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

inquisitors sat in state on a platform facing it, a last appeal for

confessions was made, the sentences were read, the fires were lit, the

agony was consummated. But as burnings became more frequent and

suffered some loss in their psychological power, the ceremony was made

more complex and awesome, and was staged with all the care and cost of

a major theatrical performance. When possible it was timed to

celebrate the accession, marriage, or visit of a Spanish king,

queen, or prince. Municipal and state officials, Inquisition

personnel, local priests and monks, were invited- in effect

required- to attend. On the eve of the execution these dignitaries

joined in a somber procession through the main streets of the city

to deposit the green cross of the Inquisition upon the altar of the

cathedral or principal church. A final effort was made to secure

confessions from the condemned; many then yielded, and had their

sentences commuted to imprisonment for a term or for life. On the

following morning the prisoners were led through dense crowds to a

city square: impostors, blasphemers, bigamists, heretics, relapsed

converts; in later days, Protestants; sometimes the procession

included effigies of absent condemnees, or boxes carrying the bones of

persons condemned after death. In the square, on one or several

elevated stages, sat the inquisitors, the secular and monastic clergy,

and the officials of town and state; now and then the King himself

presided. A sermon was preached, after which all present were

commanded to recite an oath of obedience to the Holy Office of the

Inquisition, and a pledge to denounce and prosecute heresy in all

its forms and everywhere. Then, one by one, the prisoners were led

before the tribunal, and their sentences were read. We must not

imagine any brave defiances; probably, at this stage, every prisoner

was near to spiritual exhaustion and physical collapse. Even now he

might save his life by confession; in that case the Inquisition

usually contented itself with scourging him, confiscating his goods,

and imprisoning him for life. If the confession was withheld till

after sentence had been pronounced, the prisoner earned the mercy of

being strangled before being burned; and as such last-minute

confessions were frequent, burning alive was relatively rare. Those

who were judged guilty of major heresy, but denied it to the end, were

(till 1725) refused the last sacraments of the Church, and were, by

the intention of the Inquisition, abandoned to everlasting hell. The

"reconciled" were now taken back to prison; the impenitent were

"relaxed" to the secular arm, with a pious caution that no blood

should be shed. These were led out from the city between throngs

that had gathered from leagues around for this holiday spectacle.

Arrived at the place prepared for execution, the confessed were

strangled, then burned; the recalcitrant were burned alive. The

fires were fed till nothing remained of the dead but ashes, which were

scattered over fields and streams. The priests and spectators returned

to their altars and their homes, convinced that a propitiatory

offering had been made to a God insulted by heresy. Human sacrifice

had been restored.

V. PROGRESS OF THE INQUISITION: 1480-1516

-

The first inquisitors were appointed by Ferdinand and Isabella in

September 1480, for the district of Seville. Many Sevillian

Conversos fled to the countryside, and sought sanctuary with

feudal lords. These were inclined to protect them, but the inquisitors

threatened the barons with excommunication and confiscation, and the

refugees were surrendered. In the city itself some Conversos planned

armed resistance; the plot was betrayed; the implicated persons were

arrested; soon the dungeons were full. Trials followed with angry

haste, and the first auto-da-fe of the Spanish Inquisition was

celebrated on February 6, 1481, with the burning of six men and women.

By November 4 of that year 298 had been burned; seventy-nine had

been imprisoned for life.

In 1483, at the nomination and request of Ferdinand and Isabella,

Pope Sixtus IV appointed a Dominican friar, Tomas de Torquemada,

inquisitor-general for all of Spain. He was a sincere and

incorruptible fanatic, scorning luxury, working feverishly,

rejoicing in his opportunity to serve Christ by hounding heresy. He

reproved inquisitors for lenience, reversed many acquittals, and

demanded that the rabbis of Toledo, on pain of death, should inform on

all Judaizing Conversos. Pope Alexander VI, who had at first praised

his devotion to his tasks, became alarmed at his severity, and ordered

him (1494) to share his powers with two other "inquisitors general."

