m

[231] As the apostasy of the enforced converts from Judaism was the proximate cause of the establishment of the Spanish Holy Office, so they continued to be almost the exclusive object of its energies, until the similar treatment of the Moors created, in the Moriscos, a class with even greater claims on its solicitude. The rooting out of the latter, however, in the early years of the seventeenth century, was so complete that they virtually disappeared from the records of the tribunals, while the Jewish New Christians remained, and, for more than another century provided the major portion of their more serious work.

It had been easy, since 1391, to compel baptism by the alternatives of exile or death, but it had never been deemed necessary to supplement this by instruction in the new faith, or by efforts to effect a real conversion. When Ferdinand and Isabella were aroused to the fact that the Conversos were Christians only in name, terrorism was the sole method that suggested itself of accomplishing the great task of securing the desired unity of faith. So, when the expulsion of 1492, filled the land with a new multitude of neophytes, there was the same disregard of the duty of persuasion and instruction. The only utterances on the subject seem to assume that they would in some way instruct and fortify themselves in their new religion. When, in 1496, a royal pragmática forbade them for three years to farm the royal revenues, the reason alleged was that such occupation would distract them from obtaining due instruction in Christian doctrine. In 1499, the Suprema ordered that the Conversos anterior to 1492 should live scattered among Old Christians, while the recent ones should be separated from their rabbis, living by themselves in towns and strengthening their faith by punctual attendance on divine service. ⁽¹⁾ It was not [232] until 1500 that it bethought itself to provide that all the banished Jews who returned, claiming to be baptized, must exhibit certificates of baptism for themselves and their children; they must observe the feasts and attend mass and sermons, and all children, over six years of age, must, within six months, know the four prayers, the seven mortal sins and the confession of faith. ⁽²⁾ When the enforced conversion of the Moriscos created an even greater multitude of nominal Christians, there were a few equally ineffective instructions issued as to both classes, to which little attention was paid. The simplicity of belief in the adequacy of these measures was apparently grounded on faith in the effectiveness of the inquisitorial process, of which we have incidentally seen so many illustrations during the early period.

That confidence continued unabated, and the enforcement of uniformity in this fashion was followed energetically, with only euch intermissions as might arise from the lack of accessible material, or from indolence in searching for it. Where there was zeal there was little scruple, as appears from a letter addressed, about 1540, by the tribunal of Llerena to all the inquisitors of Spain and Portugal. It had arrested twenty-one persons, in addition to three fugitives and two deceased, on suspicion--probably because they were on their way to Portugal--and it now asked to have all the registers of the Peninsula ransacked for evidence to justify their prosecution. ⁽³⁾ We have had occasion to see how slender was the proof required for this--the slightest adherence to any of the ancestral customs of Judaism, whether of religious significance or not, sufficed, and lists of these observances were carefully drawn up for the guidance of inquisitors. The more obvious, such as the avoidance of pork and lard, the removal of fat from meat, the observance of the Sabbath by changing linen, lighting lamps and abstaining from work, the killing of fowls by decollation, the keeping of stated fasts, eating meat in Lent and the like, were known of all men, and perpetual watch was kept by Old Christians on the households of Conversos, so that all such lapses were eagerly reported to the tribunals, as required by the Edicts of Faith. They furnished ample ground for suspicion, justifying arrest and trial, when inquisitorial methods insured that no lurking Judaic tendencies could escape detection.

[233] An illustrative case was that of Elvira del Campo, tried at Toledo in 1567. She was of converso descent and was married to Alonso de Moya, a scrivener of Madridejos, who seems to have been an Old Christian. According to witnesses who had lived with her as servants, or were her near neighbors, she went to mass and confession and gave all outward sign of being a good Christian; she was kind and charitable, but she would not eat pork and, when she cooked it for the household, she handled it with a rag so as not to touch it, which she explained by saying that she had a throat-trouble which made it disagree with her, and that handling it made her hands smell. There was a little cumulative evidence about putting on clean linen on Saturdays and not working, but this was insignificant and the case rested on pork. The chief witnesses were two of her husband's employees, Pedro de Liano and Alonso Collados, who lived in the house, and their evidence went much into detail as to their spying about the kitchen, peeping into cupboards, and watching all the details of her housekeeping. Liano testified that once he and Collados talked about her putting a leg of mutton into water to soak over night, when Collados said he thought there was some Jewish ceremony in this, and it would please him much to know it, for he would accuse her to the Inquisition, as he was on bad terms with her. Yet Collados, before the tribunal, concluded his testimony by saying that he wished her well for her good treatment of him, that he held her to be a good Christian, because she went to mass and spoke ill of no one and was very reserved, rarely leaving her home and talking with but few people.

Elvira was arrested early in July, and at first her trial was pushed with speed, as she was pregnant, but her confinement, August 31st, caused a delay of three months. She admitted not eating pork, but attributed this to medical advice, for a disease communicated to her by her husband, which she desired to conceal. Little stress was laid on the other charges and she strenuously asserted her orthodoxy. Of the twelve witnesses against her she identified six, but her effort to disable them for enmity failed, except as regarded the two most damaging ones, Collados and Diego Hernández. Of thirteen witnesses for character, consisting of ecclesiastics and neighbors, all but one--who professed ignorance-- gave emphatic testimony as to her being a good Christian, attentive and regular in all religious duties, obedient to the precepts of the Church, and in no way the object of suspicion. There was evidently [234] nothing to do but to torture her. This, as we have seen above (p. 24) was administered twice, and resulted in her stating that when she was eleven years old her mother had told her not to eat pork and to observe the Sabbath, and she knew this to be against the Christian Law--but, as her mother had died when she was eleven years old, we can not unreasonably doubt its truth. The next day a ratification was obtained in the shape that her not eating pork, changing her chemise and observing the Sabbath, were in pursuance of the Law of Moses as taught her by her mother; she had never mentioned this to anyone, for her father would have killed her and she feared her husband.

On the strength of this, in the consulta de fe, there was one fanatic who voted her relaxation, but the rest agreed upon reconciliation with its disabilities, confiscation and three years of prison and sanbenito, which were duly imposed in an auto of June 13, 1568, but, in a little more than six months, the imprisonment was commuted to spiritual penances, and she was told to go where she chose. Thus, besides the horrors of her trial, she was beggared and ruined for life, and an ineffaceable stain was cast upon her kindred and descendants. What became of the infant born in prison is not recorded, but presumably it was fortunate enough to die. Trivial as may seem the details of such a trial, they are not without importance as a sample of what was occupying the tribunals of all Spain, and they raise the interesting question whether in truth the inquisitors believed what they assumed in the public sentence, that they had been laboring to rescue Elvira from the errors and darkness of her apostasy and to save her soul. The minute points on which the fate of the accused might depend are illustrated by the insistence with which they dwell on her abstinence from pork, on her refusal to eat buttered cakes, on her use of two stewing-pots, and on the time at which she changed her chemise and baked her bread. ⁽⁴⁾

Subjected, on the one hand, to the ceaseless espionage of servants and neighbors and, on the other, to the pitiless zeal of the tribunals, even the heroic obstinacy of Judaism, which had triumphed over the countless miseries of the Dispersion, gradually succumbed to this all-pervading persecution, so ceaselessly and relentlessly applied. As generation succeeded generation, with no hope of relief, this unremitting pressure seemed gradually [235] to be attaining its object. The prosecutions for Judaism commenced to diminish sensibly. Valencia had a large converso population and, during the first quarter of the sixteenth century, the trials averaged between thirty and forty a year. Then came the enforced baptism of the Moors, who for some time furnished a predominant contingent. The latter were temporarily released from inquisitorial jurisdiction in 1540, and, during the three years, 1541, 1542 and 1543, there was not a single trial for heresy. In 1546 they were again relieved from the Inquisition and, in the following sixteen years, until 1562, the total number of trials for heresy was but forty-eight--in fact, in the ten years between 1550 and 1560, there were but two, showing that Judaism there had almost ceased to be the object of inquisitorial activity. ⁽⁵⁾ In Toledo, which included Madrid, during the sixteen years, 1575-1590 inclusive, there were but twenty-three cases. ⁽⁶⁾ In 1565, an auto at Seville presented seventy-four penitents without one Judaizer, and there were none in a Cuenca auto of 1585 in which figured twenty-one Moriscos. ⁽⁷⁾ Even as early as 1558, when the Suprema was magnifying its services to obtain from Paul IV the grant of prebends, it admitted that for some years there had been but few Judaizers found, but it alluded vaguely to some recent discoveries of them in Murcia, who would soon be punished. ⁽⁸⁾ In fact, not long afterward, Paolo Tiepolo, the Venetian envoy, alludes to the arrest in Murcia of a large number of Jews. ⁽⁹⁾

Coincident with this diminution of material for persecution, there seems to have been a disposition to resort to milder methods, attributable perhaps to an expectation that Judaism would ere long disappear. In 1567, Pius V, at the request of Philip II, empowered Inquisitor-general Espinosa, for three years, to have the Judaizing New Christians of Murcia and Alcaraz absolved, either publicly or privately, with a salutary and benignant, but not pecuniary, penance; clerics, however, were not to be habilitated to obtain orders or benefices. ⁽¹⁰⁾ There is a story that Dom João Scares, Bishop of Coimbra, after the Council of Trent, made [236] a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, in the course of which, at Cyprus, he met many Spanish and Portuguese refugees, from whom he gathered information which he communicated to the tribunal of Llerena, resulting in the detection of many Judaizers in Extremadura. ⁽¹¹⁾ They were treated like those of Murcia, for Philip, in 1573, obtained from Gregory XIII a brief similar to that of 1567, for the benefit of the Judaizers of the district of Llerena, except that the faculty was limited to one year. ⁽¹²⁾ Even greater privileges were granted, in a brief obtained by Philip, in 1597, to the Judaizers of Ecija and its district, for not only were they to be absolved like those of Murcia, but all prisoners under trial were to enjoy the benefit of the pardon, with no note of infamy on themselves or their descendants, and this time of grace was to endure for four years. ⁽¹³⁾ These may not have been the only instances of such favors, and they indicate a tendency towards an entire change of policy. That there was hopefulness that the Inquisition was accomplishing its work is seen in a careful state paper drawn up for the Suprema, in 1595, by a distinguished prelate, Juan Bautista Pérez, Bishop of Segorbe, who felt justified in assuming that the baptized Jews remaining in Spain, after the expulsion of 1492, had now become good Christians, except one here and there, and that their Law was forgotten. ⁽¹⁴⁾

In this the good bishop was careful to limit his praise to the descendants of those who had been baptized a century before, [237] three full generations having passed under the chastening hands of the Holy Office. He evidently was aware that a new factor had been injected into the religious problem--a factor which was to give the Inquisition occupation for nearly a century and a half more. This was due to the conquest of Portugal by Philip II, in 1580. Although the union of the two kingdoms was merely dynastic, and their separate organizations were preserved, the facility of intercourse which followed led to a large emigration of New Christians from the poorer to the richer land. They had not been exposed as long as their Spanish brethren to inquisitorial rigor and, for the most part, they were crypto-Jews. The fresh justification which they afforded for the activity of the Inquisition, after the suppression of spasmodic Protestantism and the expulsion of the Moriscos, and the part which they played in Spanish Judaism seem to require a brief review of the curious history of the early Portuguese Inquisition. It also affords an insight into the relations between the New Christians and the Holy See, and thus throws a reflected light on the struggles of Ferdinand and Charles V with the curia. ⁽¹⁵⁾

