USA > Indiana > History of the Catholic church in Indiana, Volume I > Part 57
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Llorente openly admitted that the Popes were always opposed to the Spanish Inquisition, whilst the kings of Spain always favored it. The case of Bartholomew Carranza, archbishop of Toledo and primate of all Spain, is celebrated in history. Arrested in 1557 in Valladolid by the Inquisition at the command of Philip II, he was kept eight years in prison for no reason but the royal displeasure,
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notwithstanding the energetic protest of the council of Trent, then in session, to whose petition Paul IV declared that he had com- manded every nuncio sent to Spain to demand the liberation of Carranza.
There can be no doubt that the Spanish Inquisition was emphatically a state institution; all historians of note admit this. In order to understand the real true aim of this political state tri- bunal, we should bear in mind the political condition of Spain. It is a very common opinion that the mediaval age was the time of absolute rule of sovereigns; that as we approach modern times the liberties of the people increased. This is not true with regard to the middle ages; the beginning of the modern age was the growth of absolutism. The old Gothic institutions in Spain were kept up during the middle ages; the royal power was very much limited by the cortes, composed of the nobility, clergy, and the representatives of cities; every kingdom in Spain was essentially and thoroughly a constitutional monarchy. Nearly a hundred years before England had its parliament, Spain had its cortes. Nearly every city had its charter. The nobility as well as the higher clergy had gained such power, wealth, privileges, that roy- alty was powerless to oppose them. A noble of the first class had under certain circumstances a legal right to wage war even against his king. The archbishop of Toledo, the grand masters of the three military orders, several of the nobility, had a greater income and could raise a greater army than the king; this was especially the case at the beginning of the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, owing to the incapacity, weakness, and extravagance of the pre- ceding reigns. In no country of Europe was the royal power so weak and circumscribed as in Spain. When, therefore, national as well as religious feeling clamored for a new tribunal against the Maranos, sharp, shrewd, and far-seeing Ferdinand saw his oppor- tunity; a new court was instituted, apparently sacred in its char- ter, upheld by the national and religious feeling of the Spanish nation, the warlike descendants of the brave and warlike Goths; a court entirely in the hands of the crown, to which every one was subject who had hitherto claimed immunity or privilege-every bishop as well as the highest noble. The great Protestant histo-
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rian Ranke, in his "Princes and People," expresses this political aim of the Inquisition so well, that we translate and give his words: "In the first place, the judges of the Inquisition were royal officers. The king had the right to nominate and to dismiss them; among the different councils of the royal cabinet was a council of the Inquisition; like every other branch of government, the tribunals of the Inquisition were subject to royal visitation and revision; in it frequently the same men were associate judges who composed the supreme court of Castile. * * * Secondly, all profits derived from the confiscations ordered by this court went to the king. * * The proceeds of these fines and confiscations formed
a regular revenue of the royal exchequer. * * Thirdly, in it state government received its full completion; the king had in his hands a court from which no grandee, no archbishop, could claim exemption. This was especially remarked by foreigners. The Inquisition, as Segni says, is instituted to strip the rich of their wealth, the mighty of their power. When. Charles V knows no other way or means to punish the bishops who had taken part in the revolt of the Communidads, he orders them to be judged by the Inquisition. When Philip II despairs of every other means of punishing his former prime minister, Antonio Perez, he makes use of the Inquisition. As this court is based upon royal authority, its actions are in the interest of royal power. * * * In its con- ception and aim the Inquisition is primarily a political institution. The Pope has an interest to oppose it; he does so as often as he can; the king has an interest always to support it."
