[209] The Act of Faith--the Auto de Fe--was the name by which the Spanish Holy Office dignified the Sermo of the Old Inquisition. In its full development it was an elaborate public solemnity, carefully devised to inspire awe for the mysterious authority of the Inquisition, and to impress the population with a wholesome abhorrence of heresy, by representing in so far as it could the tremendous drama of the Day of Judgement. (1) It was regarded as an eminently pious duty. Ferdinand, in 1499, congratulating the inquisitors of Saragossa on the reports of their autos, and the consequent edification of the people, exhorts them to continue to serve God and to discharge their consciences and his. In a similar mood Cardinal Adrian, in 1517, urged the tribunal of Sicily to celebrate one as early as possible for, besides the service to God, it would greatly edify the people. (2) The old designation of Sermo was derived from the sermon with which the proceedings commenced--originally preached by one of the inquisitors, but subsequently by some eloquent fraile, who dilated on the supreme importance of preserving the faith in its purity and of exterminating heresy and heretics. To insure a large attendance, an indulgence, usually of forty days, was granted to all present at the pious work.
At the height of its power the Inquisition spared no labor or expense to lend impressiveness to the auto publico general, as a demonstration of its authority and of the success with which it performed its functions. In the earlier and busier period, the exhibition was simpler, and confined to the practical work in hand. Thus in the first one celebrated in Toledo, August 16, 1486, the victims were marched on foot to the plaza, their hands tied with ropes across the breast, wearing sanbenitos of yellow linen with their names and the inscription "herege condenado," and bearing [210] mitres on their heads. In the plaza they were ranged in tiers on a staging, while the inquisitors and their officials occupied another staging opposite. The sentence of each one was read and, although the culprits were numerous, the affair, commencing at 6 A.M., was over by noon, when the convicts were carried to the brasero or quemadero for burning. Apparently the exhibition consisted only of those condemned to the stake, to the exclusion of the reconciled or otherwise penanced. (3) The autos of the period, moreover, were not confined to the seats of the tribunals. We hear of them in the smaller towns, and, from a letter of Ferdinand, November 21, 1498, it appears that the convicts were distributed to their several bishoprics where the celebration and execution, though on a minor scale, would bring the terror of the Inquisition and the danger of heresy more directly home to the people. (4) By 1515, however, we may assume that they were centralized in the tribunal cities, for a royal cédula of that year orders the tribunal of Murcia to confine its autos to the city of Murcia and not to celebrate them in Orihuela. (5) It was evidently desired to render them more impressive, and this was further accomplished, about the same time, by requiring all penitents to appear in them for, in 1517, we find the Suprema instructing the tribunal of Navarre that, in future, abjurations de levi were not to be made privately, but in the public autos, which were to be celebrated with all solemnity. (6) There was cruelty in this, for appearance in an auto was in itself a severe punishment, and we shall see that subsequently autos particulares, or private autos, were instituted which enabled those guilty of lighter offences to escape without public humiliation.
Thus far autos were held
at the discretion of the tribunals, which celebrated them whenever there
was an accumulation of finished trials requiring relief to the prisons.
A consulta de fe would be assembled, the sentences would be agreed upon,
and a day would be appointed. It probably was not often that any external
interference was apprehended, as at Cuenca, in 1520, where the tribunal
had so excited popular passion by arresting the deputy corregidor, in some
collision of jurisdictions, that it was obliged to procure a royal cédula
instructing the corregidor [211] not to permit the inquisitors to
be impeded in the performance of their functions.
(7) Gradually, however,
in this, as in so much else, the Suprema assumed control. A commencement
of this is seen, in 1537, when it ordered that, whenever an auto was proposed,
it should be apprised before any one else, but even the Instructions of
1561 leave as yet the determination with the tribunals.
(8) It could not have
been long after this, however, that the permission of the Suprema became
requisite for, in 1585, we find the Inquisitor of Cuenca, Ximenes de Reynoso,
writing, September 3d, for a decision of certain cases, and for authority
to hold an auto, as there were thirty penitents, many of whom being poor
were a charge on the fisc. The Suprema delayed its answer and, on October
14th, Reynoso sent a special courier, asking the reply to be returned by
him; the auto was necessary for the benefit of the sick prisoners, as there
was a pestilence raging, and also for the relief of the treasury; it was
only by special entreaty that the receiver had paid the expenses of the
last month, saying that there were no funds. This brought a speedy answer,
with the desired permission. (9)
Finally, the customary routine was for the tribunal to send a list of the
cases in readiness and to ask for licence to hold an auto; if the Suprema
approved, it ordered the auto to be celebrated without delay. Apparently
in the active work of the eighteenth century there was an effort to regain
control of the matter, for a carta acordada of June 5, 1720, orders that
no auto be held without advising the Suprema and awaiting its commands.
(10)
As public autos became less
frequent, they lost the simplicity of the earlier period and grew to be
imposing demonstrations of the authority of the Inquisition. Possession
was taken of the principal square of the city, and two vast stagings were
erected, one for the penitents and their ghostly attendants, and the other
for the inquisitors with their officials and all the ecclesiastical and
secular authorities, while the windows of the surrounding houses were filled
with the notables of the place and their families. The participation of
prelate and magistrate, in the processions and spectacle, was compulsory,
for though, as a rule, they were proud to take their places, causes of
quarrel were too frequent and bitter [212] not occasionally to render
them unwilling thus to do honor to their imperious adversaries. In 1486,
the local authorities of Valencia absented themselves from an auto and,
when this was reported to Ferdinand, he rebuked them and ordered them in
future always to be present, for nothing was so important as the service
of God. (11)
Similar commands had to be repeated not infrequently. About 1580, a royal
cédula to the viceroy and officials of Majorca instructs them to
lend the weight of their authority to the Inquisition, by accompanying
the inquisitors in the procession to the staging, and then conducting them
back to their palace. In 1588, the President of the Royal Council of Castile
issued a general order to all the judges of the royal courts to march in
the processions and, in 1598, the inquisitors were empowered to compel
by excommunication the attendance of all public officials.