We have seen (Vol. I, pp. 137, 140) the reception by João II of the multitudes who flocked to Portugal at the time of the expulsion and their kindly treatment by King Manoel at his accession in 1495. In contracting marriage, however, with Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, the condition was imposed on him of expelling all refugees who had been condemned by the Spanish Inquisition and, under this impulsion, seconded by his confessor the Frade Jorje Vogado, he issued a general edict of expulsion, excepting children under fourteen, who were torn from their parents--a measure which caused the most deplorable distress, many of the Jews slaying their offspring rather than surrender them to be brought up as Christians. By various devices the departure of the exiled was delayed, until after the time when they incurred the alternative of slavery, and thus they were coerced to accept baptism. To temper this, Manoel granted, May 30, 1497, that for twenty years they should be exempt from persecution; [238] that subsequently all accusations of Judaism should be brought within twenty days of the acts charged; that the trial should be conducted under ordinary secular procedure, and that confiscations should enure to the heirs. Moreover, he promised never to legislate for them as a distinct race. ⁽¹⁶⁾

This latter pledge was soon broken, by edicts of April 21 and 22, 1499, forbidding them to leave the kingdom without royal permission and prohibiting the purchase from them of lands or bills of exchange. Popular aversion increased and culminated in the awful Lisbon massacre of 1506. This wrought a revulsion of feeling; in 1507 the restrictive laws of 1499 were repealed; the New Christians were allowed freely to trade and to come and go; they were in all things assimilated to the natives, and were entitled to the common law of the land. In 1512 the twenty years' exemption was extended to 1534, and although, in 1515, Dom Manoel applied to Leo X for the introduction of the Inquisition, on the request being delayed the matter was dropped and was not revived. Until Manoel's death, in 1521, the New Christians thus enjoyed toleration and flourished accordingly. They grew rich and prosperous, they intermarried with the noblest houses, and they largely entered the Church. Externally their religious observance was unimpeachable, and Portugal naturally became a haven of refuge for Spanish Conversos, nor is it likely that the restrictions on such immigration, enacted in 1503, were rigidly observed. ⁽¹⁷⁾

His successor, Dom João III, a youth of 20, was a fanatic of narrow mind and limited intelligence, but the influence of Manoel's counsellors, who continued in the direction of affairs, procured, between 1522 and 1524, the confirmation of the privileges granted by the late king. Ecclesiastical pressure and popular prejudice, however, made themselves felt and, in 1524, a secret inquest brought the testimony of parish priests that the New Christians were suspected of being Christians only in name. ⁽¹⁸⁾ Then João's marriage, in 1525, with Catalina, sister of Charles V--the only Portuguese queen admitted to a seat in the Council of State-- brought a powerful influence to bear; the growing strength of [239] these tendencies gradually overcame considerations of plighted faith and, early in 1531, Dr. Brás Neto, the ambassador at Rome, was instructed to procure secretly from Clement VII briefs establishing in Portugal an Inquisition on the Spanish model. We have seen in Spain the objections of the Holy See to the royal control of the institution and to the abandonment of all share in the confiscations, and these probably explain the delays which postponed, until December 17th, the issue of a brief conferring on the royal nominee, Frade Diogo da Silva, the requisite faculties as inquisitor-general. This was followed, January 13, 1532 by one ordering him to assume the office; the two reached Lisbon in February, but it seems to have been feared that their publication would lead to an immediate exodus of the New Christians, and they were kept secret until laws could be framed reviving, with additional rigor, the edicts of 1499, prohibiting, for three years, departure from the kingdom, the sale of real estate and the negotiation of bills of exchange. These were issued June 14th, after which there was a pause, explicable only by the lavish employment of money in both Lisbon and Rome. The New Christians evidently had obtained knowledge of the threatened measure; much of the active capital of the kingdom was in their hands, and the danger called for energetic work and sacrifice. A fitting emissary to Rome was found in Duarte da Paz, a Converso of no ordinary ability, energy and audacity; the king was entrusting him with a mission beyond the borders, under cover of which he made his way to the papal court, where for ten years he continued to act as agent for his fellows. Then, in September, there came Marco della Rovere, Bishop of Sinigaglia, sent as nuncio on this special business, who was speedily bought by the New Christians, and they probably won over by the same means the Frade Diogo da Silva, who complicated matters irretrievably by refusing to accept the office of inquisitor-general. Duarte da Paz also was not idle, and the confusion became inextricable when, by a brief of October 17th, Clement VII suspended temporarily the one of the previous December, and prohibited not only da Silva but all bishops from proceeding inquisitorially against the New Christians. ⁽¹⁹⁾

As we have seen in Spain, the curia recognized that here was a numerous and wealthy class of heretics, to whom it could sell [240] protection and then abandon them, until their fears or their sufferings should produce a new harvest. This speculation in human agony was all the more undisguised and lucrative that Portugal was"a comparatively feeble kingdom, which could be treated with much less ceremony than Spain, and João III a man of wholly different type from Ferdinand or Charles V, while his invincible determination to have an Inquisition in his realm prolonged the struggle and rendered especially productive the game of inclining to either side by turns. This was so self-evident that João almost openly reproached Clement VII with it, and the committee of Cardinals entrusted with the conduct of the affair rejoined that inquisitors were ministers of Satan and inquisitorial procedure a denial of justice. ⁽²⁰⁾

João's reproaches were justified when Clement, by a brief of April 7, 1533, granted what was virtually a pardon for all past offences, without disability to hold office in Church or State, while those defamed for heresy could justify themselves before the nuncio--a function which he turned to account for, when recalled in 1536, he was said to have carried with him to Rome some thirty thousand crowns. João threw obstacles in the way of the execution of this brief, which called forth from Clement, in July and October, strenuous orders for its enforcement, followed by another of December 18th suspending it. It became the subject of active negotiation and Cardinal Pucci or Santiquatro, the "protector" of Portugal, suggested that it might be modified and, in the guise of fines, some twenty or thirty thousand ducats be extorted from the New Christians, to be divided with the pope. In transmitting this proposal, Henrique de Meneses, the Portuguese ambassador, added that nothing could be done in the curia without money, for this was all they wanted, and that Clement was dissatisfied with João because he had received nothing from him. Clement, however, who was rapidly approaching his end, on July 26th, ordered the nuncio to overcome by excommunication all opposition to the pardon and forbade all prosecution for past heresies, moved to this, as Santiquatro told Paul III, by his confessor, who insisted that, as he had received the money of the New Christians, he was bound to protect them. ⁽²¹⁾

Clement died, September 25,1534, and the struggle was renewed [241] under Paul III, who referred the matter to a commission, and meanwhile suspended the pardon-brief but ordered that all prosecutions must cease, for an active episcopal inquisition had been organized, which continued its operations in spite of the papal commands. The commission reported in favor of the pardon-brief and of an Inquisition under limitations, with appeals to Rome. João refused to accept this, and a lull in the negotiations occurred, during which the nuncio della Rovere entered into a contract with the New Christians, dated April 24, 1535, under which they promised to pay to Paul III thirty thousand ducats if he would prohibit the Inquisition, confining prosecution to the bishops, who should be limited to ordinary criminal procedure; smaller sums moreover were provided for less desirable concessions. The curia honestly endeavored to earn the money, and made several propositions to João, which he rejected; then, on November 3d, a bull was solemnly published in Rome, renewing the pardon-brief, annulling all trials, releasing all prisoners, recalling all exiles, removing all disabilities, suspending all confiscations, prohibiting all future prosecutions for past offences, and enforcing these provisions by excommunication. ⁽²²⁾

In this Rome held that it had fulfilled its part of the bargain, but the New Christians thought otherwise; they declined to pay the full amount, and della Rovere was not able--at least so he said--to remit more than five thousand ducats. This parsimony came at an unfortunate moment. Charles V was in Rome, radiant with the glory of his Tunisian conquest, and warmly supporting the demands of his brother-in-law. The result of this was seen in a brief of May 23, 1536, which constituted an Inquisition on the Spanish model, except that for three years the forms of secular law were to be observed, and for ten years confiscations were to pass to the heirs of the convicts. Diogo da Silva was to be inquisitor-general, with the right of the king to appoint an associate. Diogo was solemnly invested with his office, October 5th, and the brief was published on the 22d. ⁽²³⁾

This probably taught the New Christians a lesson on the subject of ill-timed economy for a brief of January 9, 1537, addressed [242] to Girolamo Recanati Capodiferro, a new nuncio appointed for Portugal, gave him complete appellate power, even to evoking cases on trial and deciding them, while a supplementary brief of February 7th authorized him to suspend the Inquisition. His instructions also required him to labor vigorously for the repeal of the law prohibiting expatriation, and this was emphasized by a brief of August 31st threatening excommunication and suspension for any interference with those leaving the kingdom to carry their grievances and appeals to Rome. ⁽²⁴⁾ These appeals were a source of large profit to the curia, which sold at round prices absolutions and exemptions to all applicants; the tribunals threw all possible obstacles in the way of this traffic and it was important to Rome to keep open the course of the golden stream. At the moment it was of less interest to the New Christians, for Capodiferro was as venal as his predecessor and exploited his large powers to the utmost, selling absolutions and pardons for what he could get. As João asserted, in a letter of August 4, 1539, his scandalous traffic had rendered the Judaizers so sure of impunity that they sinned with audacity. While demanding his recall, the king sought to curb him by appointing his brother Dom Henrique, a young man of 27, to the vacant post of additional inquisitor-general. Henrique was Archbishop of Braga, a post which he resigned in favor of Diogo da Silva, who retired from the inquisitor-generalship, and Henrique remained, until his death in 1580, at the head of the Inquisition. At the moment the plan was of little avail, as Capodiferro treated him with imperious arrogance, and even called in question his powers owing to defect in age, and Paul III refused to confirm him. ⁽²⁵⁾

Paul yielded in so far to João's urgency as to promise that Capodiferro should leave Portugal on November 1st. At the same time, as the three years were about to expire during which the Inquisition was restricted to secular procedure, he listened to the supplications of the New Christians and in the bull Pastoris oeterni, October 12, 1539, he modified in many ways the inquisitorial process, so as to limit its powers of injustice and to provide ample opportunity of appeals to Rome. A leading clause was that witnesses' names were only to be suppressed when grave dangers to them were to be apprehended. Through the treachery [243] of a courier employed by the New Christians, this bull did not reach Lisbon until December 1st. Capodiferro delayed his departure until December 15th, and then left Lisbon without publishing it, because, as Mascarenhas the Portuguese ambassador reported, the New Christians refused to pay the extortionate price demanded for it. Mascarenhas intimates that the pope was privy to this, which is not unlikely, for Capodiferro was received with all favor. He and della Rovere were placed in charge of the affairs of the Portuguese Inquisition; he was soon afterwards promoted to the great office of Datary, and eventually reached the cardinalate. His nunciature had not proved as profitable as he had expected, for he lost fifteen thousand cruzados at sea, and brought with him to Rome only as much more. On his arrival in Portugal he had demanded of the New Christians two thousand cruzados to start with, and was regularly paid by them eighteen hundred per annum during his stay, and this in addition to his pardon traffic. There was nothing unusual in this. In 1554, Julius III, in a moment of wrathful candor, told the Portuguese ambassador that nuncios were sent there to enrich themselves as a reward for previous services. ⁽²⁶⁾

With the return of Capodiferro, after a little diplomatic sparring, Paul III dropped the whole question for nearly two years. João was quite content; the three years' limitation to secular procedure had expired, the bull Pastoris oeterni had not been published, the Inquisition had full swing, and its activity began to rival that of Spain. Its first auto de fe was celebrated in Lisbon, September 20, 1540, with twenty-three penitents and no relaxations and was speedily followed by others. ⁽²⁷⁾ It is not until December [244] 2, 1541 that Christovão de Sousa, then ambassador, refers to the New Christians who, he says, were earnestly at work to have another nuncio sent, and he had had a thousand discussions over it with the pope whose intention was fixed, because so many were burnt and so many thousands more were in prison. The New Christians offered to pay eight or ten thousand cruzados to the pope, and two hundred and fifty a month to the nuncio. At a subsequent audience, Paul said that the nuncio would have a salary of a hundred cruzados a month, to which the New Christians could add a hundred and fifty, thus raising him above the temptation of bribery, to which Sousa rejoined that this would convert him from their judge to their advocate. Then, on a later occasion, he read a remonstrance from the king so vigorous that the pope walked up and down the room, crossing himself and saying that it was the work of the devil. Sousa replied by dwelling on the misdeeds of preceding nuncios, and even offered to let the Inquisition be withdrawn if it would relieve the kingdom from the evil of a nuncio. ⁽²⁸⁾

