Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

the land with their strife; government was negligent and corrupt;

private vengeance was uncurbed; civil war was so frequent that the

roads were unsafe for commerce, and the fields were so often despoiled

by armies that the peasants left them untilled. The long reign of John

II (1406-54) of Castile, who loved music and poetry too much to care

for the chores of state, was followed by the disastrous tenure of

Henry IV, who by his administrative incompetence, his demoralization

of the currency, and his squandering of revenue on favored

parasites, earned the title of Enrique el Impotente. He willed his

throne to Juana, whom he called his daughter; the scornful nobles

denied his parentage and potency, and forced him to name his sister

Isabella as his successor. But at his death (1474) he reaffirmed

Juana's legitimacy and her right to rule. It was out of this

paralyzing confusion that Ferdinand and Isabella forged the order

and government that made Spain for a century the strongest state in

Europe.

The diplomats prepared the achievement by persuading Isabella,

eighteen, to marry her cousin Ferdinand, seventeen (1469). Bride and

bridegroom were both descended from Henry of Trastamara. Ferdinand was

already King of Sicily; on the death of his father he would be also

King of Aragon; the marriage, therefore, wed three states into a

powerful kingdom. Paul II withheld the papal bull needed to legalize

the marriage of cousins; the requisite document was forged by

Ferdinand, his father, and the archbishop of Barcelona; `061120

after the fait had been accompli a genuine bull was obtained

from Pope Sixtus IV. A more substantial difficulty lay in the

poverty of the bride, whose brother refused to recognize the marriage,

and of the bridegroom, whose father, immersed in war, could not afford

a royal ceremony. A Jewish lawyer smoothed the course of true politics

with a loan of 20,000 sueldos, which Isabella repaid when she became

Queen of Castile (1474). *06027

Her right to the throne was challenged by Affonso V of Portugal, who

had married Juana. War decided the issue at Toro, where Ferdinand

led the Castilians to victory (1476). Three years later he inherited

Aragon; all Spain except Granada and Navarre was now under one

government. Isabella remained only Queen of Castile; Ferdinand ruled

Aragon, Sardinia, and Sicily, and shared in ruling Castile. The

internal administration of Castile was reserved to Isabella, but royal

charters and decrees had to be signed by both sovereigns, and the

new coinage bore both the regal heads. Their complementary qualities

made Ferdinand and Isabella the most effective royal couple in

history.

Isabella was incomparably beautiful, said her courtiers- that is,

moderately fair; of medium stature, blue eyes, hair of chestnut

brown verging on red. She had more schooling than Ferdinand, with a

less acute and less merciless intelligence. She could patronize

poets and converse with cautious philosophers, but she preferred the

company of priests. She chose the sternest moralists for her

confessors and guides. Wedded to an unfaithful husband, she seems to

have sustained full marital fidelity to the end; living in an age as

morally fluid as our own, she was a model of sexual modesty. Amid

corrupt officials and devious diplomats, she herself remained frank,

direct, and incorruptible. Her mother had reared her in strict

orthodoxy and piety; Isabella developed this to the edge of

asceticism, and was as harsh and cruel in suppressing heresy as she

was kind and gracious in everything else. She was the soul of

tenderness to her children, and a pillar of loyalty to her friends.

She gave abundantly to churches, monasteries, and hospitals. Her

orthodoxy did not deter her from condemning the immorality of some

Renaissance popes. `061122 She excelled in both physical and moral

bravery; she withstood, subdued, and disciplined powerful nobles, bore

quietly the most desolating bereavements, and faced with contagious

courage the hardships and dangers of war. She thought it wise to

maintain a queenly dignity in public, and pushed royal display to

costly extravagance in robes and gems; in private she dressed

simply, ate frugally, and amused her leisure by making delicate

embroideries for the churches she loved. She labored conscientiously

in the tasks of government, took the initiative in wholesome

reforms, administered justice with perhaps undue severity; but she was

resolved to raise her realm from lawless disorder to a law-abiding

peace. Foreign contemporaries like Paolo Giovio, Guicciardini, and the

Chevalier Bayard ranked her among the ablest sovereigns of the age,

and likened her to the stately heroines of antiquity. Her subjects

worshiped her, while they bore impatiently with the King.