Torquemada overrode these colleagues, maintained a resolute

leadership, and made the Inquisition an imperium in imperio,

rivaling the power of the sovereigns. Under his prodding the

Inquisition at Ciudad Real in two years (1483-84) burned fifty-two

persons, confiscated the property of 220 fugitives, and punished 183

penitents. Transferring their headquarters to Toledo, the

inquisitors within a year arrested 750 baptized Jews, confiscated a

fifth of their goods, and sentenced them to march in penitential

processions on six Fridays, flogging themselves with hempen cords. Two

further autos-da-fe in that year (1486) at Toledo disciplined 1,650

penitents. Like labors were performed in Valladolid, Guadalupe, and

other cities of Castile.

Aragon resisted the Inquisition with forlorn courage. At Teruel

the magistrates closed the gates in the face of the inquisitors. These

laid an interdict upon the city; Ferdinand stopped the municipal

salaries, and sent an army to enforce obedience; the environing

peasants, always hostile to the city, ran to the support of the

Inquisition, which promised them release from all rents and debts

due to persons convicted of heresy. Teruel yielded, and Ferdinand

authorized the inquisitors to banish anyone whom they suspected of

having aided the opposition. In Saragossa many "Old Christians" joined

the "New Christians" in protesting against the entry of the

Inquisition; when, nevertheless, it set up its tribunal there, some

Conversos assassinated an inquisitor (1485). It was a mortal

blunder, for the shocked citizens thronged the streets crying "Burn

the Conversos!" The archbishop calmed the mob with a promise of

speedy justice. Nearly all the conspirators were caught and

executed; one leaped to his death from the tower in which he was

confined; another broke a glass lamp, swallowed the fragments, and was

found dead in his cell. In Valencia the Cortes refused to allow the

inquisitors to function; Ferdinand ordered his agents to arrest all

obstructors; Valencia gave way. In support of the Inquisition the King

violated one after another of the traditional liberties of Aragon; the

combination of Church and monarchy, of excommunications and royal

armies, proved too strong for any single city or province to resist.

In 1488 there were 983 condemnations for heresy in Valencia alone, and

a hundred men were burned.

How did the popes view this use of the Inquisition as an

instrument of the state? Doubtless resenting such secular control,

moved, presumably, by humane sentiment, and not insensitive to the

heavy fees paid for dispensations from Inquisition sentences,

several popes tried to check its excesses, and gave occasional

protection to its victims. In 1482 Sixtus IV issued a bull which, if

implemented, would have ended the Inquisition in Aragon. He complained

that the inquisitors were showing more lust for gold than zeal for

religion; that they had imprisoned, tortured, and burned faithful

Christians on the dubious evidence of enemies or slaves. He

commanded that in future no inquisitor should act without the presence

and concurrence of some representative of the local bishop; that the

names and allegations of the accusers should be made known to the

accused; that the prisoners of the Inquisition should be lodged only

in episcopal jails; that those complaining of injustice should be

allowed to appeal to the Holy See, and all further action in the

case should be suspended until judgment should be rendered on the

appeal; that all persons convicted of heresy should receive absolution

if they confessed and repented, and thereafter should be free from

prosecution or molestation on that charge. All past proceedings

contrary to these provisions were declared null and void, and all

future violators of them were to incur excommunication. It was an

enlightened decree, and its thoroughness suggests its sincerity. Yet

we must note that it was confined to Aragon, whose Conversos had

paid for it liberally. `061132 When Ferdinand defied it, arrested

the agent who had procured it, and bade the inquisitors go on as

before, Sixtus took no further action in the matter, except that

five months later he suspended the operation of the bull. `061133

The desperate Conversos poured money into Rome, appealing for

dispensations and absolutions from the summons or sentences of the

Inquisition. The money was accepted, the dispensations were given, the

Spanish inquisitors, protected by Ferdinand, ignored them; and the

popes, needing the friendship of Ferdinand and the annates of Spain,

did not insist. Pardons were paid for, issued, and then revoked.