(12)
The staging, on great occasions,
was elaborate and costly, and the question of defraying the expense was
variously decided. In 1553, we find the Suprema settling it, in Cuenca,
by requiring the city to erect it, as was customary in Toledo. These two
cities and Madrid remained charged with it, but elsewhere it was paid by
the tribunals. At the great Madrid auto of 1632, Philip IV ordered the
city to construct the staging in conformity with plans drawn by his chief
architect, and the same course was followed in that of 1680, where we have
long details of the complicated structure erected under the superintendence
of commissioners of high rank, who esteemed the duty to be an honor.
(13)
It was essential that both
inquisitors should be present, and a single inquisitor was forbidden to
celebrate a public auto in the absence of his colleague. The day selected
must be a feast-day-- ordinarily a Sunday--in order to insure a larger
attendance. It sometimes chanced, however, in the eccentricities of spiritual
jurisdiction, that the city lay under an interdict on the day appointed
and, in such case, the Inquisition had to yield. In 1582 the Suprema instructed
the tribunals that, when this occurred, they should endeavor to have the
interdict lifted for the occasion, but, if those who had cast it refused,
the inquisitors must not assume [213] to lift it of their own authority,
and must postpone the auto or do the best they could.
(14)
In all other respects the
inquisitors were masters of the situation. Repeated royal cédulas,
commencing in 1523, addressed to the authorities of the cities, made the
inquisitors virtual rulers for the time. They were authorized to erect
stagings in the public plazas, to regulate the police arrangements of the
towns, and even to assign to the secular and clerical officials such seats
and precedence as they saw fit. The climax would appear to be reached when
Philip II empowered them to distribute at their will the windows of the
private houses overlooking the scene. Against this, in 1595, the president
and judges of the Audiencia of Granada protested, begging that house-owners
should be allowed to rent their windows, and pointing out the hardship
of a gentleman of high degree securing the use of a window for his family,
and being turned out because the inquisitors chose to give it to a notary
for the use of his wife. Philip, however, held good, except in so far that
he gave the inquisitors instructions to have special consideration for
the houses of the judges and alcaldes. (15)
How the tribunals exercised the police power thus conferred on them is
exemplified in the Seville auto of September 24, 1559, when they forbade
any one, between the preceding midnight and the close of the solemnity,
to carry arms or ride on horseback in the city, under penalty, for common
folk, of a hundred lashes, and for gentlemen, of forfeiture of the horse
or mule, thirty days of prison, and a fine of fifty thousand maravedís.
(16)
When cases sufficient for
an auto have accumulated, the tribunal reports them to the Suprema, which
orders it to be held. Then the inquisitors determine on a feast-day, which
should be at least a month off, in order to give sufficient time for the
preparations. Word is then sent to the corregidor and the dean of the cathedral
chapter to convene their respective bodies at nine o'clock the next morning,
to receive a communication from the Inquisition and, at the appointed hour,
some of the higher officials, with familiars, announce to them and to the
bishop the expected celebration. Then in due time mounted familiars and
notaries, with drums and trumpets and clarions and the standard of the
Inquisition, move in procession through the streets, and at stated places
a bell-man rings a bell and the town crier proclaims "Know all dwellers
in this city that the Holy Office of the Inquisition, for the glory and
honor of God and the exaltation of our holy Catholic faith, will celebrate
a public auto de fe at such a place on such a day."
No time is lost in making
preparation. Commissioners are appointed for the erection and ornamentation
of the staging, and wax is provided for the candles in the procession of
the Green Cross on the evening before the auto. All the Mendicant Orders
and the parish churches are invited to take part in the procession and
the auto. Letters of convocation are despatched, summoning all familiars,
notaries, commissioners, consultores and calificadores of the district,
under penalties and censures, to come on the day [215] previous
to the procession of the Green Cross. (18)
The frailes, who are to assist the condemned during their last night on
earth, are selected and notified. Corozas (conical mitres, about
three quarters of an ell in height) are ordered, with flames for those
who are to be relaxed, and in the ordinary form for bigamists, sorcerers
and false-witnesses; also sanbenitos with flames for the relaxed, with
two aspas for the reconciled, and with one aspa, behind and before, for
those abjuring de vehementi; also halters for the relaxed and for
those to be scourged. If there are effigies, they are made half length,
to be carried on poles by porters; if there are bones, the boxes containing
them are black, to be placed at the foot of those to which they belong;
the effigies wear mitres with flames, and sanbenitos with flames on one
side and, on the other, the name, residence and crime of the culprit.
(19) Green crosses
are also provided to be carried by the relaxed, yellow wax candles for
the penitents and bundles of osiers for the reconciliation ceremonies.