The Castilians could not forgive Ferdinand for being a foreigner-

i.e., an Aragonese; and they found many faults in him even while

they gloried in his successes as statesman, diplomat, and warrior.

They contrasted his cold and reserved temperament with the warm

kindliness of the Queen, his calculated indirectness with her

straightforward candor, his parsimony with her generosity, his

illiberal treatment of his aides with her openhanded rewards for

services, his extramarital gallantries with her quiet continence.

Probably they did not resent his establishment of the Inquisition, nor

his use of their religious feelings as a weapon of war; they applauded

the campaign against heresy, the conquest of Granada, the expulsion of

unconverted Jews and Moors; they loved most in him what posterity

would least admire. We hear of no protest against the severity of

his laws- cutting out the tongue for blasphemy, burning alive for

sodomy. `061123 They noted that he could be just, even lenient, when

it did not hinder personal advantage or national policy; that he could

lead his army dauntlessly and cleverly, though he preferred to match

minds in negotiation rather than men in battle; and that his parsimony

financed not personal luxuries but expensive undertakings for the

aggrandizement of Spain. They must have approved of his abstemious

habits, his constancy in adversity, his moderation in prosperity,

his discerning choice of aides, his tireless devotion to government,

his pursuit of farseen ends with flexible tenacity and cautious means.

They forgave his duplicity as a diplomat, his frequent faithlessness

to his word; were not all other rulers trying by like methods to cozen

him and swindle Spain? "The King of France," he said grimly,

"complains that I have twice deceived him. He lies, the fool; I have

deceived him ten times, and more." `061124 Machiavelli carefully

studied Ferdinand's career, relished his cunning, praised "his

deeds... all great and some extraordinary," and called him "the

foremost king in Christendom." `061125 And Guicciardini wrote: "What a

wide difference there was between the sayings and doings of this

prince, and how deeply and secretly he laid his measures!" `061126

Some accounted Ferdinand lucky, but in truth his good fortune lay in

careful preparation for events and prompt seizure of opportunities.

When the balance was struck between his virtues and his crimes, it

appeared that by fair means and foul he had raised Spain from a motley

of impotent fragments to a unity and power that in the next generation

made her the dictator of Europe.

He co-operated with Isabella in restoring security of life and

property in Castile; in reviving the Santa Hermandad, or Holy

Brotherhood, as a local militia to maintain order; in ending robbery

on the highways and sexual intrigues at the court; in reorganizing the

judiciary and codifying the laws; in reclaiming state lands recklessly

ceded to favorites by previous kings; and in exacting from the

nobles full obedience to the crown; here too, as in France and

England, feudal freedom and chaos had to give way to the centralized

order of absolute monarchy. The municipal communes likewise

surrendered their privileges; the provincial cortes rarely met,

and then chiefly to vote funds to the government; a weak-rooted

democracy languished and died under an adamantine king. Even the

Spanish Church, so precious to los reyes catolicos, *06028 was shorn

of some of its wealth and all of its civil jurisdiction; the morals of

the clergy were rigorously reformed by Isabella; Pope Sixtus IV was

compelled to yield to the government the right to appoint the higher

dignitaries of the Church in Spain; and able ecclesiastics like

Pedro Gonzales de Mendoza and Ximenes de Cisneros were promoted to

be at once archbishops of Toledo and prime ministers of the state.

