adopted in Italy and Germany, was introduced into Aragon, where, in 1242, additional provisions were framed by the council of Tarragona, on the basis of those of 1233, which may properly be considered as the primitive instructions of the Holy Office in Spain. [2]

This ancient Inquisition, as it is termed, bore the same odious peculiarities in its leading features as the Modern; the same impenetrable secrecy in its proceedings, the same insidious modes of accusation, a similar use of torture, and similar penalties for the offender. A sort of manual, drawn up by Eymerich, an Aragonese inquisitor of the fourteenth century, for the instruction of the judges of the Holy Office, prescribes all those ambiguous forms of interrogation, by which the unwary, and perhaps innocent victim might be circ.u.mvented. [3] The principles, on which the ancient Inquisition was established, are no less repugnant to justice, than those which regulated the modern; although the former, it is true, was much less extensive in its operation. The arm of persecution, however, fell with sufficient heaviness, especially during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, on the unfortunate Albigenses, who from the proximity and political relations of Aragon and Provence, had become numerous in the former kingdom. The persecution appears, however, to have been chiefly confined to this unfortunate sect, and there is no evidence that the Holy Office, notwithstanding papal briefs to that effect, was fully organized in Castile, before the reign of Isabella. This is perhaps imputable to the paucity of heretics in that kingdom. It cannot, at any rate, be charged to any lukewarmness in its sovereigns; since they, from the time of St. Ferdinand, who heaped the f.a.gots on the blazing pile with his own hands, down to that of John the Second, Isabella's father, who hunted the unhappy heretics of Biscay, like so many wild beasts, among the mountains, had ever evinced a lively zeal for the orthodox faith. [4]

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the Albigensian heresy had become nearly extirpated by the Inquisition of Aragon; so that this infernal engine might have been suffered to sleep undisturbed from want of sufficient fuel to keep it in motion, when new and ample materials were discovered in the unfortunate race of Israel, on whom the sins of their fathers have been so unsparingly visited by every nation in Christendom, among whom they have sojourned, almost to the present century. As this remarkable people, who seem to have preserved their unity of character unbroken, amid the thousand fragments into which they have been scattered, attained perhaps to greater consideration in Spain than in any other part of Europe, and as the efforts of the Inquisition were directed princ.i.p.ally against them during the present reign, it may be well to take a brief review of their preceding history in the Peninsula.

Under the Visigothic empire the Jews multiplied exceedingly in the country, and were permitted to acquire considerable power and wealth. But no sooner had their Arian masters embraced the orthodox faith, than they began to testify their zeal by pouring on the Jews the most pitiless storm of persecution. One of their laws alone condemned the whole race to slavery; and Montesquieu remarks, without much exaggeration, that to the Gothic code may be traced all the maxims of the modern Inquisition, the monks of the fifteenth century only copying, in reference to the Israelites, the bishops of the seventh. [5]

After the Saracenic invasion, which the Jews, perhaps with reason, are accused of having facilitated, they resided in the conquered cities, and were permitted to mingle with the Arabs on nearly equal terms. Their common Oriental origin produced a similarity of tastes, to a certain extent, not unfavorable to such a coalition. At any rate, the early Spanish Arabs were characterized by a spirit of toleration towards both Jews and Christians, "the people of the book," as they were called, which has scarcely been found among later Moslems. [6] The Jews, accordingly, under these favorable auspices, not only acc.u.mulated wealth with their usual diligence, but gradually rose to the highest civil dignities, and made great advances in various departments of letters. The schools of Cordova, Toledo, Barcelona, and Granada were crowded with numerous disciples, who emulated the Arabians in keeping alive the flame of learning, during the deep darkness of the Middle Ages. [7] Whatever may be thought of their success in speculative philosophy, [8] they cannot reasonably be denied to have contributed largely to practical and experimental science. They were diligent travellers in all parts of the known world, compiling itineraries which have proved of extensive use in later times, and bringing home h.o.a.rds of foreign specimens and Oriental drugs, that furnished important contributions to the domestic pharmacopoeias. [9] In the practice of medicine, indeed, they became so expert, as in a manner to monopolize that profession. They made great proficiency in mathematics, and particularly in astronomy; while, in the cultivation of elegant letters, they revived the ancient glories of the Hebrew muse. [10] This was indeed the golden age of modern Jewish literature, which, under the Spanish caliphs, experienced a protection so benign, although occasionally checkered by the caprices of despotism, that it was enabled to attain higher beauty and a more perfect development in the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, than it has reached in any other part of Christendom. [11]