Further discussion was abruptly terminated by an explosion. Miguel da Silva, Bishop of Viseu and minister of João, a man of high culture, had been ambassador at Rome in the time of Leo X, and had formed lasting friendships with the future Clement VII and Paul III. He had recently fallen into disfavor at court and was about to be arrested, when he fled and found refuge in Italy. João tried to entice him back with flattering letters, while employing, as Silva says, bravos to follow and assassinate him. Paul could wound the king in no more sensitive spot than by announcing, as he did on December 2, 1541, Silva's appointment as cardinal. João's rage was unbounded; he promptly deprived the new cardinal not only of his offices and temporalities, but of his citizenship, thus rendering him an outlaw and, on January 24, 1542, a special courier carried to Sousa peremptory orders to leave Rome as soon as he could present his letters of recall. His report of the manner [245] in which this abrupt sundering of relations was received indicates that it gave rise to fears that Portugal was about to withdraw from the Roman obedience. ⁽²⁹⁾

This deprived the New Christians of such aid as they had purchased in Rome and left Henrique in peaceable possession of the inquisitorship, which he improved by establishing six tribunals-- Lisbon, Evora, Coimbra, Lamego, Porto and Thomar--of which the first three remained permanent and the others were subsequently discontinued as superfluous. ⁽³⁰⁾ On the other hand, Paul III persevered in his intention to inflict another nuncio on Portugal, and appointed to that post Luigi Lippomano, coadjutor-bishop of Bergamo. An intercepted letter of Diogo Fernandez, the Roman agent of the New Christians May 18, 1542, shows the anxiety with which his coming was awaited and throws light on their relations with the curia. He is expecting the money with which to pay the thousand cruzados to the nuncio, who demands it at once, although his orders were not to pay it until Lippomano was outside the walls of Rome. Every one is clamoring for money, until he is near losing his senses. He has agreed to pay a hundred and forty cruzados apiece for the pardons of Pero de Noronha and Maria Thomaz, which he sends, and asks for an immediate remittance. Then, on the 19th, he adds that he has that day been compelled to pay the thousand cruzados to the nuncio; he has raised the amount by giving security and, though he has disobeyed orders, he prays that the money be sent, as without it all their labor and expense would be wasted. A postscript on the 20th alludes to a general pardon which the pope had agreed to grant at a future time. People, he says, are wasting their money in getting special letters; the pope prefers that it should all be done in a general provision, to which all should contribute, and it is the most important of all things to accomplish. It would appear from the case of Antonio Fernandez of Coimbra that, when letters of exemption were obtained, the king promptly banished the recipients, who then procured fresh letters requiring the king to grant them safe-conducts and permission to sell their property, real and personal. ⁽³¹⁾

João wrote to Lippomano not to come, and he persisted in this [246] against the entreaties of Charles V. Nevertheless the nuncio set out, and we hear of him in Aragon in August, where he encountered the Portuguese treasurer sent to detain him. The latter was fully aware of the payment of the thousand ducats and of the monthly stipend, as to all of which the nuncio professed the most innocent ignorance, and he further stated that the intercepted letters showed that Cardinal Silva was to receive two hundred and fifty crowns a month to act as "protector" of the Jews. Nevertheless the treasurer was finally persuaded to write favorably to his master, and Lippomano resumed his journey towards Valladolid. ⁽³²⁾ João refused to be placated. On learning that the nuncio had reached Castile he wrote ordering him to advance no further until he should hear from the pope, to whom, on September 18th, he addressed a vigorous letter, demanding that no nuncio should be sent to interfere with the Inquisition; he was not actuated, he said, by greed, for there was no confiscation, and indeed, from another source we have the assertion that the maintenance of the Inquisition was costing him ten or eleven thousand ducats a year. ⁽³³⁾

Lippomano had assured the Portuguese treasurer that he did not come to interfere with the Inquisition; that his orders were only to see whether the inquisitors observed justice; if they did not, conscience would require the pope to make the necessary provisions. His secret instructions, however, were of a very different tenor. He was told that he need not hesitate to act with energy, though observing external courtesy, for Portugal was fatally weakened and approaching ruin; the king was completely impoverished, oppressed with debt, at home and abroad, hated by his people, and wholly under the influence of the friars, while his relations with France and with the emperor were unfriendly. As for the Infante Henrique, if he was not to be deprived of the inquisitor-generalship, he must at least seek a dispensation for lack of age, ask absolution for the past and ratify or annul all the preceding trials. As for the Inquisition, it would be a most holy thing to abolish it and commit the jurisdiction to the bishops; the nuncio was furnished with faculties to do this, or to suspend it, and these he was to show openly, that it might be known that this was at his discretion. Meanwhile he could issue letters to all [247] who asked for them, on their making payment, and even if the price was small the aggregate would be large, as there were fifty thousand of them. The declaratory bull of November 13, (sic) 1539, suppressed by Capodiferro, was to be published without consulting the king; it need not be affixed to the church-doors, but copies could be given to all who asked, so that they could use it when on trial, and Henrique was to be notified that all procedure must conform to it; if he protested, he was to be told that such was the papal will and he could write to the pope if he so chose. Lippomano was finally told that pressure of all kinds would be brought to bear on him, but he must be firm and remind them that he had power to abolish the whole institution. Whatever we may think of João's blind fanaticism, we cannot wonder at his objection to admitting in his kingdom an emissary who came to set him at defiance and to upset all his most cherished plans. On the other hand, a letter in December, from the spokesman of the New Christians to their Roman agent, remitting to him two thousand cruzados, depicts their agonized anxiety for the coming of the nuncio; it will be their salvation and his absence is their destruction; it is useless to spend money on briefs when there is no one to enforce them. ⁽³⁴⁾ They might well feel desperate, for the Inquisition was active and unsparing. At an auto held in Lisbon, October 14, 1542, there appeared a hundred culprits, of whom twenty were relaxed and João de Mello, in reporting this to the king, complained that it left the prisons still crowded with those on trial. Nor was this all, for Herculano gives a terrible picture, full of revolting details, of the atrocities perpetrated everywhere, such as we have seen set forth in the memorials of Llerena and Jaen. ⁽³⁵⁾

Although ignorant of the nuncio's instructions, João persisted in refusing him admittance, until he should have an answer to his letter of September 18th. This was long in coming, and Lippomano vainly complained of the disrespect to the Holy See shown in making him wander from one tavern to another. For awhile he remained in Salamanca and then, on false news that he would be received, he went to Badajoz, only to find the frontier closed to him, and there he was forced to stay, for some months, hopeless and querulous. ⁽³⁶⁾ Meanwhile, Francisco Botelho, who had been [248] sent with João's letter, was conferring with the pope, who blandly assured him that Lippomano's mission was only to notify the king of the approaching convocation of the Council of Trent. At length it was arranged that he should confine himself to this, and to such other matters as the king should permit. A brief to this effect, satisfactory to the Portuguese agents, was framed and despatched from Rome November 3d. It can scarce have reached Portugal before the early months of 1543 for a letter of João of March 2d mentions its arrival and his satisfaction at the settlement, in which he hopes that the pope's acts may correspond with his words. Lippomano, thus shorn of his powers and with no financial prospect before him, was anxious for his recall, but he was not permitted to return until the close of 1544; he obeyed the final instructions and abstained from aiding the New Christians. ⁽³⁷⁾

Possibly Paul's yielding in this may be explained by a negotiation on foot early in 1543. Through the Cardinal of Burgos, it was proposed to João that the pope would concede to Portugal an Inquisition identical with that of Castile, if, for a term of years, one half of the confiscations should belong to the Holy See. This cold-blooded offer to sell out the New Christians shows how purely mercantile had been the fluctuating protection accorded to them hitherto, and it was met by João in the same spirit. Protesting that he had never sought for gain in his efforts to serve God, he instructed his envoy that he might agree to three years, but must endeavor to reduce the papal share to a quarter. ⁽³⁸⁾ The attempted bargain came to naught, but Rome was apprehensive that Portugal might follow the example of England, and João was propitiated with a renewed offer of a cardinal's hat for the Infante Henrique. To this he at first replied surlily, that when he had asked for it, it had been given to Silva, and now that he had not asked, it did not seem fitting to accept it. Subsequently, however, he assented and, in December, 1545, Henrique received the honor. Moreover, in October, 1543, a signal favor was granted to the Inquisition, by a perpetual brief empowering the officials to enjoy the fruits of benefices in absentia, although, as we have seen, in Spain the grant was only quinquennial. It is true that this was not wholly gratuitous, for it cost two hundred and fifty cruzados in addition to the regular fees of seventy. ⁽³⁹⁾

[249] The Inquisition was assisted in another way. Through the subsidized Cardinal of Paris, the Portuguese ambassador, Balthasar de Faria, was enabled to inspect all papal letters granted to New Christians. In a letter of February 18, 1544, he describes the use made of this information, for he opposed each one, and it was fought over bitterly, the unfortunate pope being assailed on both sides and driven to change his decisions repeatedly, as the rival influences prevailed. Information, moreover, was sent in advance to Henrique, so as to enable him to forestall the papal graces or render them ineffective. Henrique was instructed to disregard as surreptitious everything that Faria had not seen, to appeal to the pope and to report to Faria, for this was the way that the Castilian inquisitors managed. It was a kind of guerrilla warfare, in the interval of the greater struggles. ⁽⁴⁰⁾

One of these conflicts was close at hand. Paul III resolved to send another nuncio, charged with the duty of wrenching from the king Cardinal Suva's temporalities and of moderating the severity of the Inquisition. For this he selected Giovanni Ricci da Montepulciano who, at the same time, was advanced to the archbishopric of Siponto. Faria flattered himself that he had succeeded in postponing the nuncio's departure till the king should be heard from, but in spite of this Ricci started July 17, 1544. ⁽⁴¹⁾ He travelled leisurely and did not reach Valladolid until November 5th, where he found awaiting him Christovão de Castro with letters from the king forbidding his admittance. He succeeded in making de Castro believe that he had no instructions concerning Silva or the Inquisition that would offend the king, who accordingly wrote November 28th, cautiously admitting him under these presumptions. It so chanced however that, before the courier started with this letter, Lippomano, who was still acting as nuncio, received and affixed at the church doors a papal brief of September 22d, inhibiting all inquisitors and ecclesiastical judges from executing any sentences pronounced on New Christians, or from proceeding to sentence in any cases, until Ricci should arrive, investigate and report as to the conduct of the Inquisition, after which the papal pleasure should be made known. This settled the question; copies of the brief were sent to de Castro to justify to the Spanish court the absolute refusal to admit Ricci until [250] João should have an answer to letters demanding explanation and reparation, despatched by a special courier. At the same time the brief was obeyed, for there were no more autos after June, 1544, until 1548. ⁽⁴²⁾

Considering all that had occurred during the past ten years, there was an inexcusable aggravation about all this, which it is difficult to understand in the absence of information as to the secret working of the New Christians in Rome, unless it was to convince João that he would have to pay roundly for the pleasure of persecuting his subjects. He exhaled his wrath in one or two letters to Balthasar de Faria and, on January 13, 1545, he despatched Simao da Veiga in hot haste with instructions to demand the installation of the Inquisition in satisfaction of the royal grievances; the recent brief must be revoked, and Ricci must come under the limitations imposed on his predecessor and must say nothing about Cardinal Silva. A prolix letter to the pope, to be read in consistory, was free-spoken but not intemperate and, considering the provocation, was much more moderate than the papal duplicity had deserved. ⁽⁴³⁾