Cardinal Ximenes was as positive and powerful a character as the

King. Born of a family noble but poor, he was dedicated in childhood

to the Church. At the University of Salamanca he earned by the age

of twenty the doctoral degrees in both civil and canon law. For some

years he served as vicar and administrator for Mendoza in the

diocese of Siguenza. Successful but unhappy, caring little for

honors or possessions, he entered the strictest monastic order in

Spain- the Observantine Franciscans. Only asceticism delighted him: he

slept on the ground or a hard floor, fasted frequently, flogged

himself, and wore a hair shirt next to his skin. In 1492 the pious

Isabella chose this emaciated cenobite as her chaplain and

confessor. He accepted on condition that he might continue to live

in his monastery and conform to the rigid Franciscan rule. The order

made him its provincial head, and at his bidding submitted to

arduous reforms. When Isabella nominated him archbishop of Toledo

(1495) he refused to accept, but after six months of resistance he

yielded to a papal bull commanding him to serve. He was now nearly

sixty, and seems to have sincerely wished to live as a monk. As

primate of Spain and chief of the royal council he continued his

austerities; under the splendid robes required by his office he wore

the coarse Franciscan gown, and under this the hair shirt as

before. `061127 Against the opposition of high ecclesiastics, but

supported by the Queen, he applied to all monastic orders the

reforms that he had exacted from his own. It was as if St. Francis,

shorn of his humility, had suddenly been endowed with the powers and

capacities of Bernard and Dominic.

It could not have pleased this somber saint to find two

unconverted Jews high in favor at the court. One of Isabella's most

trusted counselors was Abraham Senior; he and Isaac Abrabanel

collected the revenue for Ferdinand, and organized the financing of

the Granada war. The King and Queen were at this time especially

concerned about the Conversos. They had hoped that time would make

these converts sincere Christians; Isabella had had a catechism

specially prepared for their instruction; yet many of them secretly

maintained their ancient faith, and transmitted it to their

children. Catholic dislike of the unbaptized Jews subsided for a time,

while resentment against the "New Christians" rose. Riots against them

broke out in Toledo (1467), Valladolid (1470), Cordova (1472), and

Segovia (1474). The religious problem had become also racial; and

the young King and Queen pondered means of reducing the disorderly

medley and conflict of peoples, languages, and creeds to homogeneous

unity and social peace. They thought that no better means were

available for these ends than to restore the Inquisition in Spain.

IV. THE METHODS OF THE INQUISITION

-

We are today so uncertain and diverse in our opinions as to the

origin and destiny of the world and man that we have ceased, in most

countries, to punish people for differing from us in their religious

beliefs. Our present intolerance is rather for those who question

our economic or political principles, and we explain our frightened

dogmatism on the ground that any doubt thrown upon these cherished

assumptions endangers our national solidarity and survival. Until

the middle of the seventeenth century Christians, Jews, and Moslems

were more acutely concerned with religion than we are today; their

theologies were their most prized and confident possessions; and

they looked upon those who rejected these creeds as attacking the

foundations of social order and the very significance of human life.

Each group was hardened by certainty into intolerance, and branded the

others as infidels.

The Inquisition developed most readily among persons whose religious

tenets had been least affected by education and travel, and whose

reason was most subject to custom and imagination. Nearly all medieval

Christians, through childhood schooling and surroundings, believed

that the Bible had been dictated in every word by God, and that the

Son of God had directly established the Christian Church. It seemed to

follow, from these premises, that God wished all nations to be

Christian, and that the practice of non-Christian- certainly of

anti-Christian- religions must be a crass insult to the Deity.

Moreover, since any substantial heresy must merit eternal

punishment, its prosecutors could believe (and many seem to have

sincerely believed) that in snuffing out a heretic they were saving

his potential converts, and perhaps himself, from everlasting hell.

Probably Isabella, who lived in the very odor of theologians, shared

these views. Ferdinand, being a hardened man of the world, may have

doubted some of them; but he was apparently convinced that

uniformity of religious belief would make Spain easier to rule, and

stronger to strike its enemies. At his request and Isabella's, Pope

Sixtus IV issued a bull (November 1, 1478) authorizing them to appoint

six priests, holding degrees in theology and canon law, as an

inquisitorial board to investigate and punish heresy. The remarkable

feature of this bull was its empowerment of the Spanish sovereigns

to nominate the inquisitorial personnel, who in earlier forms of the

Inquisition had been chosen by the provincial heads of the Dominican

or Franciscan orders. Here for three generations, as in Protestant

Germany and England in the next century, religion became subject to

the state. Technically, however, the inquisitors were only nominated

by the sovereigns, and were then appointed by the pope; the

authority of the inquisitors derived from this papal sanction; the

institution remained ecclesiastical, an organ of the Church, which was

an organ of the state. The government was to pay the expenses, and

receive the net income, of the Inquisition. The sovereigns kept

detailed watch over its operations, and appeal could be made to them

from its decisions. Of all Ferdinand's instruments of rule, this

became his favorite. His motives were not primarily financial; he

profited from the confiscated property of the condemned, but he

refused tempting bribes from rich victims to overrule the inquisitors.