These words of Leopold Ranke are very true. It is true of the Spanish Inquisition what the edict of Joseph I says of Portugal, " that the Inquisition was also instituted to judge civil cases of the privileged classes." Hence the remarkable fact, that whilst the Inquisition was exceedingly popular with the masses of the people, it was bitterly opposed by the bishops and the higher nobility. In Aragon more than in any other kingdom or province of Spain an independent liberal spirit prevailed, and the absolute power of the king was opposed; the ecclesiastical inquisition of the Catholic church was endured without a murmur; yet when (1485) Ferdinand attempted to introduce the new state Inquisition, the first inquis-
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itor, Don Pedro Arbues de Epila, although called by all contem- porary writers a saintly, learned and mild man-not a monk-was murdered by the higher nobility. The assertion of Prescott that these higher nobles were descendants of Jewish families is entirely ground- less; he forgets that all contemporary writers state that there were very few Jews in the kingdom of Aragon; in fact, in all Aragon they had only thirteen synagogues (nineteen in 1428); it was not because they were Maranos and inclined to Judaism, but because they saw in it a political lever to attain absolute power that they opposed it. This explains also why the Marquis of Pombal, so bit- terly opposed to the Jesuits, was a friend of the state Inquisition; in fact, it was this tribunal he used for their expulsion and for the murder of P. Malagrida.
Because the Inquisition was most intimately connected with an absolute form of government it was doomed to fall with abso- lutism. Briefly and concisely this is expressed in the decree of the Spanish cortes, 1813: "The Inquisition is incompatible with the constitution." When, at the return of Ferdinand VII, 1814, the constitution was abolished, the Inquisition was restored; when, 1820, a constitution was proclaimed, the Inquisition was abolished for the last time. The Inquisition stood and fell with political abso- lutism.
It seems to be a very common opinion that the fines and con- fiscations of the Inquisition went entirely, or at least in part, to enrich the church. This is far from the truth -- the church never received a cent. The whole amount went into the royal treasury. At first, under the plea of devoting it to the Holy War against the Moslems, Ferdinand even asked the Pope to allow the clergy employed by the Inquisition to retain their benefices; later on he made the additional demand that in every cathedral chapter one benefice should be given to the Inquisition. Even the inquisitors had no interests, received no moiety of these fines; they had a fixed salary, often but poorly paid. It was the constant complaint of the Spanish king, that the Pope, by receiving appeals, by granting secret absolution, etc., defrauded the Spanish treasury.
The fact that all confiscated property went to the royal treas- ury explains the singular custom of the Spanish Inquisition of bring- (666)
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ing suit for heresy and apostasy against persons dead and already judged by God, and, when convicted, burning them in effigy; it was to confiscate the property for the king. The Popes very often interfered in such cases.
The first victims of the Inquisition were, as stated, the Maranos-not Jews, but apostate Chr stians, either descendants of converted Jews or gained over to Judaism through the active propaganda then carried on. Their number was greatly increased when, March 31, 1492, the well-known edict was published by Ferdinand and Isabella, banishing all Jews from Spain in the short space of four months. Although the conspiracy of the Jews and Maranos, of Toledo, to massacre the Christians of that city on Corpus Christi, 1485, is a historical fact, although there may have been other excesses, no excuse existed for the cruel decree, much less the cruel restrictions to the short time of four months, and to the conversion of their property. Not 800,000, as Llorente lies, but 100,000 according to the detailed census of Fereras, or at most 160,000 souls-30,000 to 35,000 families, according to Pres- cott, quoting Bernaldez-left Spain, many suffering untold hard- ships, many perishing. Many remained, or returned, and at least outwardly became Christians.
The Moriscos, or converted Moslems, were treated with far greater mildness by the Inquisition. Granada fell in 1492. After the revolt of the Abaycim, the Alpuxarras, especially the bloody revolt and slaughter of the Sierra Vermejo, all Moslems of these districts, who did not become Christians, were banished from Spain; the same decree was extended to all southern provinces shortly afterward, while in the northern provinces they were not molested; nearly all became Christians. Considering the many bloody insur- rections, the intimate religious, family, and tribal relations of the Moors of Spain with those of northern Africa since the time of the Amoravides and Almohades, we cannot call this a cruel or unjust decree; the terrible battles of Bajados, Ucles, Alcaros and Naves de Tolosa were still remembered. We have the public declaration of these Moriscos, made in 1524 to the fifth Grand Inquisitor Man- rique, "that they had always been treated kindly and protected by the Inquisition." It is certain that till the latter part of the
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reign of Philip II they were never put to death, although they had repeatedly apostatized. A special law also decreed that their property should not be confiscated; in all cases it had to be pre- served for their children. Torture, also, was not allowed.