This letter remained unanswered for nearly six months, during which another experiment was tried on João's credulity. Cardinal Sforza, one of the papal grandsons, wrote in the name of the pope that, if the nuncio was admitted, all that he asked for the Inquisition would be conceded, and Cardinal Crescenzio confirmed this verbally. With natural distrust, however, the king asked to have Paul himself ratify this to Faria, and then he would admit Ricci. As late as June 22, 1545, he was writing in this sense, not knowing that on June 16th the pope had responded to his letter in a brief in which, with exasperating affectation of benignity, he pardoned João's asperity; against João's assertions of the wickedness of the New Christians and the mildness of the Inquisition, he set the constant complaints reaching him of its cruelty and injustice, and the numerous burnings of the innocent; as it was under his jurisdiction, he was responsible and he could not forego the duty of investigating the truth of these conflicting statements; there was also the spoliation of Cardinal Silva which must be redressed. The brief closed with the significant threat [251] that, if these matters were not remedied, he could not expose himself before Almighty God to the charge of negligence in an affair of such moment. ⁽⁴⁴⁾

The devious ways of the papal court are hard to follow. Four days before the date of this brief, on June 12th, Cardinal Sforza sent to João the written assurance that was demanded, promising that if he would admit the nuncio, the pope would grant all that he desired as to the Inquisition. On receiving this in August, the king at once replied that, in reliance on the cardinal's assurances, he would permit Ricci to enter Portugal and he asked to have the necessary bull made out and sent by Simão da Veiga. At the same time he gave Ricci permission to come, cautiously adding that it must be under the limitations imposed on Lippomano. Ricci, detained by sickness, did not arrive until September 9th, and then he was the bearer of the minatory brief of June 16th. That João was thunderstruck may well be believed and he wrote to his envoys that he knew not what to say. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

The pope sought a compromise, offering to revoke the brief of September 22, 1544, and that, after the nuncio had reported, he would leave everything in the king's hands, but he refused to carry out the promises of Cardinal Sforza. No answer was given to this, but the brief of revocation was made out and reached Ricci, January 18, 1546, accompanied with one empowering him to act in case he discovered abuses in the Inquisition, but the only investigation that João would permit was that he should examine the papers in four or five cases and interrogate the inquisitor concerning them. The first case submitted was that of a septuagenarian, burnt some years before. He was one of those who had been converted by force; he had at once confessed more than had been testified against him, and had begged for mercy. Ricci asked the inquisitor, João de Mello, why he had burnt him, as this was not a case of relapse, to which Mello replied that his repentance was simulated because he had varied in the three examinations, but on investigating the record the variations were found to be trifling. Ricci asked for a copy of the process to send to Rome, and it was promised but not given. His report was naturally adverse to the Inquisition and the pope, assuming that the brief of 1536 had established it for ten years only, notified João that [252] the term had expired: in deference to him it was prolonged for a year, but he was told that, within that time, the question as to the New Christians must be definitely settled; it was suggested that a general pardon could be granted, or that he could banish them all from his kingdom. ⁽⁴⁶⁾

We may fairly assume that, in such a crisis as this, the gold of the New Christians had not been spared in Lisbon or in Rome. João evidently felt that the turning-point had come and that some supreme effort must be made to outbid his subjects. He had not been niggardly, on his side, in responding to the urgent calls of his ambassadors for liberality towards the cardinals. Cardinal Farnese, the favorite grandson of Paul III, and the most influential member of the Sacred College, had a pension from him of thirty-two hundred cruzados, assigned in 1544 equally on the sees of Braga and Coimbra to assure its continuance: at a critical moment, in 1545, the arrearages and two years in advance were paid to him, in a lump sum of thirteen thousand cruzados. So little reserve was there in these matters that, after the death of Cardinal Santiquatro, the "protector" of Portugal, João actually suggested the employment of Paul III as his successor, pointing out the large "propinas" that would enure to him from certain provisions as to bishops which the king was soliciting. For these and for the payment to Farnese, he forwarded bills of exchange for thirty-three thousand cruzados. Julius III was as mercenary as his predecessor. In 1551 João, in response to a hint that a present was desirable, sent him a magnificent diamond, valued by the Roman jewellers at a hundred thousand cruzados. Julius was greatly pleased and declared that he would make it an heirloom in his family, but when the next year he intimated that another gift would be acceptable, João, who was dissatisfied with him at the time, refused to respond, saying that when the pope acceded to his demands to make Henrique perpetual legate it would be time to think of giving him something. This brought Julius to terms; in 1553 the appointment was made and in 1554 João sent him a brooch. ⁽⁴⁷⁾

[253] In such matters it was difficult for subjects to compete with their monarch. Under the pressure so skilfully applied by Rome, a brilliant idea occurred to João and, in a letter of February 20, 1546, to Balthazar de Faria, he suggested that, in return for a free Inquisition, he would grant to Cardinal Farnese the administration and revenues of the see of Viseu, which he had been withholding from Cardinal Silva, thus at once obtaining the object of his desires and gratifying his rancor against that unfortunate prelate by depriving him of papal support. ⁽⁴⁸⁾ This dazzling bribe overcame Paul's scruples as to his responsibility to the Almighty and his friendship for Silva. The Holy See has been stained with many examples of nepotism and rapacity, but its history has furnished few transactions of more shameless effrontery in sacrificing those whom it was pledged to protect. Still, Paul strove to maintain some semblance of decency in abandoning the New Christians, and he advanced a demand that there should be a general pardon for past offences and the granting of a term during which those desiring to emigrate could leave Portugal. João was determined to get all that he could, and a series of intricate negotiations took place, occupying the whole of 1546 and 1547, in which each side endeavored to outwit the other with little regard to consistency. Matters were complicated by the question of the accrued revenues of Viseu, which João was loath to refund, and which Paul demanded, for the convenient receptacle of the fabric of St. Peter's. Ignatius Loyola took a hand in the fray and so did two members of the Council of Trent, Frade Jorje de Santiago, an inquisitor, and the Carmelite Balthazar Limpo, Bishop of Porto, an honest and free-spoken fanatic, who was much scandalized by ascertaining that a brief of safe-conduct had been secretly issued, inviting the Portuguese New Christians to Italy, with assurance of not being disturbed on account of their religion. Thus, as the bishop said, those who had been baptized at birth came and were immediately circumcised and filled the synagogues under the very eyes of the pope--the inference being that he desired free emigration from Portugal, in order that Italy might benefit by the intelligence and industry of the apostates, [254] an argument which was freely used and was not easy to answer. ⁽⁴⁹⁾

In the spring of 1547, as matters seemed to approach a settlement, the necessary briefs were successively drafted. One of May llth granted a general pardon for past offences; all prisoners were to be released, all confiscations returned, all disabilities removed, and reincidence was not to incur the penalty of relapse. One of July 1st addressed to Cardinal Henrique announced to him that the pope had granted the Inquisition, with full powers [255] of procedure. One of July 5th, to João informed him that the bearer, Cav. Giovanni Ugolino (a nephew of the late Cardinal Santiquatro) carried the bull for the Inquisition and exhorted him to see that the inquisitors exercised their powers with moderation. Ugolino was also empowered to take possession for Farnese of the see of Viseu and the other benefices of Silva, and to collect the arrears of revenue for the fabric of St. Peter's. There were two briefs of July 15th, one appointing Farnese administrator for life of the see and the benefices; the other withdrew and annulled all the letters of exemption from the Inquisition which the New Christians had been for so many years purchasing at heavy cost. Finally, under date of July 16th, came the long sought-for bull, Meditatio cordis, instituting for Portugal a free and untrammelled Inquisition. It declared that the pope, desiring the rigorous punishment of the atrocious crime of heresy, revoked all previous limitations on its powers, and conferred on it all faculties at any time granted to inquisitors. To render effective the withdrawal of the letters of exemption, it evoked to the pope all cases pending before other judges than Cardinal Henrique, and committed them to him and his deputies with full powers. That Paul did not, without some qualms of conscience, thus abandon the New Christians who had contributed so liberally to the curia, is suggested by a subsequent brief of November 15th, in which he told the king that, as he had granted to Portugal a free Inquisition, he earnestly exhorted him to see that the inquisitors acted with charity and not with judicial severity, in consideration of the weakness of the neophytes, for this would be most gratifying to him. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

The pope's anxiety to save appearances is visible in the instructions to Ugolino. Those from Paul bore that his wishes were that, under the pardon brief, all prisoners were to be discharged; those who had to abjure should do so before a notary and not in an auto de fe; that for a year no one was to be relaxed, no arrests were to be made save for public and scandalous offences, and prosecutions were to be conducted as in other crimes, while, if the law prohibiting emigration could not be repealed, it should be kept quiet for a year--thus hiding for a twelvemonth his betrayal of the friendless. ⁽⁵¹⁾ The instructions from Farnese were more openly [256] cynical. To disarm João's distrust, he had agreed not to take possession of Suva's temporalities until the affair of the Inquisition should be settled, while Ambassador Faria and the Bishop of Porto had pledged that João should raise no difficulties; it was, on that condition that the pope had granted the Inquisition, in the confidence that both should be settled together. João was to be persuaded to accede to the general pardon and graces asked for, in lieu of the permission to emigrate, for that would enable the pope to answer the appeals and complaints of the New Christians, by telling them that these were sufficient. The pope was anxious that, for a year, the Inquisition should not employ rigor and that procedure be that of secular law; this was of slender importance but it would seem to them a great matter. They were also to be told that, as in previous cases, the pope could have had from them twenty thousand cruzados for the pardon, while he had granted it without getting a single farthing. It was further significant that both Ugolino and the nuncio Ricci were warned to be specially careful to exact nothing from the New Christians. ⁽⁵²⁾

How João regarded these pleadings for the victims is seen in a letter to Faria after the settlement. He had accepted, he said, the conditions as to the Inquisition, knowing that further protests would only bring worse terms, but he intended that the Inquisition should proceed in the form conceded by the bull. Those pardoned under the pardon brief, if they committed heresy during the year, could be arrested and prosecuted at once, but should not be sentenced or relaxed until after the expiration of the year. For a year the inquisitors should be directed to proceed mildly, but, as for treating heresy like other crimes, it would be unreasonable, because the pope ordered otherwise in the bull itself. As for the prohibition of emigration, it was not for the service of God to repeal the law as the pope desired. The pardon should be published and the prisoners released; those who had to abjure should not so do on a staging but publicly at the church doors. ⁽⁵³⁾ Thus brutally was brushed aside the mask under which Paul had sought to disguise his abandonment of the New Christians.

Since May, 1547, Ugolino waited in daily expectation of orders to start, but it was not until December 1st that he left Rome with the bulls that decided the fate of Portugal. It was probably in January, 1548, that he reached Lisbon, where fresh delays occurred [257] in settling details, and only on March 24th was the agreement respecting Suva's temporalities signed; João grumbled at the assignment of the accrued revenues to the fabric of St. Peter's; he had not agreed to surrender them and did not intend to do so, but he finally submitted. The pardon was published in Lisbon, June 10th, the prisons were emptied and the abjurations, we are told, for the most part were private. ⁽⁵⁴⁾ Thus, after a contest lasting through seventeen years, the Inquisition was fastened upon Portugal and, in reviewing the kaleidescopic vicissitudes of the struggle, we cannot trace, in any act of the Holy See, a higher motive than the sordid one of making, out of human misery, a market for the power of the keys and selling it to the highest bidder.