The aim was to unify Spain.

The inquisitors were authorized to employ ecclesiastical and secular

aides as investigators and executive officers. After 1483 the entire

organization was put under a governmental agency, the Concejo de la

Suprema y General Inquisicion, usually termed the Suprema. The

jurisdiction of the Inquisition extended to all Christians in Spain;

it did not touch unconverted Jews or Moors; its terrors were

directed at converts suspected of relapsing into Judaism or

Mohammedanism, and at Christians charged with heresy; till 1492 the

unchristened Jew was safer than the baptized. Priests, monks, and

friars claimed exemption from the Inquisition, but their claim was

denied; the Jesuits resisted its jurisdiction for half a century,

but they too were overcome. The only limit to the power of the Suprema

was the authority of the sovereigns; and in later centuries even

this was ignored. The Inquisition demanded, and usually received,

co-operation from all secular officials.

The Inquisition made its own laws and procedural code. Before

setting up its tribunal in a town, it issued to the people, through

the parish pulpits, an "Edict of Faith" requiring all who knew of

any heresy to reveal it to the inquisitors. Everyone was encouraged to

be a delator, to inform against his neighbors, his friends, his

relatives. (In the sixteenth century, however, the accusation of

near relatives was not allowed.) Informants were promised full secrecy

and protection; a solemn anathema- i.e., excommunication and curse-

was laid upon all who knew and concealed a heretic. If a baptized

Jew still harbored hopes of a Messiah to come; if he kept the

dietary laws of the Mosaic code; if he observed the Sabbath as a day

of worship and rest, or changed his linen for that day; if he

celebrated in any way any Jewish holy day; if he circumcised any of

his children, or gave any of them a Hebrew name, or blessed them

without making the sign of the cross; if he prayed with motions of the

head, or repeated a Biblical psalm without adding a Gloria; if he

turned his face to the wall when dying: these and the like were

described by the inquisitors as signs of secret heresy, to be reported

at once to the tribunal. `061128 Within a "Term of Grace" any person

who felt guilty of heresy might come and confess it; he would be fined

or assigned a penance, but would be forgiven, on condition that he

should reveal any knowledge he might have of other heretics.

The inquisitors seem to have sifted with care the evidence collected

by informers and investigators. When the tribunal was unanimously

convinced of a person's guilt it issued a warrant for his arrest.

The accused was kept incommunicado; no one but agents of the

Inquisition was allowed to speak with him; no relative might visit

him. Usually he was chained. `061129 He was required to bring his

own bed and clothing, and to pay all the expenses of his incarceration

and sustenance. If he did not offer sufficient cash for this

purpose, enough of his property was sold at auction to meet the costs.

The remainder of his goods was sequestrated by Inquisition officers

lest it be hidden or disposed of to escape confiscation. In most cases

some of it was sold to maintain such of the victim's family as could

not work.

When the arrested person was brought to trial the tribunal, having

already judged him guilty, laid upon him the burden of proving his

innocence. The trial was secret and private, and the defendant had

to swear never to reveal any facts about it in case he should be

released. No witnesses were adduced against him, none was named to

him; the inquisitors excused this procedure as necessary to protect

their informants. The accused was not at first told what charges had

been brought against him; he was merely invited to confess his own

derelictions from orthodox belief and worship, and to betray all

persons whom he suspected of heresy. If his confession satisfied the

tribunal, he might receive any punishment short of death. If he

refused to confess he was permitted to choose advocates to defend him;

meanwhile he was kept in solitary confinement. In many instances he

was tortured to elicit a confession. Usually the case was allowed to

drag on for months, and the solitary confinement in chains often

sufficed to secure any confession desired.