The ancient Castilians of the same period, very different from their Gothic ancestors, seem to have conceded to the Israelites somewhat of the feelings of respect, which were extorted from them by the superior civilization of the Spanish Arabs. We find eminent Jews residing in the courts of the Christian princes, directing their studies, attending them as physicians, or more frequently administering their finances. For this last vocation they seem to have had a natural apt.i.tude; and, indeed, the correspondence which they maintained with the different countries of Europe by means of their own countrymen, who acted as the brokers of almost every people among whom they were scattered during the Middle Ages, afforded them peculiar facilities both in politics and commerce. We meet with Jewish scholars and statesmen attached to the courts of Alfonso the Tenth, Alfonso the Eleventh, Peter the Cruel, Henry the Second, and other princes. Their astronomical science recommended them in a special manner to Alfonso the Wise, who employed them in the construction of his celebrated Tables. James the First of Aragon condescended to receive instruction from them in ethics; and, in the fifteenth century, we notice John the Second, of Castile, employing a Jewish secretary in the compilation of a national Cancionero. [12]

But all this royal patronage proved incompetent to protect the Jews, when their flouris.h.i.+ng fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to excite popular envy, augmented, as it was, by that profuse ostentation of equipage and apparel, for which this singular people, notwithstanding their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. [13] Stories were circulated of their contempt for the Catholic wors.h.i.+p, their desecration of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of Christian children, at the celebration of their own pa.s.sover. [14] With these foolish calumnies, the more probable charge of usury and extortion was industriously preferred against them, till at length, towards the close of the fourteenth century, the fanatical populace, stimulated in many instances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps encouraged by the numerous cla.s.s of debtors to the Jews, who found this a convenient mode of settling their accounts, made a fierce a.s.sault on this unfortunate people in Castile and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating their most private sanctuaries, scattering their costly collections and furniture, and consigning the wretched proprietors to indiscriminate ma.s.sacre, without regard to s.e.x or age. [15]

In this crisis, the only remedy left to the Jews was a real or feigned conversion to Christianity. St. Vincent Ferrier, a Dominican of Valencia, performed such a quant.i.ty of miracles, in furtherance of this purpose, as might have excited the envy of any saint in the Calendar; and these, aided by his eloquence, are said to have changed the hearts of no less than thirty-five thousand of the race of Israel, which doubtless must be reckoned the greatest miracle of all. [16]

The legislative enactments of this period, and still more under John the Second, during the first half of the fifteenth century, were uncommonly severe upon the Jews. While they were prohibited from mingling freely with the Christians, and from exercising the professions for which they were best qualified, [17] their residence was restricted within certain prescribed limits of the cities which they inhabited; and they were not only debarred from their usual luxury of ornament in dress, but were held up to public scorn, as it were, by some peculiar badge or emblem embroidered on their garments. [18] Such was the condition of the Spanish Jews at the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella. The _new Christians_, or _converts_, as those who had renounced the faith of their fathers were denominated, were occasionally preferred to high ecclesiastical dignities, which they ill.u.s.trated by their integrity and learning. They were intrusted with munic.i.p.al offices in the various cities of Castile; and, as their wealth furnished an obvious resource for repairing, by way of marriage, the decayed fortunes of the n.o.bility, there was scarcely a family of rank in the land, whose blood had not been contaminated, at some period or other, by mixture with the _mala sangre_, as it came afterwards to be termed, of the house of Judah; an ignominious stain, which no time has been deemed sufficient wholly to purge away. [19]