The New Christians promptly sought to save a fragment from the wreck, by obtaining the publication of the names of witnesses, based on the canonical provision that they were to be suppressed only in the case of powerful delinquents, who could wreak vengeance on accusers. With this view they procured from Paul III a brief of January 8, 1549, defining that New Christians and others could only be deemed powerful men, in respect to the communication of witnesses' names, provided they were nobles exercising jurisdiction over vassals, public magistrates, or officers in the royal palace. There seems to have been some delay in the publication of this but, when it came to the knowledge of the king, he sent, August 13, 1550, a copy of it to Julius III, with an urgent [258] request for its revocation as it would prove the total destruction of the Inquisition. ⁽⁵⁵⁾ A long struggle ensued between the Portuguese ambassadors and the New Christians, in which, for some time, the latter were successful. Into these details it is not worth while to enter, but the final incidents are too illustrative of the course of business in the papal court to be passed over. Paul IV succeeded to the pontificate May 23, 1555; while yet a cardinal he had expressed opposition to the brief, and the ambassador, Affonso de Lencastro, with the assistance of the Grand Inquisitor, Cardinal Alessandrino--the future Pius V--had not much difficulty in winning him over. The brief of revocation was drafted and approved and sent to the dataria for despatch. The deputy there chanced to be a Castilian New Christian and, when the ambassador's secretary called for the brief, he was told that Paul III had done a just and holy thing, and that in Portugal the inquisitors wanted to burn everybody. The brief was withheld and, when complaint was made to the pope that his datary refused to obey orders, he promised to look into it. Nothing more could be got from him at the time, and his reckless war with Philip II gave him ample occupation for the next few years. Lencastro however continued his efforts until replaced, in April, 1559, by Lourengo Pirez de Tavora, who brought urgent instructions to procure the brief of revocation. Peace with Philip was proclaimed April 5, 1559, but Paul IV, in his 84th year, was broken and was moreover engrossed with his prosecution of Cardinal Morone. Lencastro and Pirez, however, labored with the Congregation of the Inquisition which, on July 22, approved of the revocatory brief. They carried it at once to the pope and, with the aid of Cardinal Alessandrino, obtained the promise of his signature. To their dismay they learned the next day that it had not been signed. Paul had called for his signet-ring, had drawn it from its bag and was about to append it, when he glanced over the brief; the preamble did not suit him, for it was not easy to give a reason for revocation without inferring blame. He laid it aside, and this was almost his last act, for he died August 18th and for three weeks no briefs had been expedited. The conclave was prolonged and Pius IV was not elected till December 26th. Pirez lost no time and, on his visit of congratulation, January 2, 1560, before the coronation, he urged the matter on the pope. Cardinal Alessandrino was sent for and gave his approval. The secretary Aragonia [259] was instructed to draft the brief and it was, as Pirez thought, the first one signed after the coronation. Pirez attributed his success to the profound secrecy which kept the measure from the knowledge of its opponents and, in the midst of his self-congratulation, he twice solemnly warned Cardinal Henrique to use his powers with moderation for, under the brief, it would be easy to burn the New Christians. It was in vain that they sought to obtain its revocation; their agents and their memorials were alike disregarded, and the suppression of the names of witnesses became the established practice in Portugal as in Spain. All hope of relief, moreover, was extinguished when, in September, Prospero de Santa Croce was sent as nuncio, Cardinal Henrique was reappointed legate a latere, in all matters concerning the faith, thus cutting off all appeal and all interference with the Holy Office. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ The earnest persistence with which permission to withhold the names of witnesses was sought shows how great a hindrance to condemnation their publication proved, and this probably explains the fact that, during the continuance of the prohibition, the activity of the Inquisition was restricted. A list of autos de fe, as complete as research could compile, indicates that of the three established tribunals, Lisbon celebrated no auto prior to 1559, nor Coimbra until 1567. There may be some defect in the archives to account for this, and they may have been better preserved in Evora, for there we find autos recorded in 1551, 1552, 1555 and 1560. After this they became more frequent and increased in severity, but, up to the time of the conquest by Philip II, in 1580, the whole number of autos recorded in the three tribunals was only thirty-four, in which there were a hundred and sixty-nine relaxations in person, fifty-one in effigy and nineteen hundred and ninety-eight penitents. ⁽⁵⁷⁾ The insignificant number [260] of relaxations in effigy, when compared with the multitudes that figure in the early Spanish autos, would seem to indicate that they were merely those who escaped from prison or died during trial and that, in the absence of confiscation, the Portuguese inquisitors were not earnest in tracing the heresies of ancestors or in following up the records of fugitives.

The question of confiscation, in fact, had been left by Paul III in the hands of the king, who found in it a financial resource for his bankrupt treasury by granting, for a consideration, decennial periods of exemption--a practice continued by the Regency after João's death. Probably in 1568, the New Christians hesitated to pay the price demanded, for a brief of Pius V, dated July 10th of that year, recites that the last term had expired on June 7th, and that King Sebastian had not renewed it, finding that it served as an incentive to heresy, and that he had asked the pope not to listen to appeals. This Pius willingly promised and withdrew all privileges which the New Christians might enjoy. Doubtless this induced them to come to terms, for the exemption was renewed. After this decennium, Sebastian again granted it in his efforts to provide for his ill-starred African expedition, but Henrique, on succeeding to the throne, felt his conscience much disturbed at this concession to apostasy. He applied to Gregory XIII who, by a brief of October 6, 1579, renewed the one of 1568, and permitted Henrique to revoke the grant made by Sebastian. ⁽⁵⁸⁾ As Portugal the next year passed into the hands of Philip II, we hear nothing more of exemption from confiscation.

It is somewhat remarkable that João neglected to extend to his colonial possessions the blessings of the Inquisition. The New Christians had largely availed themselves of the opportunities presented by the colonial trade, and had established themselves in Goa and its dependencies. The comparative freedom there had doubtless encouraged them to observe less caution than at home, for St. Francis Xavier had scarce begun his missionary labors when he was scandalized by what he saw and, on November 30, [261] 1545, he wrote urgently to the king as to the necessity of an inquisitorial tribunal. No response was made to his appeal. João died June 11, 1557, leaving the crown to his grandson Dom Sebastian, a child in his third year, under the regency of the dowager Queen Catalina, who resigned it, in 1562, in favor of Cardinal Henrique. The Regency was more mindful of the spiritual needs of the Indies than the late king and, in March, 1560, Henrique sent to Goa as inquisitor Aleixo Díaz Falcão who, by the end of the year, founded a tribunal which in time earned a sinister renown as the most pitiless in Christendom. ⁽⁵⁹⁾ When Lourenco Pirez, the ambassador at Rome, learned through Egypt of this establishment, he expressed to the Regency his apprehension that this zeal for religion would prove a disservice to God and to the kingdom, for it would drive to Bassorah and Cairo many who would aid the enemy in both finance and war. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ His prevision was justified more fully than he anticipated for, to the activity of the tribunal was largely attributable the decay of the once flourishing Indian possessions of Portugal. After exhausting the New Christians, it turned its attention to the native Christians, who rewarded so abundantly the missionary labors of the Jesuits, for Portugal did not follow the wise example of Spain in exempting native converts from the Inquisition. It was impossible for these poor folk to abandon completely the superstitious practices of their ancestors, and any relapse into these, however trifling, was visited with the rigor with which were treated similar lapses by the Conversos of the Peninsula. Even Philip II recognized the impolicy of this and, in 1599, he procured from Clement VIII a brief empowering the inquisitors to commute the penalties of relaxation and confiscation for relapse, up to a third relapse but no further, and the faculty was limited to the term of five years. ⁽⁶¹⁾

It is not a little remarkable that no tribunal was established in Brazil, although the New Christians who abounded there proved a very troublesome element, from the encouragement which they [262] gave to the Dutch in their efforts to obtain a foothold. ⁽⁶²⁾ There was a commissioner there, but his powers were limited to collecting evidence and transmitting it with the accused to Lisbon, where they were tried and punished. ⁽⁶³⁾ It may be worth noting that, in the treaty of 1810 with England, Portugal bound itself never to establish the Inquisition in its American possessions. ⁽⁶⁴⁾

In general, it may be said that the Portuguese Inquisition was modelled on that of Castile. A series of edicts issued by Dom Sebastian and Dom Henrique and confirmed by later kings, granted to officials and familiars the privileges, exemptions and immunities which they enjoyed in the sister kingdom. This gave rise to similar quarrels and competencias, and to a multiplication of the privileged class even greater than in Spain. In 1699 we find Dom Pedro II endeavoring to enforce a decree of 1693, which limited to six hundred and four the familiars allowed in the larger towns, while small places were to be reduced to one or two each. ⁽⁶⁵⁾ The main difference in the organization of the Inquisitions of the two kingdoms was in the Portuguese officials known as deputados, of whom at least four were appointed by the inquisitor-general, as assistants to the three inquisitors constituting each tribunal. They were required to possess qualifications entitling them to promotion as inquisitors; they performed such duties as might be assigned to them and, in the consulta de fe, they replaced the Spanish consultores, with the distinction that they cast decisive and not merely consultative votes. To render a sentence legal at least five votes were required besides that of the Ordinary. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ There was no appeal from a definitive sentence, for the reason that it was not made known to the culprit before the auto in [263] which it was pronounced, but all interlocutory sentences and intermediate proceedings were subject to appeal, and the Supreme Council came to exercise minute supervision over every act of the tribunals even earlier than we have seen was the case in Spain. ⁽⁶⁷⁾ The minuteness, indeed, of the details prescribed in the Regimento of Inquisitor-general de Castro, printed in 1640, left little to the discretion of the inquisitor, and their systematic arrangement, in an authoritative code of procedure, affords a strong contrast to the cumbersome and often contradictory cartas acordadas, which lumbered up the secreto of the Spanish tribunals. 

Although the object of the Inquisition was the purification of the land from Judaism, it was not confined to this, and it early proved that it could exercise its blighting influence on the intellectual development as well as on the material prosperity of Portugal. Among the learned foreigners whom André de Gouvêa, at the request of João III, brought to Portugal, in 1547, to found a college of arts in his University of Coimbra, was George Buchanan, as professor of Greek. Gouvêa died within a year and soon afterwards the foreigners were driven out to be replaced by Jesuits, who were becoming the dominant power in the land. The process was a simple one. Buchanan and two others were prosecuted by the Inquisition and thrown in prison. The accusation against the former was that he had written a poem against the Franciscans, that he had spoken disrespectfully of the friars, that he had eaten meat in Lent, that he had said that St. Augustin's views on the Eucharist were akin to those condemned by Rome, and generally that he was thought to be ill-affected towards the Holy See. After incarceration for eighteen months, he was sentenced to reclusion in a monastery for instruction by the monks, whom he describes as good-natured enough but wholly ignorant. On his liberation João offered to retain him, but he took the earliest opportunity to escape to England. ⁽⁶⁸⁾

[264] A still more effective deadening of intellectual aspiration was the persecution of Damiao de Goes, the foremost scholar of Portugal in the sixteenth century. When a youth of 22, he had been sent to Flanders as secretary to the Portuguese factory. It was not until 1528 that his thirst for learning was awakened, he studied Latin, went to Padua, and speedily made himself known to scholars throughout Europe. In 1545, João recalled him to Portugal, where rivalry arose between him and Simon Rodríguez the Jesuit Provincial, who had met him in Padua and now accused him to the Inquisition for heretical utterances made there nine years before, the details of which he could not remember, but had a general impression that they were Lutheran. Nothing came of this and, in 1550, Rodríguez repeated his accusation, with the same result. Goes made enemies in his literary career and, in 1571, the denunciation of Rodríguez, made twenty-six years before, was resuscitated. He was now seventy years old, he had been an invalid for twenty years, and was scarce able to stand, but he was cast into a dungeon, April 4, 1571, while his trial dragged on. No further evidence of any account could be found against him, but he freely confessed that, when he went to Flanders, he fell into the errors of considering indulgences of little value, and that general confession sufficed; that after learning Latin and studying, he had abandoned these errors and had since been strictly orthodox; at the request of Cardinal Sadoleto he had written to Melanchthon, in hopes of winning him over, and he had given a letter of introduction to Luther to Frei Roque de Almeida, whose object was to acquire a knowledge of the heresy so as to confute it. On this confession exclusively was based the sentence, which declared him to be a Lutheran heretic, but considering that it was when he was an ignorant youth of 21 and that, on learning Latin, he had abandoned his errors, he was mercifully condemned only to reconciliation, confiscation, and perpetual prison, the abjuration to be private in view of his quality and his reputation abroad. The monastery da Batalha was assigned as his prison, and the certificate of his delivery there is dated December 16, 1572; on the 9th the juez do fisco had already received the certificate of confiscation. The "perpetual" prison of the Portuguese Inquisition must have been temporary, like the Spanish, for Goes is said to have died in his own house, either by apoplexy or killed by his own servants, at a date which is not [265] known. ⁽⁶⁹⁾ If forty years of orthodoxy could not atone for a youthful vacillation on one or two points of faith, it can readily be estimated how potent an instrumentality was the Holy Office in stunting the development of Portuguese intellect.