Torture was applied only after a majority of the tribunal had

voted for it on the ground that guilt had been made probable, though

not certain, by the evidence. Often the torture so decreed was

postponed in the hope that dread of it would induce confession. The

inquisitors appear to have sincerely believed that torture was a favor

to a defendant already accounted guilty, since it might earn him, by

confession, a slighter penalty than otherwise; even if he should,

after confession, be condemned to death, he could enjoy priestly

absolution to save him from hell. However, confession of guilt was not

enough, torture might also be applied to compel a confessing defendant

to name his associates in heresy or crime. Contradictory witnesses

might be tortured to find out which was telling the truth; slaves

might be tortured to bring out testimony against their masters. No

limits of age could save the victims; girls of thirteen and women of

eighty were subjected to the rack; but the rules of the Spanish

Inquisition usually forbade the torture of nursing women, or persons

with weak hearts, or those accused of minor heresies, such as

sharing the widespread opinion that fornication was only a venial sin.

Torture was to be kept short of permanently maiming the victim, and

was to be stopped whenever the attendant physician so ordered. It

was to be administered only in the presence of the inquisitors in

charge of the case, and a notary, a recording secretary, and a

representative of the local bishop. Methods varied with time and

place. The victim might have his hands tied behind his back and be

suspended by them; he might be bound into immobility and then have

water trickle down his throat till he nearly choked; he might have

cords tied around his arms and legs and tightened till they cut

through the flesh to the bone. We are told that the tortures used by

the Spanish Inquisition were milder than those employed by the earlier

papal Inquisition, or by the secular courts of the age. `061130 The

main torture was prolonged imprisonment.

The Inquisition tribunal was not only prosecutor, judge, and jury;

it also issued decrees on faith and morals, and established a

gradation of penalties. In many cases it was merciful, excusing part

of the punishment because of the penitent's age, ignorance, poverty,

intoxication, or generally good reputation. The mildest penalty was

a reprimand. More grievous was compulsion to make a public

abjuration of heresy- which left even the innocent branded to the

end of his days. Usually the convicted penitent was required to attend

Mass regularly, wearing the "sanbenito"- a garment marked with a

flaming cross. He might be paraded through the streets stripped to the

waist and bearing the insignia of his offense. He and his

descendants might be barred from public office forever. He might be

banished from his city, rarely from Spain. He might be scourged with

one or two hundred lashes to "the limit of safety"; this was applied

to women as well as men. He might be imprisoned, or condemned to the

galleys- which Ferdinand recommended as more useful to the state. He

might pay a substantial fine, or have his property confiscated. In

several instances dead men were accused of heresy, were tried

post-mortem, and were condemned to confiscation, in which case the

heirs forfeited his bequests. Informers against dead heretics were

offered 30 to 50 per cent of the proceeds. Families fearful of such

retroactive judgments sometimes paid "compositions" to the inquisitors

as insurance against confiscation of their legacies. Wealth became a

peril to its owner, a temptation to informers, inquisitors, and the

government. As money flowed into the coffers of the Inquisition its

officials became less zealous to preserve the orthodox faith than to

acquire gold, and corruption flourished piously. `061131

The ultimate punishment was burning at the stake. This was

reserved for persons who, judged guilty of serious heresy, failed to

confess before judgment was pronounced, and for those who, having

confessed in time, and having been "reconciled" or forgiven, had

relapsed into heresy. The Inquisition itself professed that it never

killed, but merely surrendered the condemned person to the secular

authorities; however, it knew that the criminal law made burning at

the stake mandatory in all convictions for major and impenitent

heresy. The official presence of ecclesiastics at the auto-da-fe

frankly revealed the responsibility of the Church. The "act of

faith" was not merely the burning, it was the whole impressive and

terrible ceremony of sentence and execution. Its purpose was not

only to terrify potential offenders, but to edify the people as with a

foretaste of the Last Judgment.

At first the procedure was simple: those condemned to death were

marched to the public plaza, they were bound in tiers on a pyre, the

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.