Notwithstanding the show of prosperity enjoyed by the converted Jews, their situation was far from secure. Their proselytism had been too sudden to be generally sincere; and, as the task of dissimulation was too irksome to be permanently endured, they gradually became less circ.u.mspect, and exhibited the scandalous spectacle of apostates returning to wallow in the ancient mire of Judaism. The clergy, especially the Dominicans, who seem to have inherited the quick scent for heresy which distinguished their frantic founder, were not slow in sounding the alarm; and the superst.i.tious populace, easily roused to acts of violence in the name of religion, began to exhibit the most tumultuous movements, and actually ma.s.sacred the constable of Castile in an attempt to suppress them at Jaen, the year preceding the accession of Isabella. After this period, the complaints against the Jewish heresy became still more clamorous, and the throne was repeatedly beset with pet.i.tions to devise some effectual means for its extirpation. [20]

A chapter of the Chronicle of the Curate of Los Palacios, who lived at this time in Andalusia, where the Jews seem to have most abounded, throws considerable light on the real, as well as pretended motives of the subsequent persecution. "This accursed race," he says, speaking of the Israelites, "were either unwilling to bring their children to be baptized, or, if they did, they washed away the stain on returning home. They dressed their stews and other dishes with oil, instead of lard; abstained from pork; kept the pa.s.sover; ate meat in lent; and sent oil to replenish the lamps of their synagogues; with many other abominable ceremonies of their religion. They entertained no respect for monastic life, and frequently profaned the sanct.i.ty of religious houses by the violation or seduction of their inmates. They were an exceedingly politic and ambitious people, engrossing the most lucrative munic.i.p.al offices; and preferred to gain their livelihood by traffic, in which they made exorbitant gains, rather than by manual labor or mechanical arts. They considered themselves in the hands of the Egyptians, whom it was a merit to deceive and plunder.

By their wicked contrivances they ama.s.sed great wealth, and thus were often able to ally themselves by marriage with n.o.ble Christian families."

[21]

It is easy to discern, in this medley of credulity and superst.i.tion, the secret envy, entertained by the Castilians, of the superior skill and industry of their Hebrew brethren, and of the superior riches which these qualities secured to them; and it is impossible not to suspect, that the zeal of the most orthodox was considerably sharpened by worldly motives.

Be that as it may, the cry against the Jewish abominations now became general. Among those most active in raising it, were Alfonso de Ojeda, a Dominican, prior of the monastery of St. Paul in Seville, and Diego de Merlo, a.s.sistant of that city, who should not be defrauded of the meed of glory to which they are justly ent.i.tled by their exertions for the establishment of the modern Inquisition. These persons, after urging on the sovereigns the alarming extent to which the Jewish leprosy prevailed in Andalusia, loudly called for the introduction of the Holy Office, as the only effectual means of healing it. In this they were vigorously supported by Niccolo Franco, the papal nuncio then residing at the court of Castile. Ferdinand listened with complacency to a scheme, which promised an ample source of revenue in the confiscations it involved. But it was not so easy to vanquish Isabella's aversion to measures so repugnant to the natural benevolence and magnanimity of her character. Her scruples, indeed, were rather founded on sentiment than reason, the exercise of which was little countenanced in matters of faith, in that day, when the dangerous maxim, that the end justifies the means, was universally received, and learned theologians seriously disputed whether it were permitted to make peace with the infidel, and even whether promises made to them were obligatory on Christians. [22]