The Inquisition had a far more extensive jurisdiction than is generally supposed; it is a great error to consider the victims of the Inquisition poor heretics who died for their honest convictions. If we except the Maranos, very few indeed were sentenced to the stake for heresy or apostasy; by far the greatest number were sentenced for other crimes. Even Llorente gives us documentary proof that the Inquisition was the regular state court in the follow- ing cases : Ist. It had exclusive jurisdiction over all its officials and servants in all cases. When we remember that these for some time numbered 25,000, and that it was inexorable death if any of these were guilty of the least immorality with a female prisoner, it requires no stretch of imagination to understand that quite a num- ber of victimns were officers and servants of the Inquisition. 2d. It had jurisdiction over all crimes connected with the Inquisition; for example, the murderers of the Inquisitor Arbues, the revolt in Cordova led by the Marquis of Priguas, releasing the prisoners of the Inquisition, false witnesses testifying before the Inquisition. 3d. All unnatural crimes against morality. All over Europe these crimes were punished by death; generally the guilty ones were sentenced to the stake. 4th. All cases of bigamy. All over Europe these were punished by death.
The intercourse and association with the Mahometans made this crime more prevalent in Spain than in any other Christian country; thus, for example, in the auto-de-fe at Murcia, 1560, seven were burned for bigamy; in 1563, thirteen; and a number at nearly every auto-de-fe. 5th. All bad priests and confessors. 6th. All imposters who exercised sacerdotal functions; all who falsely pretended to be officers of the Inquisition. 7th. All blas- phemy, stealing, or embezzling church property, usury, even smuggling goods contraband of war. 8th. All imposters who pretended to be saints and work miracles; for instance, Magdalene of the Cross. 9th. All witches and sorcerers. Many who were . executed for witchcraft, especially in the seventeenth century,
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were innocent; the rack extorted confessions that were not true; in cases of possession, obsession, and vexation by the devil, many made absolutely false assertions in declaring that they were bewitched. It cannot be denied that the deliberate intention to make a compact with the devil, the deliberate signing with one's own blood or such a compact, was criminal intent-was a crime. When we bear in mind that all' witches thought it their duty to hurt others, and were in nearly all authentic cases guilty of mur- der by poisoning, we cannot declare a court unjust which upon full proof punishes according to the criminal law of the time such criminal intent and attempt, but this full proof was often wanting. In Salem, Mass., 1692, twenty persons lost their lives, one hun- dred and fifty were imprisoned, and two hundred more were accused, as a craze and deception starting from a case of obsession. In England, during the Long parliament, three thousand witches were executed; in Essex and Suffolk, in two years, two hundred. In Scotland, according to a letter of Howell to Lord Spencer, on an average seven persons were daily executed as witches during the civil wars of the Long parliament. Barrington and other writ- ers give the number of witches executed in England and Scotland from the twentieth of Henry VI to 1736 as thirty thousand-as many victims as Llorente claims for the Spanish Inquisition, for all causes combined, during a longer period of existence. We must, however, bear in mind that England and Scotland had only a population of three to four million. Spain and her colonies more than three times that number. The last witch burned was in a Protestant canton in Switzerland in 1782. As to the burning of witches Spain will compare very favorably with other countries. The Jesuit Frederick Spee was the first to write against the burn- ing of witches, seventy years before the Protestant Thomasius. Ioth. The Inquisition had also jurisdiction in cases of forgery of public documents and counterfeiting the money of the realm; the punishment for both crimes was death in all European countries. We must bear in mind that the criminal code of the three preced- ing centuries was far more severe than at present; thus in England the theft of one shilling was grand larceny and punishable with
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imprisonment and death; the theft of one sheep has often been punished with death in England.