There must also be a box for carrying the sentences, of crimson velvet
with gold fringe and a gilt lock and key, while a list of the relaxed and
the effigies is given to the magistrates, so that they may have the sentences
ready. Besides these there is the large green cross to be borne by the
Dominican prior, and the white cross by the mayordomo of the Cofradía,
in the procession of the preceding evening. The standard to be carried
by the fiscal is to be made of crimson damask, richly embroidered on one
side with the royal arms, a green cross rising from the crown, and the
[216] sword and olive-branch to right and left, on the other side
a shield with arms of San Pedro Mártir; the staff is to be gilt,
ending in a cross, with pendant cords bearing gold and silver tassels.
Elaborate trappings are to be provided for the mules ridden by the officials,
and silver-plated batons for the familiars who marshal the procession.
The parish church usually supplies the carpets, hangings, and other adornments
of the staging, and the singers for the evening procession and the reconciliation
ceremonies. Then the preacher is appointed--usually a Dominican calificador--though
in Galicia a bishop is generally selected and, in Madrid, the royal confessor.
The day before the auto, the altar on the staging is decorated, and torches
and candles are arranged around the place where the green cross is to be
set. The inquisitors assign all the windows overlooking the plaza; they
order that no coaches shall traverse the streets, and decide where the
barriers are to be erected; the municipal authorities surrender the city
to them and do whatever they require.
In the evening preceding
the auto, the procession of the Green Cross takes place--a solemn affair
in which the standard is borne by a crowd of familiars and gentlemen; the
white cross follows with the religious Orders, the cross of the parish
church with its clergy, the Green Cross carried by the Dominican prior
and his frailes with torches and chanting the Miserere. The procession
winds through the designated streets to the plaza, where the Green Cross
is planted above the altar and is guarded by Dominicans during the night.
The white cross is carried on to the brasero, where it is guarded by a
body, existing in some cities, known as the soldiers of the Zarza, whose
function is to guard the brasero and plaza and to furnish the wood for
the burning. (20)
The Inquisition itself is guarded during the night by soldiers who, before
day-break, arouse the officials by beat of drum. Within the building, the
sanbenitos and insignia are arranged in order and porters are assembled
in readiness to carry the effigies and bones and such penitents as have
been disabled from walking. At 9 P.M. the senior inquisitor, with a secretary,
visits those who are to be relaxed and informs them of their approaching
fate; with each of them he leaves two frailes to guide them. If any of
the pertinacious or negativos are converted, they are to be heard immediately
[217] and their confessions received, when the inquisitors with
the Ordinary determine whether to admit them to reconciliation, and the
same is done with those converted on the staging.
Before dawn mass is celebrated
in the audience-chamber, and also at the altar of the Green Cross. By daylight
breakfast is given to all who are to appear in the auto, and also to the
frailes assigned to the relaxed. (21)
They are not taken from their cells till the hour of forming the procession,
when the penitents are ranged along the walls of the audience-chamber in
the order of their marching; all are dressed in their sanbenitos with the
requisite insignia.
The procession starts with
the soldiers of the Zarza at its head; then the cross of the parish church,
shrouded in black, with an acolyte who tolls a bell mournfully at intervals.
Then come the penitents, one by one, each with a familiar on either side;
first are the impostors, then personators of officials of the Inquisition,
followed in order by blasphemers, bigamists, Judaizers, Protestants, the
effigies and chests of bones and finally those to be relaxed, each with
two frailes. Mounted officials follow, then familiars in pairs, the standard
of the Inquisition, and finally the inquisitors bring up the rear. Thus
the procession moves through the designated streets, filled with a densely
packed crowd, kept off by railings, to the plaza, where the culprits are
seated in the same order, the lightest offenders on the lowest benches.
The staging is provided with
two pulpits, from which the sentences are read alternatively. Between them
is a bench elevated on two steps, on which the penitents are brought successively,
to sit with their faces to the tribunal and hear their sentences read;
the bench is furnished with a rail, kindly provided for them to cling to,
in case of fainting, for, with the exception of the relaxed, this is the
first definite announcement to them of their fate. Below the seats of the
tribunal there is a room handsomely fitted up for refreshments, to which
the inquisitors, officials, municipal officers and clergy resort from time
to time, and a similar one is provided [218] for the familiars and
persons of note. To the former is brought any pertinacious convict who
may be converted on the staging previous to hearing his sentence, and there
an inquisitor and secretary take his confession, after which the inquisitors
and Ordinary consider the case: if he is to be admitted to reconciliation
he is sent back to the Inquisition in a coach or chair, or is replaced
on the staging, to return with the rest of the penitents. If any culprit
dies on the staging, if he is condemned to relaxation his sentence is read,
and his body is delivered to the secular arm; if he is one of those to
be reconciled, he is absolved and the parish church buries him in consecrated
ground; if simply one penanced, he is absolved ad cautelam and the
church buries him.
After the preaching of the
sermon, a secretary mounts a pulpit and, in a loud voice, reads the customary
oath, elaborately pledging all the officials and people present to obedience
to the Holy Office, and to the active persecution of heretics and heresy,
to which every one responds Amen! If the king is present, the senior inquisitor
goes to his balcony and, on the cross and gospels, administers to him an
oath to defend the faith, to persecute heretics and to show all necessary
favor to the Inquisition. (22)
Then the sentences are read
from the alternate pulpits, the alguazil mayor producing each culprit to
hear his sentence. In this there must be no interruption, as all the sentences
must be read, if it lasts till nightfall, for which torches and torch-bearers
must [219] be in readiness. (23)
Although the sentences of the relaxed are left to the last, yet, if the
auto is prolonged into the night they are introduced earlier, as it is
essential that the burning should be executed in broad day-light. As these
sentences are read, the effigies and chests of bones are ranged on one
side of the stage, and the living convicts on the other. They are then
delivered to the secular arm, and the judge who utters the sentences does
so, either on the stage, or at the table of the secretaries or outside
of the staging. If there is a compañía de la Zarza,
it marches in squadron into the plaza, when the sentences are read, and
the men discharge their arquebuses. They surround the condemned and march
with them to the brasero, to protect them from the populace which, in some
places, is accustomed to maltreat and even to kill them, against which
the inquisitors give special instructions. The magistrates provide the
asses on which they ride and the wood to burn them. The frailes in charge
attend them to the last breath and exhaust all effort to bring about their
repentance and conversion.