The policy of the Roman church, at that time, was not only shown in its perversion of some of the most obvious principles of morality, but in the discouragement of all free inquiry in its disciples, whom it instructed to rely implicitly in matters of conscience on their spiritual advisers. The artful inst.i.tution of the tribunal of confession, established with this view, brought, as it were, the whole Christian world at the feet of the clergy, who, far from being always animated by the meek spirit of the Gospel, almost justified the reproach of Voltaire, that confessors have been the source of most of the violent measures pursued by princes of the Catholic faith. [23] Isabella's serious temper, as well as early education, naturally disposed her to religious influences. Notwithstanding the independence exhibited by her in all secular affairs, in her own spiritual concerns she uniformly testified the deepest humility, and deferred too implicitly to what she deemed the superior sagacity, or sanct.i.ty, of her ghostly counsellors. An instance of this humility may be worth recording. When Fray Fernando de Talavera, afterwards archbishop of Granada, who had been appointed confessor to the queen, attended her for the first time in that capacity, he continued seated, after she had knelt down to make her confession, which drew from her the remark, "that it was usual for both parties to kneel." "No," replied the priest, "this is G.o.d's tribunal; I act here as his minister, and it is fitting that I should keep my seat, while your Highness kneels before me." Isabella, far from taking umbrage at the ecclesiastic's arrogant demeanor, complied with all humility, and was afterwards heard to say, "This is the confessor that I wanted." [24]

Well had it been for the land, if the queen's conscience had always been intrusted to the keeping of persons of such exemplary piety as Talavera.

Unfortunately, in her early days, during the lifetime of her brother Henry, that charge was committed to a Dominican monk, Thomas de Torquemada, a native of old Castile, subsequently raised to the rank of prior of Santa Cruz in Segovia, and condemned to infamous immortality by the signal part which he performed in the tragedy of the Inquisition. This man, who concealed more pride under his monastic weeds than might have furnished forth a convent of his order, was one of that cla.s.s, with whom zeal pa.s.ses for religion, and who testify their zeal by a fiery persecution of those whose creed differs from their own; who compensate for their abstinence from sensual indulgence, by giving scope to those deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry, and intolerance, which are no less opposed to virtue, and are far more extensively mischievous to society. This personage had earnestly labored to infuse into Isabella's young mind, to which his situation as her confessor gave him such ready access, the same spirit of fanaticism that glowed in his own. Fortunately, this was greatly counteracted by her sound understanding, and natural kindness of heart. Torquemada urged her, or, indeed, as is stated by some, extorted a promise, that, "should she ever come to the throne, she would devote herself to the extirpation of heresy, for the glory of G.o.d, and the exaltation of the Catholic faith." [25] The time was now arrived when this fatal promise was to be discharged.

It is due to Isabella's fame to state thus much in palliation of the unfortunate error into which she was led by her misguided zeal; an error so grave, that, like a vein in some n.o.ble piece of statuary, it gives a sinister expression to her otherwise unblemished character. [26] It was not until the queen had endured the repeated importunities of the clergy, particularly of those reverend persons in whom she most confided, seconded by the arguments of Ferdinand, that she consented to solicit from the pope a bull for the introduction of the Holy Office into Castile. Sixtus the Fourth, who at that time filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning the sources of wealth and influence, which this measure opened to the court of Rome, readily complied with the pet.i.tion of the sovereigns, and expedited a bull bearing date November 1st, 1478, authorizing them to appoint two or three ecclesiastics, inquisitors for the detection and suppression of heresy throughout their dominions. [27]

The queen, however, still averse to violent measures, suspended the operation of the ordinance, until a more lenient policy had been first tried. By her command, accordingly, the archbishop of Seville, Cardinal Mendoza, drew up a catechism exhibiting the different points of the Catholic faith, and instructed the clergy throughout his diocese to spare no pains in illuminating the benighted Israelites, by means of friendly exhortation and a candid exposition of the true principles of Christianity. [28] How far the spirit of these injunctions was complied with, amid the excitement then prevailing, may be reasonably doubted.