Even if we should admit the number of victims of the Inqui- sition during the three hundred and thirty years of its existence to be 30,000, and deduct from this number all those who suffered death on account of the crimes mentioned, the number of those burned for hersey will be found to be exeedingly small. But then the number given by Llorente is not correct; we have already seen that he gives the number of the first tribunal of Seville as 2, 000, when in another place he admits that it was only 298-a nearly sevenfold exaggeration. During the time of Torquemada, until 1498, he gives in one place 10,200, in another 8,800; according to the historians and documents he quotes, the true number was about 2,000-a more than fourfold exaggeration. Llorente him- self tells us that his numbers are mere guesswork, and not based on documentary proof; thus he pretends to have some reason to believe that the tribunal of Seville from 1482 to 1488 annually condemned eighty-eight persons to death; when three provincial tribunals were established he guesses that each condemned about half that number; when these tribunals increased to the number of twelve, he still assigned to each the same number of victims; for the five tribunals in the kingdom of Aragon he assigns the same amount of Maranos burned at the stake, forgetting altogether that very few Jews or Maranos were found in Aragon, Cataluna, or Gallicia-where there were only thirteen synagogues. He admits that Cardinal Ximenes softened the Inquisition, deposed cruel, bad officials, like Lucero, inquisitor of Cordova, that he pardoned many, etc .; yet he computes as many victims annually burned as under Torquemada and Deza. He computes the same number of victims under the mild Hadrian, and under the still milder Manrique. Truth compels us to say that the procedure of the Inquisition was not so cruel as writers of romance would make us believe. A period of grace was always announced-often a second and some- times a third, as in Toledo when the tribunal was established there; even if all these periods of grace had been allowed to pass by, young persons under twenty were received and absolved. These periods of grace gave those who knew themselves guilty an opportu-
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nity to save themselves and their property by flight, or by obtaining absolution. Deza, considered to be the cruelest grand inquisitor, - gave the order that no one should be arrested for blasphemy uttered in the heat of passion-a rule more mild than in other countries; no one could be arrested unless good testimony against him existed and was presented.
The unanimous consent of all the judges of the tribunal was required to order an arrest, otherwise the case had to be referred to the supreme tribunal. The prisons of the Inquisition in Spain were far better than those of any other country of Europe at that time; many sentenced to imprisonment were sent to convents to be instructed and to do ecclesiastical penance. Sometimes their own house and home was their prison. The accuser had to take an oath that he was not led by hatred and malice, and a false oath was severely punished. Leo X demanded the death penalty; in Toledo, 1559, false witnesses received 400 lashes and were sent to the galleys for four years. It is true the name of the accuser was not given, but this was to prevent Spanish revenge; it was only law when the accused was a powerful noble or prelate. But then the accused could name his enemies, whose testimony was then entirely invalid; he could demand a change of venue from one or all the judges of a tribunal, and the supreme tribunal had to send other judges; the proceedings had to be communicated to him twice. Llorente gives us examples where witnesses for the defense were brought from as far as America to Spain. It is true the rack was used in Spain; but it was also in all countries of Europe, and later in England than in Spain. In Spain it could be used only once, and in the presence of two priests not belonging to the Inquisition. In the Tower of London the rack, scavenger's daugh- ter, thumbscrews, used as instruments of torture in times past, are still on exhibition, to which even women were subjected, and which were not abolished till 1772 (12th, George III). Massachusetts, also, had its witchcraft trials: Giles Coag, eighty years old, was pressed to death.