The public solemnities conclude
with the ceremonies of abjuration and reconciliation, after which the alguazil
mayor and familiars conduct the penitents back to the Inquisition, where
they have supper and are locked up, three or four in a cell. The priests
of the parish church remove the black veil from their cross and take it
back, while the Dominicans bear the green cross to the Inquisition, singing
psalms and escorted by the municipal officials. The next morning the reconciled
have the terms of their sentences read over to them; they and the other
penitents take the oath of secrecy, and they are conveyed by the alcaide
to the penitential prison. At ten o'clock the alguazil mayor, with a secretary
and familiars, all mounted, with the public executioner and town-crier,
take out those sentenced to scourging and vergüenza, and the punishment
is duly administered through the customary streets. On their return, those
whose sentences include the galleys are furnished a certificate of their
length of service and are transferred to the royal prison, and with this
concludes the stately ceremony [220] by which the Holy Office, at
the height of its power, impressed its terror on the population.
The place of burning--the
quemadero or brasero--as a rule was outside of the city. With this the
tribunal had nothing to do, except that a secretary and alguazil were present
to certify and report as to the execution of the sentences.
(24) Consequently
the documents of the Inquisition furnish no details, but some may be gleaned
from a relation of the Madrid auto of 1632. For this occasion the city
had constructed the brasero beyond the Puerta de Alcalá; as there
were seven to be burnt, it was made fifty feet square, and had the requisite
stakes with garrotes. The confusion and crowd were great, and so also was
the fire, which lasted until eleven o'clock at night, by which time the
bodies were reduced to ashes, so that the memory of the impious might vanish
from the earth. (25)
The scattering of the ashes over the fields, or into running water, was
a prescription of old standing, to prevent disciples of heresiarchs from
preserving fragments to be venerated as relics. This was not an easy matter,
for the total calcination of a human skeleton requires a prolonged intensity
of heat not likely to be maintained where wood was expensive, and the bones
found with the cinders on the site of the old quemadero of Madrid, when,
about 1868, the Calle de Carranza was cut through it, would indicate that
part, at least, of the remains of the victims were allowed to lie where
they had perished.
The auto público
general, while looming large in popular imagination, represented, in
truth, but a small part of inquisitorial activity. It was a solemnity on
a grand scale, in which the Holy Office magnified its importance, but by
far the greater number of cases were despatched in autos particulares
or autillos, held in churches, or in the audience-chamber, or anywhere
that circumstances might dictate. In the Toledo record, from 1575 to 1610,
there are contained but twelve autos generales, in which three hundred
and eighty-six culprits appeared, while seven hundred and eighty-six cases
were settled in autos particulares. (26)
As stated above, appearance in a public auto was, in itself, a severe punishment,
and the sentence always specified whether the offender was [221] to
be subjected to a humiliation entailing consequences on him and his family
so greatly dreaded that, at a Toledo auto of December 13, 1627, Juan Nuñez
Saravia, a wealthy Portuguese, vainly offered twelve thousand ducats to
escape it. (27)
The great majority of cases deserved no such severity. The jurisdiction
of the Inquisition extended over a wide field; it was, in a certain sense,
a custos morum and took cognizance of a vast number of comparatively
trivial offences--careless speeches, blasphemies, propositions of all kinds,
indecent writings and works of art, sorceries and conjurations more or
less innocent and the like--which it disposed of without summoning the
entire population as spectators. Clerical offenders, moreover, as we have
seen, unless degraded for formal heresy, were shielded from the scandal
of publicity in the audience chamber.
The auto particular,
or private auto, was often celebrated in a church, to which the spiritual
and civil authorities were not invited, but where such portion of the public
as could find room were at liberty to be present. More frequently it was
held in the sala, or audience-chamber, and here again there was a distinction,
for the sentence defined whether it should be with open doors or closed
and, in the former case, the bell was often tolled in order to invite a
curious crowd of spectators. Even the apartments of the senior inquisitor
were sometimes used in this manner, as when, March 23, 1680, three alguaziles
of the corregidor of Toledo, for maltreating the purveyor of the tribunal,
were sentenced in the apartments to various terms of exile. When nuns were
the culprits, the autillo was customarily performed in their convent,
as in the case, August 8, 1658, of Sor Josefa de Villegas, for superstitions
and sorceries, who was sentenced to various penances, through the grating
of the Augustinian nunnery of San Torquato, in presence of the nuns and,
on February 13, 1685, Sor Dionisia de Rojas was sentenced in the choir
of the Franciscan house of Santa Isabel, in the presence of the superior
and four elderly sisters. (28)
As financial distress grew
more and more acute, in the seventeenth century, the tribunals shrank from
the heavy expenses attendant on the elaborate demonstrations of the great
public autos which, however gratifying to their pride, bore too heavily
[222] upon their diminishing resources, exposed as they were to
the royal exactions. In Barcelona, there would seem to have been no public
auto between 1627 and the revolt of 1640; in Valladolid, none between 1644
and 1667. In Toledo one was held, after prolonged consideration, January
1, 1651, in which the number of culprits shows that it relieved the prisons
of a long accumulation; it was the last public auto celebrated in Toledo,
and there was none even in a church, between 1656 and 1677.