When, in August, 1578, Cardinal Henrique succeeded to the crown of his grand-nephew Sebastian, he did not resign the inquisitor-generalship for fifteen months. He had previously, however, on February 24, 1578, on account of age and infirmity, procured the appointment as coadjutor, with the right of succession, of Manoel Bishop of Coimbra, but the latter disappeared with his sovereign in the disastrous rout of Alcazar-Quibir, and it was not until December 27, 1579 that, at Henrique's request, Gregory XIII replaced him with Jorje de Almeida, Archbishop of Lisbon. ⁽⁷⁰⁾ Henrique's death soon followed, January 31, 1580, when he passed away, universally detested and only regretted because, in the rivalry of claimants to the throne, and in the exhaustion of the land through famine and pestilence, the way was open to the easy conquest by Philip II. In the reorganization under the Spanish crown, the Inquisition was not merged with that of Castile, but was left as an independent institution under the Archbishop of Lisbon, for Gregory XIII refused the request of Philip II for a brief adding it to the jurisdiction of the Spanish inquisitor-general. ⁽⁷¹⁾ The nomination, however, accrued to the Spanish crown and, in 1586, on Almeida's death, the post was given to the Cardinal-Archduke Albrecht of Austria, who was also Governor of Portugal. ⁽⁷²⁾ With his advent, the activity of the Inquisition increased. In the twenty years, 1581-1600, the three tribunals held in all fifty autos de fe. Of these the records of five are lost, but in the other forty-five there were a hundred and sixty-two relaxations in person, fifty-nine in effigy, and twenty-nine hundred and [266] seventy-nine penitents. ⁽⁷³⁾

As the penitents, for the most part, must have suffered confiscation, we can estimate the severity of the persecution in a population so limited.

Large as must have been the receipts, from the beginning, derived from the confiscations of the wealthy New Christians, they were insufficient to satisfy its exigencies, diverted as they had been by the compositions paid to the crown. Sebastian, in continuing this practice, satisfied his conscience by representing to Gregory XIII that the income of the Inquisition did not exceed 5000 cruzados, which was insufficient for its support, wherefore the pope granted to it two-thirds of the fruits of the first prebend falling vacant in each of the Cathedrals of Lisbon, Evora and Coimbra and one-half of one in each of the other sees of the kingdom. It is probable that this evoked a sturdy resistance on the part of the churches, for it was never carried into effect and, when Philip II became master of Portugal, although the confiscations were no longer compounded for, he renewed the request, stating that 14,000 cruzados a year were requisite while the revenues did not exceed 10,000 ducats. Gregory responded with a briej of June 28, 1583 in which he renewed the grant, at the same time reducing it to one-half of a prebend in Lisbon, Evora and Coimbra and one-third in the other sees, nor is it likely that, under the stern rule of Philip, the grant was allowed to be nugatory. ⁽⁷⁴⁾
 

It is not difficult to apprehend the impulses which led to a wholesale emigration to Spain of those who felt themselves aliens in the land of their birth. Under Spanish rule the condition of Portugal was deplorable, as described, in 1595, by the Venetian envoy Francesco Vendramini. Lisbon, which had been a rich and populous city, was almost uninhabited; it formerly owned seven hundred ships, but five hundred had been captured by the enemy (mostly by the English) and but two hundred remained. All [267] this was not, he says, displeasing to the king, who desired to keep them impoverished, because they were unwilling subjects. ⁽⁷⁵⁾ Thus the rewards of commercial enterprise were more promising in Spain, and the emigrant might hope that, in the absence of knowledge of his antecedents, the danger of persecution would be less. The immigration thus was large, and before long its effects began to show themselves in the records of the Spanish Inquisition. Convictions for Judaism, which had become comparatively few, increased rapidly and, where the nativity of the delinquents happens to be specified, the term Portuguese occurs with ominous frequency. In 1593, Toledo had seven Portuguese on trial but, as there was but a single witness and they did not confess under torture, their cases-were suspended. The next year the same tribunal held an auto in which appeared five Portuguese in person and nine effigies were burnt of others, either fugitive or dead. ⁽⁷⁶⁾ In 1595, at Seville, there was an auto in which were punished eighty-nine Judaizers, besides four burnt in effigy, and soon afterwards, in Quintanar del Rey (Cuenca), there were thirty discovered, of whom the obstinate ones were burnt and the rest were reconciled. ⁽⁷⁷⁾

The Portuguese New Christians, both at home and in Spain, were growing restive under increasing pressure; they were wealthy and could afford to pay for a respite in the shape of a general pardon for past offences, including cases on trial. In 1602 negotiations were opened with Philip III for a papal brief to that effect; Portuguese orthodoxy took the alarm, and the Archbishops of Lisbon, Braga and Evora hastened to Valladolid, where the court lay, to present remonstrances. Spanish piety, to which such transactions were a novelty, was no less exercised, and direful predictions were made as to the evils that it would bring upon the land. Philip and his favorite Lerma, however, were desperately in need of cash, and all scruples were overcome by the dazzling bribe of 1,860,000 ducats to the king, besides fifty thousand cruzados to Lerma, forty thousand to João de Borja and thirty thousand to Pedro Alvarez Pereira, members of the Suprema Council, and thirty thousand to its secretary Fernáo de Mattos. The papal brief was issued, August 23, 1604 but, at the last moment, the bargain came near being wrecked by the demand of the New [268] Christians to have eight years in which to raise the sum. A threat, however, to suspend the execution of the brief sufficed to bring them to reason. ⁽⁷⁸⁾

It empowered the Portuguese inquisitor-general, the Archbishop of Lisbon and the papal collector, or any two of them or their deputies, to reconcile all Portuguese New Christians, where-ever they might be settled, with the injunction only of spiritual penances. It included all who were on trial, or who had been condemned provided their sentences had not been published. It released all confiscations that had not been covered into the fisc, and it gave to the Portuguese in Europe a year and to those outside of Europe two years, in which to come forward and avail themselves of its provisions. The reconciliation thus obtained was not to entail relaxation in case of relapse, and all inquisitors were forbidden to interfere. ⁽⁷⁹⁾

The brief was received in Valladolid about October 1st, but was not published in Lisbon until January 16, 1605. A royal cédula, however, was obtained, prohibiting the publication or execution of any sentences until this brief should take effect, thus including in its benefits all Portuguese who were in the hands of the Spanish tribunals, as well as in those of Portugal. ⁽⁸⁰⁾ The effect of this was dramatically exhibited without delay. On October 20th the Seville tribunal announced a great auto de fe for November 7th. The stagings erected were on an unusually large scale; on the evening of the 6th took place the procession of the Green Cross, in which more than five hundred familiars participated; the people [269] flocked in from the country in numbers beyond the capacity of the city to accommodate them. At night the confessors were introduced in the cells of those condemned to relaxation and, after completing all the preparations for the solemnity, the junior inquisitor, Fernando de Acebedo, sought his bed about eleven o'clock. Suddenly a courier arrived, armed with an order to admit him to the inquisitors, wherever they might be, whether in their houses or their beds, in consulta de fe or on the staging at the auto. He had left Valladolid at midnight on the 3d and, at break-neck speed, had made the distance to Seville in seventy-two hours, getting through the closed gates of the towns on the road, and arriving in time to serve on the inquisitors a royal cédula forbidding the celebration of the auto. Some there were who held that a royal decree was not to be obeyed unless rubricated by the Suprema, but this was an opinion not as yet established and, after a brief consultation, measures were hurriedly taken to suspend the celebration, to the blank astonishment of all Seville. Surmises were various. some explained it by the recent treaty with England, under which Englishmen in Spain were not to be troubled on account of heresy; others attributed it to the planets; others thought that among the condemned there was some one of lofty station and influence, whose friends had been able to save him, but the suggestion which found the widest acceptance was that it was due to the Portuguese New Christians, numerous and wealthy, who had offered large sums, estimated at eight hundred thousand ducats, to stave it off, and this was supported by the fact that the midnight horseman, before going to the Inquisition, had stopped at the house of Etor Autunez, a wealthy Portuguese merchant, who had given him fifty ducats for his good news. ⁽⁸¹⁾

Under this perdon general, the three tribunals in Portugal liberated four hundred and ten prisoners simultaneously on January 16, 1605, ⁽⁸²⁾ and there can be no doubt that the great body of Portuguese Judaizers in Spain obtained valid absolution for all past [270] sins during the twelvemonth of its duration, although the Inquisition threw what obstacles it could in their way. In 1605, at Toledo, Antonio Fernández Paredes, a Portuguese on trial with three witnesses against him, was obliged to insist on his right under the pardon, and to argue that his wife Isabel Díaz had been released at Coimbra in virtue of it, until the tribunal referred the matter to the Suprema, which ordered his discharge, although subsequently, during the same year six other Portuguese were tried and sentenced without any reference being made to it. ⁽⁸³⁾ Still, the hands of the Inquisition were tied and it lent its energies to detecting the Portuguese in new delinquencies. It sent out the brief to the tribunals, April 15th and, on April 20, 1606, it called their attention to the fact that the year had expired on January 16th, wherefore they were immediately to examine their records as to the Portuguese who had been discharged in virtue of the brief and to proceed against all who had not taken advantage of it as well as against those who had been guilty of heresy after its expiration. ⁽⁸⁴⁾ Notwithstanding this, there must have been for some years a marked interruption of persecution. A writer remarks, in 1611, that in Seville the Castle of Triana was used as a penitential prison, for there was no one on trial, the Judaizers having all been pardoned, the Moriscos expelled and the Protestants suppressed. ⁽⁸⁵⁾

This episode, however could have no permanent influence and its chief interest lies in its manifestation of the numbers and wealth of the new class of offenders coming forward to replace the expelled Moriscos in furnishing material for autos de fe and in stimulating activity with the prospect of fines and confiscations. After this we hear little of the old Spanish Conversos; nearly all Judaizers are Portuguese and all Portuguese are presumably Judaizers-- suspects who existed only on sufferance. In 1625, at Salamanca, the corregidor, in his nightly round, entered a tavern to arrest a priest who had committed murder. He had words with a party of Portuguese and forthwith arrested them all, charging them with being fugitives from the Portuguese Inquisition. He reported this to the Suprema, which communicated with the tribunal of Coimbra and they were all sent to it for trial. ⁽⁸⁶⁾ When, in 1633, [271] an effort was made to remove the disabilities under which the New Christians labored, the Licencíate Juan Adán de la Parra, in an argument against it, urged as his principal reason the obstinacy of the Portuguese neophytes; even the advocates of the measure admitted that it would be inapplicable to them, and Parra pointed out the impossibility of distinguishing between them and the Castilians. ⁽⁸⁷⁾