A ghastly picture is generally formed of an auto-de-fe. We recall to mind Prescott's description of it: A grand human holo- caust conducted with the utmost splendor; a grand procession
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-- bishops, priests, all the nobility, yea, even royalty, pres- ent; then so many hundred victims at each auto-de-fe, and of course it is taken for granted that all were burned, the Spaniards sitting around enjoying the groans, and sniffing like sweet perfume the smell of the burning flesh. It is but fiction and not historic truth. True, an auto-de-fe was always celebrated with great sol- emnity and pomp; true, there were often many hundred " victims," but nothing was burned but the candle the penitent carried in his hand. Thus, at an auto-de-fe in Toledo, February 12, 1486, there were 750 " victims:" not one was sentenced to death-to nothing more than an ecclesiastical penance. At a second, 900 " victims," and not one sentenced to death; again 750, and yet again 950; not one was burned. Prescott speaks of 3, 327 judged in little more than a year in one tribunal; but he forgets to add that of this large number only twenty-seven, mostly criminals who conspired to mur- der Christians of Toledo in 1485, were sentenced to death. An auto-de-fe was a solemn publication of the sentence of the Inquisi- tion. Out of the hundreds of "victims " the majority were declared innocent; a great many received absolution; some were sentenced to ecclesiastical penance or imprisonment, endured often in the best convents, or even in their own houses and homes; some- times, but rarely, a few, mostly guilty of the crimes mentioned above, were handed over to the lay judges of the Inquisition with a recommendation to mercy, and generally these few were executed the next day. It was the custom to strangle them before they were burned-a custom far more humane than the English drawing and quartering.
In regard to the san benito (blessed sackcloth) and the penance, used in the auto-de-fe ceremony, it was the universal custom in the church to do penance in a coarse garment-sack- cloth-which was blessed, and had a different color in differ- ent countries: in Spain it was yellow. In the middle ages it was not expected to do penance in grand uniform, in silk and satin; neither was it considered a disgrace to do penance. The great Emperor Theodosius did public penance in sackcloth; so did Henry IV., Henry III, and Henry III of Germany; Louis the Saint, of France, often performed, voluntarily, public pen- (672)
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ance, yea, even allowed himself to be scourged by his father confessor. Nobody saw in it a disgrace; only the piety of the prince was admired. Llorente gives us examples of members of the royal family wearing the san benito and receiving absolution, as, for instance, Prince James of Aragon; of some who were thus absolved and yet so little disgraced that they intermarried with the highest nobility, yea, even with the royal family; of some who had been absolved de gravi and afterward attained the highest offices in the church as well as in the state.
It is painful for a man of honor and truth to see the false- hoods written about the Inquisition; it is still more painful to be made accountable for all real and imagined evils of the Spanish state Inquisition, when the popes and bishops were constantly fighting it during the whole time of its existence.
It can only be added here that this admirable digest by Bishop Dwenger of the Spanish Inquisition should set at rest forever the false and injurious impressions relating to it that rest in the minds of the uninformed.
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CHAPTER XIX.
RETROSPECT, SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION-THE SPIRITUAL, EDUCA- TIONAL AND MATERIAL PROGRESS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE STATE OF INDIANA IS ONE GLOWING FACT.
IN the preceding chapters, the first and second excepted, since they are general in their scope, the writers have attempted to plainly and simply recount the greater number. if not all, of the principal facts and events connected with the existence of the Catholic church in the state of Indiana, especially during the past sixty-four years.
They have not, it is true, employed the old-time fine-toothed rake with which to collect their information. There was no need for this close scraping. They preferred to leave minor details and the little things to those who have a taste for trifles. The best reason for their choosing so to do is the generally accepted rule that while great and prominent men are the chief actors in all the dramas that are written and called history, their every act is by no means worthy of record. Moreover, if all were recorded that great and good men in state and church have said and done, their greatness and goodness might, to a degree, vanish in the estimation of the reader, if not of the writer. It were well, therefore, to con- sider the fact that history has reference principally to humans and human affairs.
While cautious and choice as to this matter, the authors have also been careful as to the order in which they have tried to pre- sent that matter. It will be seen that they have not adopted any arbitrary arrangement that might be in conflict with the natural current of events-with the order of the facts. They commenced (674)
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with the first tangible beginning, and have kept both the starting point and the material in view all the way through.
Nevertheless, what they have deemed worthy of setting down and preserving may not include all the facts and events that others would pass upon as meriting attention, were they engaged in the preparation of this history. Indeed, the authors do not hope that each critic, whether lay or cleric, will in every instance unqualifiedly endorse their judgment or their methods. It would be unreasonable to expect this. But having gathered together and piled up in mound- shape, so to speak, what they believe to be the most important facts, they would, in company with their readers, stand apart, afar off, and survey the things garnered and also the field.
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