(29) Seville appears
to have been less hampered and celebrated public autos generales in 1631,
1643, 1648, 1656, and a most impressive one in 1660 at which less fortunate
tribunals unloaded their convicts, for there were seven relaxations in
person, twenty-seven in effigy and fifty-two penitents, but this appears
to be the last of its kind there. (30)
In fact, the public auto
would have been abandoned ere this, but for the rule that judgements of
blood must not be rendered in churches. As early as 1568 the Suprema had
decreed that, when there was a relaxation, the auto must be held in the
plaza and not in a church, which was in accordance with the ancient authorities.
(31) When the public
autos became an onerous burden, we can imagine that this led to hesitation
in pronouncing death-sentences for, when this was unavoidable, the convict
became a troublesome personage. A suggestive case was that of Juan López,
condemned to relaxation for Judaism, at Valladolid, in 1633; after he lay
in prison for thirty months with no prospect of getting rid of him, the
Suprema ordered him to be tortured and another vote to be taken, which
resulted, September 1, 1637, in a revised sentence of reconciliation, with
severe punishments. (32)
A device less damaging to the purity of faith was to transfer a convict
from one tribunal to another for execution. Thus when, at Valencia, the
Morisco Gerónimo Buenaventura was condemned for pertinacity, there
was no auto in which to execute the sentence. On November 19, 1635, the
Suprema ordered him to be sent to Valladolid, apparently [223] under
the impression that he could be burnt there but, after two years, Valladolid
reported that it had no public auto in which to despatch him, so, in 1638
the Suprema ordered his transfer to Saragossa. (33)
Whether he met a speedy death there we have no means of knowing, but there
is something peculiarly revolting in thus sending a poor wretch from one
corner of Spain to another, in order to find some place in which to burn
him economically.
When any tribunal managed
to celebrate a public auto, it was utilized to disembarrass the others.
Thus the Toledo auto of 1651 had effigies contributed by Cuenca, Córdova
and Seville. In 1655 Santiago celebrated a public auto, to which Valladolid
sent for relaxation one living person and four effigies, two of the latter
having been kept waiting since 1644 and 1648. The consulta de fe of Murcia,
on July 18, 1658, voted to relax nine fugitive Judaizers of Beas, but the
formal sentence was delayed until December 5, 1659, in preparation for
the great public auto at Seville, April 13, 1660, when the effigies were
duly cremated. (34) The imposing Madrid
auto of 1680--the last of its kind--was a general gaol delivery to which
all the tribunals contributed their embarrassing convicts.
There was no prospect of
an improvement in the situation, although it was supremely humiliating
to the Inquisition that it could not afford to burn those whom it condemned,
promptly and on the scene of their transgressions, under the alternative
of exercising a compulsory mercy. Some relief must be found, and a partial
attempt was made, in a carta acordada of September 4, 1657, permitting
effigies to be relaxed at autos particulares in churches. Toledo promptly
availed itself of this by relaxing, December 9th, eight effigies of fugitives
in such an auto, (35)
but the other tribunals seem to have discountenanced the device. The further
step, of overthrowing the traditional prohibition of uttering sentences
of blood in churches, appears to have been under consideration in 1664,
when the Suprema called on the tribunals for information as to relaxations
in person or in effigy in autos particulares. In reply, Valencia reported
that the sentence of Gaspar López, to be relaxed in effigy, voted
in 1641, had never been published, for lack of an auto, although the corresponding
sentence of [224] confiscation had been executed--which the Suprema
pronounced to be highly irregular. (36)
It required time to familiarise
the conscience with so revolutionary a measure, and the project slumbered
for a quarter of a century, but the pressure to escape the burden of public
autos increased, and the Suprema finally conquered its scruples. A carta
acordada, of September 23, 1689, pointed out that, in view of the diminished
resources from confiscations and of the increased cost of celebrating these
public functions with due solemnity, they were avoided as far as possible,
and it was no longer practicable to reserve for them the relaxed, whose
numbers unfortunately were daily increasing. They had to be fed while lying
forgotten in their cells, after their cases were finished; even the expense
of transferring them from one tribunal to another was considerable, and
it was kindly added that there was risk to their souls in detaining them
so long while in ignorance of their fate. Weighing all this and, in view
of the fact that there were cases of relaxation in churches both before
and after the Instructions of 1561, and that the Council of Constance,
sitting in the cathedral, had condemned Jerome of Prague, the Suprema reached
the conclusion that judgement of relaxation could be rendered in churches,
provided the sentence of the civil magistrate was uttered outside. The
tribunals were therefore instructed that they could relieve themselves
of their convicts in autos particulares in churches, delivering them to
the secular arm outside of the sacred limits. To such autos the civic and
cathedral chapters were not to be invited, and the rule as to time was
to be observed, so that the burning could be performed by daylight.