Some efforts were made to check this influx and to prevent transit through Spain to France and Holland, where the refugees were of material assistance to the national enemies. In 1567, during the minority of Dom Sebastian, the old laws were revived forbidding New Christians to leave the kingdom, or to seek the colonies, or to sell real estate without a special royal licence. Sebastian subsequently repealed this, but it was renewed by Philip II, in 1587, and remained at least nominally in force, though difficult of execution. Partial relief was obtained, in 1601, when they paid Philip III two hundred thousand ducats for an irrevocable free permission to go to the colonies of both crowns, and to sell landed property but, with the faithlessness customary in dealing with the proscribed race, this irrevocable permission was withdrawn in 1610 and, in 1611 and 1612, the Suprema forwarded to the viceroy of Goa a royal provision ordering him to expel all of Jewish blood, to which he refused obedience, saying that all commerce was in their hands and the colonies would be ruined by their expulsion. ⁽⁸⁸⁾

Another decree of Philip III, April 20, 1619, called the attention of the inquisitor-general to the evils resulting from the multitudes of Portuguese passing, with their families and property, to France. All who could not show a licence under the Portuguese crown to leave that kingdom were to be seized and their property sequestrated without further orders, in accordance with which the Suprema promptly issued the necessary instructions to its commissioners in the sea-ports and frontier towns. ⁽⁸⁹⁾ This doubtless led to increased restrictions in Portugal on emigration, and to it we may probably attribute an eloquent memorial, without date, from [272] the Portuguese New Christians, asking for the removal of all limitations. Gentlemen of the noblest houses, they stated, had intermarried with them, both in Portugal and the colonies, and they had lavished their substance in the good work of founding churches, embellishing cofradías, endowing chapels, and liberal almsgiving. Free permission to enter Spain would work no harm to religion, for the Inquisition was everywhere, and the benefit arising from unrestricted intercourse was manifested in the revenues derived from the frontier towns, which were formerly farmed out for thirteen millions of maravedís, irregularly paid, and now were farmed for thirty-six millions, attributable to the spices, perfumes, porcelains, stuffs and other wares brought in by them. It was the same with the Spanish manufactures exported through Biscay--the wools and cloths of Segovia, the silks and other goods. The only objection to free intercourse was that they might take advantage of it to seek other prohibited lands, and this was sufficiently answered elsewhere, in addition to the fact that Portugal had so many ports that emigration could not be prevented, as two hours sufficed to reach the sea and embark, while land travel was slow and expensive, and could be stopped at the frontier towns. The New Christians had greatly enriched the kingdom and the colonies by their labors. In Brazil, where they could hold real estate, nearly all the sugar plantations were in their hands, and these they were constantly increasing, to the great profit of the colony and of the revenue. As by law they were excluded from all offices and dignities, commerce was their only resource. ⁽⁹⁰⁾ Possibly these representations may have been convincing, for the prohibition was withdrawn, to be subsequently renewed as we shall see.

If they desired to escape from Portugal, Portugal was quite as anxious to get rid of them, by extermination or otherwise. The pious intensity of hatred towards them finds expression, in 1621, in a ferocious work by Vicente da Costa Mattos, of which the declared object was to drive them from the land. All the old stories of their malice to Christians were raked together and set forth as uncontradicted truths. They were enemies of mankind, wandering like gypsies through the world and living on the sweat of others. They had possessed themselves of all trade, farming [273] the lands of individuals and the royal patrimony, with no capital but industry and lack of conscience. They live only for the perdition of the world; of old, God punished those who ill-treated them, but now he punishes those who endure them; the decline of the Spanish kingdoms was the punishment sent by God for tolerating them. They were all idolaters and sodomites, and wherever they went they infected the land with their abominations, and were constantly seeking to convert Christians to their foul belief. Luther commenced by Judaizing; all heretics were either Jews or descendants of Judaizers, as was seen in England, Germany and other parts where they flourished; Calvin called himself the Father of Jews, like many other deniers of the Trinity, and Bucer in his will declared that Christ was not the Savior promised. Their perverse obstinacy was sufficiently proved, by the numbers who were every day burnt, and the still greater numbers who escaped by penance after conviction. ⁽⁹¹⁾ This crazy ebullition of ignorant hate accorded so well with the prejudices of the time that a second edition was called for in 1633; in 1629 it was translated into Castilian by Fray Diego Gavilán Vera, and this was reprinted in 1680. 

The hatred, indeed, was quenchless which was not satisfied with what the Inquisition was doing. In 1623 we chance to hear of the tribunal of Evora arresting a hundred New Christians of the little town of Montemor o Novo. ⁽⁹²⁾ The autos de fe were frequently conducted on a scale unknown in contemporary Castile. The tribunal of Coimbra held one, August 16, 1626, with two hundred and forty-seven penitents and relaxados, another on May 6, 1629, with two hundred and eighteen and another on August 17, 1631 with two hundred and forty-seven. The statistics between 1620 and 1640 are not complete, for there were ten autos of which the details have not been preserved but, even without these, the fearful aggregate is two hundred and thirty relaxed in person, a hundred and sixty-one in effigy and forty-nine hundred and ninety-five penanced--and this is in addition to several hundred prisoners discharged under two pardons granted in 1627 and 1630, which [274] no doubt were heavily paid for. ⁽⁹³⁾ Besides these pardons an Edict of Grace was published in 1622 but, as we have seen, such mercies were burdened with intolerable conditions, and only sixteen persons came forward under it--twelve in Lisbon and four in Evora-- and all these had already been testified against. ⁽⁹⁴⁾ In 1630, the royal confessor Sotomayor reported that, in interviewing the deputies of the New Christians, he found that they wanted no more Edicts of Grace; the last one, they said, had done them no good but much harm, as it brought infinite denunciations against them and filled the prisons. ⁽⁹⁵⁾ There is very likely exaggeration, but nothing more than exaggeration, in the assertion of Luys de Melo that, in this period, the activity of the Inquisition had virtually depopulated the cities of Coimbra, Oporto, Braga, Lamego, Braganza, Evora, Beja and part of Lisbon, and the towns of Santarem, Tomar, Trancoso, Avero, Guimaraens, Vinais, Villaflor, Fundan, Montemor o Velho and o Novo and many other places, while the prisons of the three tribunals were always full and the autos so frequent that each tribunal celebrated one almost every year. One in Coimbra occupied two days, there being more than a hundred each day, and among them professors, canons, priests, curas with cure of souls, vicars-general, frailes, nuns, knights, including some of the Military Orders of kin with the highest of the land, and there was even a discalced Franciscan so pertinacious that he was burnt alive. ⁽⁹⁶⁾

[275] Notwithstanding these superhuman exertions the inquisitors complained that their labors were unavailing; Judaism was steadily increasing; the misfortunes of the land were attributable to the idolatry of this evil rabble, and they clamored for more drastic measures. The Supreme Council, January 17, 1619, addressed to Philip III a consulta urging that prompt action was necessary in view of the contamination, and of the infinite sacrileges committed, to the scandal of the faithful. The king, it said, did not want vassals only, but good vassals, and it therefore suggested that, when a penitent was condemned to confiscation, he should also be banished; he would thus be stripped of everything and would not take wealth to enrich the enemy as now was the case. It also said that a general visitation was on foot which had already produced much result; presumably there were many in Madrid who should be investigated, and the king was asked to order a visitation there. One member of the council, Mendo de la Mota, went even further, and wanted banishment for all required to abjure for vehement suspicion. Philip responded to this with chilling indifference; if those who abjured for suspicion were banished, they would take their money with them; it was a doubtful measure and he wished the council to consider it further; as regarded the Portuguese in Castile, if a list was furnished, with notes as to grounds for suspicion, he would have them investigated. The list was duly supplied, but the investigation was not made. ⁽⁹⁷⁾

The effort was resumed the next year. On April 30, 1620, the tribunals of Lisbon and Evora sent to Philip relations of the autos held by them on the previous September 29th, so that he might see the large numbers punished on those occasions, and recognize the necessity of more active measures of repression. Among them were three canons of Coimbra, three frailes and several lawyers. Six canons of Coimbra, all New Christians, had been arrested; they were all appointees of the pope, and the king was prayed to ask him to close the door on all applicants for benefices of that race; also to order that none should be admitted to the Church, either as seculars or regulars, and none to public office--which indicates how little the prohibitory laws were respected. ⁽⁹⁸⁾

The youthful Philip IV was scarce more than seated on the throne when, in 1622, Fernando Mascarenhas, Bishop of Faro, [276] urged him to provide some remedy for the political dangers apprehended from the New Christians. It was in evidence, he said, that they were all secretly Jews and the state was in great peril from them as they were very numerous. There was no city in which they were not powerful through their wealth and the important positions held by them, while the danger of detection and punishment might lead them to cause serious trouble through alliance with enemies. It was found that they secretly invested their capital in dealings with the Dutch, and in Dutch commercial companies and, if they ventured their wealth with these rebels, they would conspire with them, especially as the Inquisition was pushing them hard, arresting them all and they had no other remedy. ⁽⁹⁹⁾ Israel has rarely had a more flattering tribute to its intellectual superiority than the fears excited by this remnant surviving through near a century of pitiless persecution.

Doubtless there were other urgent warnings which have not reached us and, in 1628, Philip called for a formal expression of opinion from his Portuguese prelates. By his order they assembled at Tomar and summoned to their aid all who were most distinguished in the kingdom for learning and virtue. After prolonged debates they submitted to him a series of suggestions to which he replied seriatim. In view of the failure of all previous efforts to abate the evils wrought and threatened by the New Christians, the remedy they preferred was the thorough expulsion of the whole race; if this were not practicable, at least those who were full-blooded Jews, excepting such as could prove their Christianity, should be banished, and their property be confiscated; as for those of half or quarter blood, all should go who had been, or who in future should be reconciled, or sentenced to abjure de vehementi, unless inquisitors were satisfied of their true repentance and conversion. To this Philip replied, proposing delay in the case of the full-blooded Conversos, and assenting to the exile of the reconciled and vehemently suspect. For the further relief of the kingdom, the bishops proposed that all who desired could, within a year, irrevocably expatriate themselves, selling their property and taking with them the proceeds, but not in jewels or the precious metals. To this the royal answer was that already there was unrestricted liberty to go, but as evils had arisen from their return, in future it should be prohibited. The next suggestion was significant; to check the spread of Judaic infection, [277] by intermarriage, which was destroying the lustre of the nobility, no dower in such unions should exceed two thousand cruzados, and the husband should be disabled from holding positions of honor and dignity. To the first clause the king assented; to the latter he said that the existing laws in favor of the nobility should be enforced. To prevent the constant profanation of the sacraments it was proposed that papal briefs should be procured prohibiting all entrance into the Church of all who were New Christians, even in the tenth degree. To this the king promised to apply for such briefs and meanwhile the bishops should refuse to install persons bearing dispensations and report to him, and also represent to the pope the evils attendant on such preferment. The next suggestion was that the king should ratify and enforce the prohibition to hold secular offices and dignities, to which he replied that it should be strictly enforced. Finally, the bishops proposed that the New Christians should be wholly excluded from trade and commerce or, if this was not possible, at least from that which concerned the royal revenues, but to this Philip answered rather curtly that it was none of their business. ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾

Such were the views of Christian prelates, and even the partial concessions of the king seemed sufficient to threaten the New Christians with virtual extinction, but the whole portentous transaction served only to put on record the extremes to which bigotry could reach. As Luys de Melo suggestively says, after giving the documents in full, the orders issued by the king were not executed, and it would be superfluous to explain the cause of this to any one acquainted with the methods of government of the period. Yet it had one result, for the New Christians, in fear of the threatened consequences, paid to King Philip eighty thousand ducats for the privilege of leaving Portugal and, under this, some five thousand families emigrated to Castile, besides a countless number of individual stragglers, so that it would be a wonder to find any place in Spain not filled with Portuguese Jews. ⁽¹⁰¹⁾ They [278] felt themselves in perfect safety, for the Castilian tribunals refused to honor requisitions from those of Portugal. ⁽¹⁰²⁾ Efforts were also made to obtain modification of procedure, but in vain. By a cédula of December 20, 1633, Philip expressed his approbation of the existing rules and refused all change; moreover, he gave to Inquisitor-general de Castro all the memorials, petitions and arguments presented to him, thus furnishing to the Inquisition the names of those upon whom to wreak its vengeance. ⁽¹⁰³⁾

The question of transit to France came up again in 1632, when the Suprema notified Philip that the commissioner at Pampeluna reported that troops of Portuguese families were passing into France, many of them people of wealth, with litters and coaches, and the Inquisition did not interfere with them, as the last instructions were that they should not be impeded. The result of this representation was that the orders of 1619 were repeated. ⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ Not content with retaining those who wished to expatriate themselves, when the Admiral of Castile, in 1636, captured Saint-Jean de Luz, and there were hopes of conquering Guienne, which was ripe for revolt, the Inquisition took steps to seize the refugees who might have settled there, though it had no evidence that they were Judaizers. It assumed that they were apostates and as such not included in the promises held out to the inhabitants at large, and that anyhow the cause of the faith was privileged. The king was therefore asked to order the admiral to send to the border all whom its agents might designate, so that they could be seized without attracting attention. ⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ It is possible that some victims [279] may thus have been procured during the brief time in which the Spaniards held their advantage.