Occasionally the popes asserted their authority, citing inquisitors to

Rome to answer charges of misconduct. Alexander VI tried to moderate

the severity of the tribunal. Julius II ordered the trial of the

inquisitor Lucero for malfeasance, and excommunicated the

inquisitors of Toledo. The gentle and scholarly Leo, however,

denounced as a reprehensible heresy the notion that a heretic should

not be burned. `061134

How did the people of Spain react to the Inquisition? The upper

classes and the educated minority faintly opposed it; the Christian

populace usually approved it. `061135 The crowds that gathered at

the autos-da-fe showed little sympathy, often active hostility, to the

victims; in some places they tried to kill them lest confession should

let them escape the pyre. Christians flocked to buy at auction the

confiscated goods of the condemned.

How numerous were the victims? Llorente *06029 estimated them,

from 1480 to 1488, at 8,800 burned, 96,494 punished; from 1480 to

1808, at 31,912 burned, 291,450 heavily penanced. These figures were

mostly guesses, and are now generally rejected by Protestant

historians as extreme exaggerations. `061136 A Catholic historian

reckons 2,000 burnings between 1480 and 1504, and 2,000 more to

1758. `061137 Isabella's secretary, Hernando de Pulgar, calculated the

burnings at 2,000 before 1490. Zurita, a secretary of the Inquisition,

boasted that it had burned 4,000 in Seville alone. There were victims,

of course, in most Spanish cities, even in Spanish dependencies like

the Baleares, Sardinia, Sicily, the Netherlands, America. The rate

of burnings diminished after 1500. But no statistics can convey the

terror in which the Spanish mind lived in those days and nights. Men

and women, even in the secrecy of their families, had to watch every

word they uttered, lest some stray criticism should lead them to an

Inquisition jail. It was a mental oppression unparalleled in history.

Did the Inquisition succeed? Yes, in attaining its declared purpose-

to rid Spain of open heresy. The idea that the persecution of

beliefs is always ineffective is a delusion; it crushed the

Albigensians and Huguenots in France, the Catholics in Elizabethan

England, the Christians in Japan. It stamped out in the sixteenth

century the small groups that favored Protestantism in Spain. On the

other hand, it probably strengthened Protestantism in Germany,

Scandinavia, and England by arousing in their peoples a vivid fear

of what might happen to them if Catholicism were restored.

It is difficult to say what share the Inquisition had in ending

the brilliant period of Spanish history from Columbus to Velasquez

(1492-1660). The peak of that epoch came with Cervantes (1547-1616)

and Lope de Vega (1562-1635), after the Inquisition had flourished

in Spain for a hundred years. The Inquisition was an effect, as well

as a cause, of the intense and exclusive Catholicism of the Spanish

people; and that religious mood had grown during centuries of struggle

against "infidel" Moors. The exhaustion of Spain by the wars of

Charles V and Philip II, and the weakening of the Spanish economy by

the victories of Britain on the sea and the mercantile policies of the

Spanish government, may have had more to do with the decline of

Spain than the terrors of the Inquisition. The executions for

witchcraft, in northern Europe and New England, showed in Protestant

peoples a spirit akin to that of the Spanish Inquisition- which,

strange to say, sensibly treated witchcraft as a delusion to be pitied

and cured rather than punished. Both the Inquisition and the

witch-burning were expressions of an age afflicted with homicidal

certainty in theology, as the patriotic massacres of our era may be

due in part to homicidal certainty in ethnic or political theory. We

must try to understand such movements in terms of their time, but they

seem to us now the most unforgivable of historic crimes. A supreme and

unchallengeable faith is a deadly enemy to the human mind.

VI. IN EXITU ISRAEL `061138

-

The Inquisition was intended to frighten all Christians, new or old,

into at least external orthodoxy, in the hope that heresy would be

blighted in the bud, and that the second or third generation of

baptized Jews would forget the Judaism of their ancestors. There was

no intent to let baptized Jews leave Spain; when they tried to

emigrate, Ferdinand and the Inquisition forbade it. But what of the

unbaptized Jews? Some 235,000 of them remained in Christian Spain. How

could the religious unity of the nation be effected if these were

allowed to practice and profess their faith? Torquemada thought it

impossible, and recommended their compulsory conversion or their

banishment.