(37)
Thus came to an end the gorgeous
general public autos in which, during its more prosperous days, the Inquisition
had made so profound an impression on the imaginations of men. Thenceforth,
no matter how many living beings and effigies were consigned to the quemadero,
the ceremony was conducted within the sacred precincts of a church, in
a simpler and more economical fashion. The great autos of Majorca, in 1691,
in which so many unfortunates perished, were held in the church of San
Domingo. Yet still there was elaboration of display. A writer, in 1724,
giving an account of the autos celebrated in Seville since 1719, is vastly
more concerned with enumerating the names of officials and familiars, with
describing the ceremonial and dilating upon the crimson velvet chairs and
cushions and canopies embroidered in gold and silver and the diamond badges
worn by the functionaries, than with the real work of the tribunal, grim
and cruel though it continued to be. (39)
These gauds might gratify
the vanity of the Inquisitors, but the old attractiveness of the imposing
public ceremonial had vanished. The population no longer poured in from
all the surrounding distrct, camping out in the fields, in the vast crowds
described with so much pride in the relations of the great autos. When
we remember the thousand familiars and officials in Logroño, and
the grandees who eagerly competed for positions of honor in the processions,
we can estimate the change that compelled the complaint of the Seville
tribunal, in 1729. It denounced the lukewarmness [226] of the familiars
in accompanying its processions, whereby it was losing the respect of the
people, and compared unfavorably with the public demonstrations of the
Audiencia and civic authorities. It was with this object that the familiars
had been so greatly increased in numbers and had been favored with so many
privileges and exemptions. Besides the occasional autos, the tribunal made
salidas, or processions, on five principal feasts of the year, and
it ordered the Hermandad de San Pedro Mártir to nominate eight familiars,
from among whom it would select four, two to accompany it on the regular
salidas and two for the autos, with threats of fine and imprisonment for
neglect of duty. (40)
Yet it would not be safe
to conclude from this that fanaticism was extinct. At the Llerena auto
of June 25, 1752, there were six effigies of fugitives to be burnt and
one of a dead woman with her bones. It had always been the custom to have
these borne in the procession and to the brasero by carriers of the lowest
class, drawn from the hospital for vagrants, who were paid for the service
but, on this occasion, it chanced that none of these could be had. The
inquisitors were greatly exercised and, as a last expedient, they represented
to the Lieutenant-governor, Don Manuel de la Fuente y Dávila, that
this was an exalted religious duty which the noblest might be proud to
perform, and they offered that the officials of the Inquisition would carry
the effigies to the church and then to the secular magistrate, if Don Manuel
and other nobles would bear them thence to the brasero. Don Manuel assented
and his example was followed by the Governor, the Marquis of Torre Mexia
and other nobles; the officials were persuaded to do their share, and thus,
we are told, the old custom, so derogatory to the sacredness of the function,
was successfully discarded. The procession to the brasero was a triumphal
march, to the sound of trumpets, with the escort of all the troops that
could be assembled. (41)
The accession of Philip III
was celebrated by an auto at Toledo, March 6, 1600, in the presence of
the king, his queen, Margarita [228] of Austria, the Duke of Lerma
and all the court, where Philip took the oath to protect and favor the
Holy Office. Toledo had but few culprits, as it had held an auto the year
before, but a total of forty-six were accumulated by drawing upon Córdoba,
Granada, Cuenca, Llerena, Valladolid and Seville. There were but two relaxations
in effigy and one in person--the latter being a Huguenot named Jacques
Pinzon, whom the Granada tribunal had been leisurely endeavoring to wean
from his heresy for a couple of years. He was needed to complete the attraction
at Toledo, and his trial was concluded so hurriedly that the Suprema ordered
his transfer thither before it had received for confirmation the vote condemning
him, so the sentence was made out in blank and sent after him for the Toledan
inquisitors to sign. As he is characterized as pertinacious he was probably
burnt alive. (46)
The great auto of Madrid, in 1632, was held there by the special order
of the king, in celebration of the recovery from confinement of Isabelle
de Bourbon, wife of Philip IV, and was graced with the presence of both
and of their son Don Carlos. There were thirty-seven penitents besides
seven relaxations in person and two in effigy. (47)
The revolted Catalans, who had given themselves to France, took the same
means of honoring the Viceroy Conde, on the eve of his departure for Paris,
by an auto celebrated November 7, 1647, in which there were two relaxations
in person and two in effigy. (48)
The ostensible purpose of the crowning glory at Madrid, June 30, 1680,
which fitly ended the long series of autos públicos generales,
was to honor the marriage of the young Carlos II with Louise Marie d'Orléans.
There were sixty-seven penitents and fifty-one relaxations, of which nineteen
were in person. A compañía de la Zarza was formed,
numbering two hundred and fifty members, with Francisco de Salcedo as captain.
On June 28th they were taken to the puerta de Alcalá, where each
man was furnished with a fagot. Then they marched to the royal palace,
where Salcedo took a fagot, specially prepared for the purpose, and handed
it to the Duke of Pastrana, who carried it to the king. Carlos with his
own hands bore it to his queen and exhibited it and then sent it back by
Pastrana with the message that it should be taken in his name to the brasero
and be the first that was thrown [229] upon the fire.
(49) The religious
training of the young monarch had evidently not been neglected. It was
an earnest of better things in store for Spain when, in 1701, Philip V
refused to be present at an auto general proposed to be celebrated in honor
of his accession, and the project was abandoned.
(50)
We have thus considered the
organization of the Inquisition and its general methods of action. It remains
for us to examine the application of those methods to the various classes
of offenders subjected to its extensive jurisdiction.