The refugees, however, mainly bent their steps to Holland, where they enjoyed free toleration and could work for their own advancement and the detriment of their oppressors. This was the leading cause of the effort to prevent emigration, and it was a matter of much concern. Luys de Melo says that there had passed to Holland more than two thousand families and, in those rebel states, they had purchased the right to establish synagogues. Those who publicly Judaized there were the same as those who, quitting Portugal as sanbenitados, published that their confession of Judaism was under coercion of the Inquisition. Many who had lived in misery in Portugal were rich in Holland; they paid contributions to those rebel states, and assisted to maintain their fleets and armies; they invested largely in the East India Company, and thus were absorbing a great part of Spanish commerce and, under feigned names and in vessels of the United Provinces, they did a large trade in contraband goods. ⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ In short, their commercial aptitudes were impoverishing Spain and enriching her enemies. The writer unconsciously points out how large a part intolerance played in the decadence of the state.

Nor was this the only mischief wrought by their hostility to the land that had driven them forth. In 1634, the Capitan Esteban de Ares Fonseca, in a memorial to the Suprema, represents the refugees in Holland as aiding actively the enemies of Spain, and as holding constant correspondence with spies residing there in the guise of merchants. The Dutch West India Company, he says, was controlled by Jews, who were large stockholders, and its chief profits were derived from piracy in the colonies, especially those of Portugal on the Brazilian coast, where the New Christians were numerous and were in correspondence with the enemy. It was two Jews, Nuño Alvarez Franco and Manuel Fernandez Drago, residents of Bahía, who planned and executed the capture of that place by the Dutch in 1625. Franco, he adds, now lives in Lisbon as a spy, under orders from Holland, and his brother Jacob Franco carries intelligence back and forth disguised as a Fleming of Antwerp. Drago is still in Bahía; he is a great rabbi and teacher of the Jews, and moreover is a spy who last year sent word to the Dutch to return there. The capture of Pernambuco [280] was the work of the Jews of Amsterdam, chief among whom was Antonio Vaez Henriquez, known as Cohén, who had lived there, who arranged the plans and accompanied the expedition; he is now residing in Seville as a merchant, but is nothing but a spy. Last year he went to Amsterdam with a plan for the capture of Havana, where he has a correspondent named Manuel de Torres. At present a large fleet of eighteen sail is fitting out for the relief of Pernambuco, under command of David Peixoto, a Jew, who proposes to call at Buarcos and penetrate to Coimbra, where the Inquisition is to be burnt and the prisoners are to be liberated. It was a Jew of Amsterdam, named Francisco de Campos, who took the island of Fernando de Noronha; it could readily be recaptured, as it has a garrison of only thirty-four men with four cannon. In San Sebastian, there is a Jew named Abraham Ger, who calls himself Juan Gilíes, under Dutch pay; he works much mischief to Spain and keeps a man named Rafael Mendez, who is constantly travelling back and forth. ⁽¹⁰⁷⁾

We need not accept all this as literally true, but it had an undoubted substratum of fact. In 1640, the tribunals of Lima and Cartagena de las Indias reported that in recent autos de fe it had been discovered that many Judaizing Portuguese in the colonies had correspondence with the synagogues in Holland and the Levant, assisting the Dutch and the Turks with information and money. To verify this, orders were given to open, on a certain day, all letters addressed to Portuguese throughout Spain. The information was found to be true; a cypher was discovered, used in correspondence with the synagogues of Holland, and further, that a million and a half of money had been pledged from Spain. The matter was appropriately referred for investigation to the inquisitor-general and two inquisitors. ⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ What was the result, we have no means of knowing, but we may be reasonably sure that the rumors, which attributed to the New Christians of Portugal a share in the rebellion of 1640, were not wholly without foundation.

They certainly benefited at first by the change of masters. It is true that João IV conciliated the Inquisition by intervening in its favor in a quarrel which it had, in 1643, with the Jesuits of Evora, and by attending, with his family and court, two autos de fe held in Lisbon, April 6, 1642 and June 25, 1645, in one of [281] which there were six relaxations in person and four in effigy, with seventy-five penitents, and in the other eleven relaxations in person and two in effigy, with sixty-one penitents ⁽¹⁰⁹⁾

but this we may assume to have been a matter of policy rather than of conviction, for his tendencies were towards liberality. He is even said to have contemplated granting freedom of conscience and liberty of residence to Jews, but to have been forced to abandon the purpose by the stubborn resistance of the inquisitor-general Francisco de Castro, Bishop of Guarda, ⁽¹¹⁰⁾ but this is probably a Spanish exaggeration of an intention to modify the rigor of inquisitorial procedure, which he was obliged to forego through the impossibility of obtaining the requisite papal confirmation. ⁽¹¹¹⁾ Spanish influence in Italy sufficed to prevent the Holy See from recognizing or holding relations with the House of Braganza, until, by the treaty of Lisbon in 1668, Spain abandoned her futile efforts at reconquest--a position which resulted in the vacancy of the Portuguese sees, as the bishops dropped off, until there was but one left, Francisco de Sotomayor, a Dominican who chanced to be bishop of Targa in partibus and who was made Bishop of Lamego in 1659. ⁽¹¹²⁾

This impossibility of negotiating with Rome rendered necessary an indirect method of accomplishing his desire to abolish confiscation, which he recognized as a serious impediment to commercial credit and prosperity, especially through the sequestration of property at arrest. As it was provided by the canons it could only be abrogated by a papal rescript, and to evade this difficulty, [282] in his decree of February 6, 1649, he disclaimed all intention of interfering with the functions of the Holy Office, which should continue to include confiscation in its sentences but, after this declaration, he made to the culprits a free gift of their forfeited property, which they could dispose of at will, provided it was in favor of Catholics, and he also abolished sequestration at arrest. But this was not only a free gift but a binding contract, under which the merchants engaged to form a trading company to enrich the country with colonial commerce and to provide, at its own expense, thirty-six war ships to serve as convoys for the merchantmen, all of which was impossible so long as the capital of the company was liable to be imperilled by sequestration and confiscation imposed on the shareholders. The inquisitor-general was ordered to have this decree filed in the secreto of the tribunals, and to enforce its observance, while João obligated himself never to revoke it, ⁽¹¹³⁾ The Inquisition subsequently boasted that it had excommunicated all who advised the king to this measure, and it actually succeeded in obtaining from Innocent X a brief of October 25, 1650, thanking God for what it had done and urging it to persevere. ⁽¹¹⁴⁾ Notwithstanding this, the Companhia da Bolsa was organized and, through its means, Pernambuco was recovered from the Dutch. There was flattering prospect of restoring Portuguese commerce but, when João IV died, in 1656, leaving the kingdom under the regency of his widow Lucía de Guzman, during the minority of Affonso VI, the Inquisition not only resumed confiscation but proceeded to collect the arrears since 1649. Altogether, Padre Vieira tells us, about 1680, they had gathered in up to that time some twenty-five millions, of which not more than half a million cruzados reached the royal treasury. ⁽¹¹⁵⁾

When Bishop de Castro died, in 1653, the attitude of the Holy See towards Portugal precluded the appointment of a successor, and the General Council acted from that date until 1672, when [283] D. Pedro de Lencastre, Archbishop of Side, in partibus, was appointed. The lack of a head seems rather to have stimulated than to have repressed its energies, and one can scarce comprehend how, after a century of such earnest work, so small a territory can have furnished so unfailing a supply of victims. Autos were held in each tribunal nearly every year, with so copious a number of culprits that occasionally they occupied two days, and one at Coimbra, in February, 1677, required three days to despatch its nine personal relaxations and its two hundred and sixty-four penitents. Peace or war seems to have made no difference. Evora celebrated an auto, June 23, 1663, with a hundred and forty-two penitents, although Don John of Austria, with a hostile Spanish army, was occupying the city. ⁽¹¹⁶⁾
 
The explanation of this exhaustless reservoir of material for autos is to be found in the strictness with which the infection of blood was reckoned, without limit of generations; all who had the slightest admixture were reckoned as New Christians and were held to be Jews at heart. Intermarriages had been frequent, and so large a portion of the population was thus contaminated that foreigners generally regarded the Portuguese as all Jews. ⁽¹¹⁷⁾ Thus the field of operation of the Inquisition was almost unlimited, and every one whom it penanced became a source of stronger infection. The death of João IV removed what little restraint he may have ventured to exercise and, in 1662, the oppressed population, comprising so large a portion of the wealth and intelligence of the kingdom, made an attempt to purchase alleviation of suffering. A New Christian named Duarte, who had been penanced, in the name of his fellows, made a liberal offer of money and troops for the defence of the land, in return for a general pardon, the publication of witnesses' names and permission to found a synagogue in which professing Jews might worship. Considering that in Rome there was a synagogue, there is some inconsistency in the [284] energetic brief of Alexander VII, February 17, 1663, denouncing the project and urging the Inquisition to resist it to the utmost. ⁽¹¹⁸⁾ Of course the attempt was abortive. Then, in 1671, the New Christians were suddenly threatened with a catastrophe. In the church of Orivellas, a pyx with a consecrated host was stolen. We have seen with what equanimity the Roman Inquisition regarded this offence, but in Portugal the whole kingdom was thrown into consternation. The Regent Pedro and the court put on mourning; an edict ordered that for some days no one should leave his house, so that everybody might be compelled to give an account of himself on the fatal night. All efforts to identify the sacrilegious thief proving fruitless, it was assumed that the New Christians must be guilty, and the regent signed an edict banishing them all from Portugal--a measure opposed by the Inquisition, doubtless because its occupation would be gone. Before the expulsion could be enforced, however, it happened that a young thief near Coimbra, named Antonio Ferreira, was arrested, and in his possession was found the pyx with its contents. The most searching investigation failed to discover in him a trace of Jewish blood; he was duly burnt and the New Christians were saved. ⁽¹¹⁹⁾

After this narrow escape, there came a gleam of promise. Few members of the Society of Jesus, at that time, were more distinguished than Antonio Vieira, who had earned the name of the Apostle of Brazil. He had long regarded the New Christians with compassion and had urged João IV not only to abolish confiscation but to remove the distinctions between them and the Old Christians. He had made enemies and the Inquisition readily undertook his punishment; his writings in favor of the oppressed were condemned as rash, scandalous, erroneous, savoring of heresy and well adapted to pervert the ignorant. ⁽¹²⁰⁾ After three years of incarceration, he was penanced in the audience-chamber of Coimbra, December 23, 1667, and his sympathy for the victims of the Holy Office was sharpened by his experience of its unwholesome prisons, where he tells us that five unfortunates were not uncommonly herded in a ce