Ferdinand hesitated. He knew the economic value of Hebrew ability in

commerce and finance. But he was told that the Jews taunted the

Conversos and sought to win them back to Judaism, if only

secretly. His physician, Ribas Altas, a baptized Jew, was accused of

wearing on a pendant from his neck a golden ball containing a

representation of himself in the act of desecrating a crucifix; the

charge seems incredible, but the physician was burned

(1488). `061139 Letters were forged in which a Jewish leader in

Constantinople advised the head of the Jewish community in Spain to

rob and poison Christians as often as possible. `061140 A Converso

was arrested on the charge of having a consecrated wafer in his

knapsack; he was tortured again and again until he signed a

statement that six Conversos and six Jews had killed a Christian

child to use its heart in a magic ceremony designed to cause the death

of all Christians and the total destruction of Christianity. The

confessions of the tortured man contradicted one another, and no child

was reported missing; however, four Jews were burned, two of them

after having their flesh torn away with red-hot pincers. `061141 These

and similar accusations may have influenced Ferdinand; in any case

they prepared public opinion for the expulsion of all unbaptized

Jews from Spain. When Granada surrendered (November 5, 1491), and

the industrial and commercial activities of the Moors accrued to

Christian Spain, the economic contribution of the unconverted Jews

no longer seemed vital. Meanwhile popular fanaticism, inflamed by

autos-da-fe and the preaching of the friars, was making social peace

impossible unless the government either protected or expelled the

Jews.

On March 30, 1492- so crowded a year in Spanish history- Ferdinand

and Isabella signed the edict of exile. All unbaptized Jews, of

whatever age or condition, were to leave Spain by July 31, and were

never to return, on penalty of death. In this brief period they

might dispose of their property at whatever price they could obtain.

They might take with them movable goods and bills of exchange, but

no currency, silver, or gold. Abraham Senior and Isaac Abrabanel

offered the sovereigns a large sum to withdraw the edict, but

Ferdinand and Isabella refused. No royal accusation was made against

the Jews, except their tendency to lure Conversos back to Judaism. A

supplementary edict required that taxes to the end of the year

should be paid on all Jewish property and sales. Debts due from

Christians or Moors were to be collected only at maturity, through

such agents as the banished creditors might find, or these claims

could be sold at a discount to Christian purchasers. In this

enforced precipitancy the property of the Jews passed into Christian

hands at a small fraction of its value. A house was sold for an ass, a

vineyard for a piece of cloth. Some Jews, in despair, burned down

their homes (to collect insurance?); others gave them to the

municipality. Synagogues were appropriated by Christians and

transformed into churches. Jewish cemeteries were turned into

pasturage. In a few months the largest part of the riches of the

Spanish Jews, accumulated through centuries, melted away.

Approximately 50,000 Jews accepted conversion, and were permitted to

remain; over 100,000 left Spain in a prolonged and melancholy exodus.

Before departing they married all their children who were over

twelve years of age. The young helped the old, the rich succored the

poor. The pilgrimage moved on horses or asses, in carts or on foot. At

every turn good Christians- clergy and laity- appealed to the exiles

to submit to baptism. The rabbis countered by assuring their followers

that God would lead them to the promised land by opening a passage

through the sea, as He had done for their fathers of old. `061142

The emigrants who gathered in Cadiz waited hopefully for the waters to

part and let them march dryshod to Africa. Disillusioned, they paid

high prices for transport by ship. Storms scattered their fleet of

twenty-five vessels; sixteen of these were driven back to Spain, where

many desperate Jews accepted baptism as no worse than seasickness.

Fifty Jews, shipwrecked near Seville, were imprisoned for two years

and then sold as slaves. `061143 The thousands who sailed from

Gibraltar, Malaga, Valencia, or Barcelona found that in all

Christendom only Italy was willing to receive them with humanity.

The most convenient goal of the pilgrims was Portugal. A large

population of Jews already existed there, and some had risen to wealth

and political position under friendly kings. But John II was

frightened by the number of Spanish Jews- perhaps 80,000- who poured

in. He granted them a stay of eight months, after which they were to

leave. Pestilence broke out among them, and spread to the

Christians, who demanded their immediate expulsion. John facilitated

the departure of the immigrant Jews by providing ships at low cost;

but those who confided themselves to these vessels were subjected to

robbery and rape; many were cast upon desolate shores and left to

die of starvation or to be captured and enslaved by Moors. `061144 One

shipload of 250 Jews, being refused at port after port because

pestilence still raged among them, wandered at sea for four months.