Numerous relations are extant,
in print and in MS., of the great autos publicos generales, giving
in more or less detail the elaborate ceremonial which developed itself,
in the effort to render impressive these crowning manifestations of the
piety that regarded, as the highest service to God, the extermination of
those who persisted in worshipping him according to their own consciences.
These show that fashions varied somewhat with time and place; they give
the point of view of the spectator, and we may preferably take as our guide
a memoir of the seventeenth century showing the internal machinery, according
to the custom of Toledo, [214] drawn up for the instruction of succeeding
inquisitors. (17)
The minuteness of the rules prescribed shows what importance was attached
to rendering the spectacle imposing and to making manifest the subordination
of the civil power, while the care taken to designate the exact place of
every man or body of men indicates how fruitless was the authority granted
to the tribunal in these matters to prevent the inveterate quarrels as
to precedence. At the great Madrid auto of 1632, the Franciscans, indignant
at the position assigned to them in the procession, after lively altercation,
retired sullenly to their convent, for which the Suprema prosecuted them.
These undignified squabbles were so much a matter of course that our author,
in describing the report to be made to the Suprema, assumes that a place
must be reserved in it for them, and for the reasons which governed the
tribunal in its decisions.
Against this there arose
a protest on the part of the secular magistrates, who felt slighted at
not being invited and having seats allotted to them. To meet this, the
Suprema, April 7, 1690, addressed to the king a consulta deploring the
impossibility of celebrating the autos with the ceremonial and impressiveness
of old. But great numbers of those deserving relaxation had accumulated
in most of the tribunals; there were not funds to maintain [225] them
in prison, or to despatch them in general autos, and to bring them together
would excite horror, as occurred in the auto of 1680. It therefore proposed
that the secular officials be stationed outside of the church, where the
convicts could be delivered to them, but this was not acceptable to the
civil authorities and a compromise was effected, July 20th, designating
the single official who was to represent the secular arm. The tribunal
was to send him a message, appointing time and place; he was to be at the
church door when the procession arrived; he was to follow the inquisitors,
the fiscal and the Ordinary, and have a seat near them and, after the sentences
of relaxation were pronounced, he was to leave the church for a place agreed
upon, where the convicts were to be brought to him, when he sentenced them
and executed the sentences. (38)
Notwithstanding such occasional
bursts of zeal, the glory of the Inquisition was rapidly departing and,
with the extermination of the few remaining Judaizers, its functions continuously
dwindled. In the Toledo tribunal, the last auto held in a church was on
March 7, 1778, for a single penitent condemned to vergüenza for sorcery.
After that, to the close of the century, it had but nine autillos, all
held in the audience-chamber, sometimes with open [227] and sometimes
with closed doors, and in each of them there was but a single penitent.
Five of the cases were for propositions, two for solicitation in the confessional,
one for bigamy, and one for administering sacraments without priests' orders.
(42) To this had shrunk
the activity of a once prominent tribunal and with this shrinkage the power
to impress the popular imagination with its imposing demonstrations.
There is one aspect of the
auto de fe which reflects the intensity of Spanish fanaticism in a most
suggestive manner. When the Spaniard regarded it as a celebration fitted
for a day of rejoicing, or as a spectacular entertainment acceptable to
distinguished national guests, he did so in the conviction that it was
the highest exhibition of piety, and a service to God, glorious to the
land which organized it, and stimulating the devotion of all participants.
Probably no autos were celebrated in honor of Ferdinand and Isabella, for
the stern and rapid work of the period scarce admitted of the pageantry
requisite to adapt the spectacle to royal courtliness, and the Burgundian
fashions had not superseded the ancient Castilian simplicity. None of their
successors, however, of the House of Hapsburg, were without such a testimonial
of pious loyalty. When, in 1528, Charles V passed through Valencia, there
was celebrated in his honor an auto, in which there were thirteen men and
women relaxed in person, besides ten in effigy. (43)
In 1560, the Toledo tribunal contributed an auto, with several relaxations,
to the joyous celebration of the marriage of Philip II with Isabelle de
Valois, daughter of Henry II of France. It was a notable spectacle, for
the royal wedding and the meeting of the Córtes to swear allegiance
to the young Don Carlos brought to Toledo all that was most distinguished
in Spain. (44)
When, in February, 1564, Philip was in Barcelona for the Catalan Córtes,
an auto was arranged in his honor, in which there were eight relaxations
in person and numerous condemnations to the galleys. They were mostly Frenchmen
whom Saint-Sulpice, the French ambassador, had vainly sought to protect.
(45)
18. In the Logroño auto of November 7, 1610, there marched in the procession a thousand familiars, commissioners and notaries. In that of Barcelona, June 21, 1627, there were five or six hundred familiars and alguaziles.--Auto de fe celebrado in Logroño, 7 y 8 de Noviembre, 1610 (Logroño, 1610).--Parets, Sucesos de Cataluña (Mem. hist. español, XX, 20).
19. In the early autos, where there were large numbers of the dead and absent, an economical though somewhat grotesque device was that of statuae duplicatae-- effigies with Janus faces, one before and the other behind. At Barcelona, January 25, 1488, there were five married couples thus represented by five effigies and, on May 23d, of the same year, twenty effigies were made to do duty for forty-two fugitives, while, on February 9, 1489, ten effigies served for thirty-nine absentees.--Carbonell, op. cit. (Col. de Doc. de la C. de Aragon, XXVIII, 13, 15, 30).