There could be little doubt, however, that a report, made two years later, by a commission of ecclesiastics with Alfonso de Ojeda at its head, respecting the progress of the reformation, would be necessarily unfavorable to the Jews. [29] In consequence of this report the papal provisions were enforced by the nomination, on the 17th of September, 1480, of two Dominican monks as inquisitors, with two other ecclesiastics, the one as a.s.sessor, and the other as procurator fiscal, with instructions to proceed at once to Seville, and enter on the duties of their office.

Orders were also issued to the authorities of the city to support the inquisitors by all the aid in their power. But the new inst.i.tution, which has since become the miserable boast of the Castilians, proved so distasteful to them in its origin, that they refused any co-operation with its ministers, and indeed opposed such delays and embarra.s.sments, that, during the first years, it can scarcely be said to have obtained a footing in any other places in Andalusia, than those belonging to the crown. [30]

On the 2d of January, 1481, the court commenced operations by the publication of an edict, followed by several others, requiring all persons to aid in apprehending and accusing all such as they might know or suspect to be guilty of heresy, [31] and holding out the illusory promise of absolution to such as should confess their errors within a limited period.

As every mode of accusation, even anonymous, was invited, the number of victims multiplied so fast, that the tribunal found it convenient to remove its sittings from the convent of St. Paul, within the city, to the s.p.a.cious fortress of Triana, in the suburbs. [32]

The presumptive proofs by which the charge of Judaism was established against the accused are so curious, that a few of them may deserve notice.

It was considered good evidence of the fact, if the prisoner wore better clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish sabbath than on other days of the week; if he had no fire in his house the preceding evening; if he sat at table with Jews, or ate the meat of animals slaughtered by their hands, or drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them; if he washed a corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall; or, finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children; a provision most whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry the Second, he was prohibited under severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have found it difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this dilemma.

[33] Such are a few of the circ.u.mstances, some of them purely accidental in their nature, others the result of early habit, which might well have continued after a sincere conversion to Christianity, and all of them trivial, on which capital accusations were to be alleged, and even satisfactorily established. [34]

The inquisitors, adopting the wily and tortuous policy of the ancient tribunal, proceeded with a despatch, which shows that they could have paid little deference even to this affectation of legal form. On the sixth day of January, six convicts suffered at the stake. Seventeen more were executed in March, and a still greater number in the month following; and by the 4th of November in the same year, no less than two hundred and ninety-eight individuals had been sacrificed in the _autos da fe_ of Seville. Besides these, the mouldering remains of many, who had been tried and convicted after their death, were torn up from their graves, with a hyena-like ferocity, which has disgraced no other court, Christian or Pagan, and condemned to the common funeral pile. This was prepared on a s.p.a.cious stone scaffold, erected in the suburbs of the city, with the statues of four prophets attached to the corners, to which the unhappy sufferers were bound for the sacrifice, and which the worthy Curate of Los Palacios celebrates with much complacency as the spot "where heretics were burnt, and ought to burn as long as any can be found." [35]

Many of the convicts were persons estimable for learning and probity; and, among these, three clergymen are named, together with other individuals filling judicial or high munic.i.p.al stations. The sword of justice was observed, in particular, to strike at the wealthy, the least pardonable offenders in times of proscription.

The plague which desolated Seville this year, sweeping off fifteen thousand inhabitants, as if in token of the wrath of Heaven at these enormities, did not palsy for a moment the arm of the Inquisition, which, adjourning to Aracena, continued as indefatigable as before. A similar persecution went forward in other parts of the province of Andalusia; so that within the same year, 1481, the number of the sufferers was computed at two thousand burnt alive, a still greater number in effigy, and seventeen thousand _reconciled_; a term which must not be understood by the reader to signify anything like a pardon or amnesty, but only the commutation of a capital sentence for inferior penalties, as fines, civil incapacity, very generally total confiscation of property, and not unfrequently imprisonment for life. [36]