Biscayan pirates seized one vessel, pillaged the passengers, then

drove the ships into Malaga, where the priests and magistrates gave

the Jews a choice of baptism or starvation. After fifty of them had

died, the authorities provided the survivors with bread and water, and

bade them sail for Africa. `061145

When the eight months of grace had expired, John II sold into

slavery those Jewish immigrants who still remained in Portugal.

Children under fifteen were taken from their parents, and were sent to

the St. Thomas Islands to be reared as Christians. As no appeals could

move the executors of the decree, some mothers drowned themselves

and their children rather than suffer their separation. `061146 John's

successor, Manuel, gave the Jews a breathing spell: he freed those

whom John had enslaved, forbade the preachers to incite the populace

against the Jews, and ordered his courts to dismiss as malicious tales

all allegations of the murder of Christian children by Jews. `061147

But meanwhile Manuel courted Isabella, daughter and heiress of

Isabella and Ferdinand, and dreamed of uniting both thrones under

one bed. The Catholic sovereigns agreed, on condition that Manuel

expel from Portugal all unbaptized Jews, native or immigrant. Loving

honors above honor, Manuel consented, and ordered all Jews and Moors

in his realm to accept baptism or banishment (1496). Finding that only

a few preferred baptism, and loath to disrupt the trades and crafts in

which the Jews excelled, he ordered all Jewish children under

fifteen to be separated from their parents and forcibly baptized.

The Catholic clergy opposed this measure, but it was carried out. "I

have seen," reported a bishop, "many children dragged to the font by

the hair." `061148 Some Jews killed their children, and then

themselves, in protest. Manuel grew ferocious; he hindered the

departure of Jews, then ordered them to be baptized by force. They

were dragged to the churches by the beards of the men and the hair

of the women, and many killed themselves on the way. The Portuguese

Conversos sent a dispatch to Pope Alexander VI begging his

intercession; his reply is unknown; it was probably favorable, for

Manuel now (May 1497) granted to all forcibly baptized Jews a

moratorium of twenty years, during which they were not to be brought

before any tribunal on a charge of adhering to Judaism. But the

Christians of Portugal resented the economic competition of the

Jews, baptized or not; when one Jew questioned a miracle alleged to

have occurred in a Lisbon church, the populace tore him to pieces

(1506); for three days massacre ran free; 2,000 Jews were killed;

hundreds of them were buried alive. Catholic prelates denounced the

outrage, and two Dominican friars who had incited the riot were put to

death. `061149 Otherwise, for a generation, there was almost peace.

-

From Spain the terrible exodus was complete. But religious unity was

not yet achieved: the Moors remained. Granada had been taken, but

its Mohammedan population had been guaranteed religious liberty.

Archbishop Hernando de Talavera, commissioned to govern Granada,

scrupulously observed this compact, and sought to make converts by

kindness and justice. Ximenes did not approve such Christianity. He

persuaded the Queen that faith need not be kept with infidels, and

induced her to decree (1499) that the Moors must become Christians

or leave Spain. Going himself to Granada, he overruled Talavera,

closed the mosques, made public bonfires of all the Arabic books and

manuscripts he could lay his hands on, `061150 and supervised

wholesale compulsory christenings. The Moors washed the holy water

from their children as soon as they were out of the priests' sight.

Revolts broke out in the city and the province; they were crushed.

By a royal edict of February 12, 1502, all Moslems in Castile and Leon

were given till April 30 to choose between Christianity and exile. The

Moors protested that when their forefathers had ruled much of Spain

they had given religious liberty, with rare exceptions, to the

Christians under their sway, `061151 but the sovereigns were not

moved. Boys under fourteen and girls under twelve were forbidden to

leave Spain with their parents, and feudal barons were allowed to

retain their Moorish slaves provided these were kept in

fetters. `061152 Thousands departed; the rest accepted baptism more

philosophically than the Jews; and as "Moriscos" they took the place

of the baptized Jews in suffering the penalties of the Inquisition for

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

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