As regards the corozas or mitres, the Roman Inquisition, with a finer sense of what was fitting, forbade their use in 1596, as derogatory to the episcopal dignity, which was distinguished by the use of mitres.--Deer. S. Congr. Sti Officii, p. 458 (Bibl. del R. Archivo di Stato in Roma, Fondo camerale, Congr. del S. Officio, Vol. 3).
20. The procession of the cruz verde was not universal. It was practised in Valladolid, Toledo, Murcia and probably some others.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 979, fol. 40.
21. The cost of these meals was scrutinized. In 1571 the Suprema ordered Logroño not to spend more than twelve ducats on the breakfast. A carta acordada of January 25, 1574, refers to the heavy expenses for collation and breakfast given to inquisitors and officials, confessors and penitents. In future they are to be confined to confessors and penitents; if the inquisitors and officials want meals it must be at their own expense, and evidence of this must accompany the reports of the autos.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 82, fol. 9; Lib. 942, fol. 39.
22. The royal oath, taken by the young Carlos II, at the Madrid auto of 1680, with one hand on the cross and the other on the gospels, was as follows. The inquisitor-general said " Vuestra Magestad jura y promete por su fe y palabra real, que como verdadero y Católico Rey, puesto par la mano de Dios, defenderá con todo su poder la Fe Católica que tiene y cree la santa madre Iglesia Apostólica de Roma y la conservación y aumento della, y que persiguirá y mandará perseguir á los Hereges y Apostatas contrarios della, y que mandará dar y dará el favor y ayuda necessario para el Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion y ministros dello, para que los hereges perturbadores de nuestra Religión Cristiana sean prendidos y castigados conforme á los derechos y sacros cañones, sin que aya omisión de parte de Vuestra Magestad ni excepción de persona alguna de qualquier calidad que sea." To this the king replied " Assi lo juro y prometo por mi fee y palabra Real." (Olmo, Relacion del Auto, p. 125.) Such an oath was administered to the prince Don Carlos at the Valladolid auto of May 21, 1559 (Gachard, Don Carlos, I, 47 ); also to Philip II at that of October 8, 1559 (Cabrera, Vida de Felipe II, Lib. v, cap. 3); also to Philip III at that of Toledo, March 6, 1600 (MSS. of Library of University of Halle., Yc, 20, T. VIII), and to Philip IV at the Madrid auto of 1632 (Mora, Auto de la Fee, § 27).
23. At the great Logroño auto of Nov. 7-8, 1610, where there were fifty-three culprits, including twenty-nine witches, the sentences were so long that the day was consumed with the eleven cases of relaxation. The second day was occupied from dawn till nightfall; some of the sentences had to be curtailed, and the reconciliations were performed after dark.--Auto de Fe de Logroño (Logroño, 1611; Madrid, 1820).
24. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Sala 40, Lib. 4, fol. 221.
25. Mora, Auto de la Fee de 1032, § 44.
26. MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, T. I.
27. Ant. Rodríguez Villa, La Corte y Monarquía de España, p. 238.
28. Archivo hist. nacional, Inquisicion de Toledo, Leg. 1.
29. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Toledo, Leg. 1.--Archivo de Simancas, Gracia y Justicia, Inq., Leg. 621, fol. 171.
30. Relacion histórica de la Judería de Sevilla, pp. 85 sqq. (Sevilla, 1849).
31. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 937, fol. 123.--A commentator on this cites Azpilcueta and Peña to prove that in Rome autos that included relaxations were held in churches and also that, in 1611, at Cuenca an auto comprehending four relaxations was held in a church by order of the Suprema.--Bibl. nacional, MSS., V, 377, Cap. iii, § 2.
32. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 552, fol. 17, 22, 23.
33. Archivo de Simancas, loc. cit.
34. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Toledo, Leg. 1.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 552, fol. 40.--Proceso contra Diego Rodríguez Silba, fol. 32-4 (MS. penes me). Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 42, fol. 289,--Archivo hist. nacional, ubi sup.
36. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 11, n. 1, fol. 220, 230, 240.
37. Archivo de Simancas, Lib. 42, fol, 239. Whether through design or carelessness, this was not sent to the Valencia tribunal until October 14, 1699, when it was enclosed in a letter saying that as it had not been forwarded at the time it was now sent for their instruction.--Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 10, n. 2, fol. 138.
38. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 42, fol. 291, 308.
39. Bibl. nacional, MSS., R, 128.
40. Archivo de Alcalá, Hacienda, Leg. 544 2 (Lib. 9).
41. Ibidem. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Toledo, Leg. 1.
43. Danvila y Collado, Expulsion de los Moriscos, p 106. Llorente, Hist. crít., Cap. xxiv, Art. I, n. 2.
45. Gachard, Don Carlos et Philippe II, I, 106-7.
46. MSS. of Library of Univ. of Halle, Yc, 20, T. I; Tom. VIII.
47. Moro, Auto de la Fee (Madrid, 1632).
48. Parets, Sucesos de Cataluña (Mem. hist. español, XXIV, 297).
49. Olmo, Relación del Auto, p. 47.
50. Llorente, Hist. crít. Cap. XL, Art. 1, n. 3.--Vicente de la Fuente, Hist. eclesiástica de España, III, 378.--"Preparóse un auto de fe para obsequiar al Rey, pues habían llegado los autos á ser un obligado de todas las fiestas regias, como los toros y los fuegos artificiales. Felipe V se negó por primera vez á concurrir á ellos; mas adelante se le vio asistir á uno (1720)."