[317]We have seen
that, in the progress of the Reconquest, as Moorish territories were successively
won, the inhabitants were largely allowed to remain, under guarantees for
the free enjoyment of their religion and customs. These Mudéjares,
as they were called, formed a most useful portion of the population, through
their industry and skill in the arts and crafts. When, in 1368, Charles
le Mauvais of Navarre granted to the Mudéjares of Tudela a remission
of half their taxes for three years, in reward of their assistance during
his wars, especially in fortification and engineering, it shows that the
conquering race depended on them not merely for manual labor but for the
higher branches of applied knowledge. (2)
As a rule they were faithful in peace and war, during the long centuries
of internal strife between the Christians, and of struggles with their
co-religionists.
It was the Jews against whom
was directed the growing intolerance of the fifteenth century and, in the
massacres that occurred, there appears to have been no hostility manifested
against the Mudéjares. When Alfonso de Borja, Archbishop of Valencia
(afterwards Calixtus III), supported by Cardinal Juan de Torquemada, urged
their expulsion on Juan II of Aragon, although he appointed a term for
their exile, he reconsidered the matter and left them undisturbed.
(3) So when, in 1480,
Isabella ordered the expulsion from Andalusia of all Jews who refused baptism
and [318] when, in 1486, Ferdinand did the same in Aragon, they
both respected the old capitulations and left the Mudéjares alone.
(4) The time-honored
policy was followed in the conquest of Granada, and nothing could be more
liberal than the terms conceded to the cities and districts that surrendered.
The final capitulation of the city of Granada was a solemn agreement, signed
November 25, 1491, in which Ferdinand and Isabella, for themselves, for
their son the Infante Juan and for all their successors, received the Moors
of all places that should come into the agreement as vassals and natural
subjects under the royal protection, and as such to be honored and respected.
Religion, property, freedom to trade, laws and customs were all guaranteed,
and even renegades from Christianity among them were not to be maltreated,
while Christian women marrying Moors were free to choose their religion.
For three years, those desiring expatriation were to be transported to
Barbary at the royal expense, and refugees in Barbary were allowed to return.
When, after the execution of this agreement, the Moors, with not unnatural
distrust, wanted further guarantees, the sovereigns made a solemn declaration
in which they swore by God that all Moors should have full liberty to work
on their lands, or to go wherever they desired through the kingdoms, and
to maintain their mosques and religious observances as heretofore, while
those who desired to emigrate to Barbary could sell their property and
depart. (5)
It was the wise traditional policy of incorporating the conquered population
in the state, on an equal footing with other subjects, and trusting to
time to merge them all into a common mass, holding one faith and owing
allegiance to one country.
Whether it was distrust of
Christian good faith that impelled them, or a natural desire to leave the
scene of their defeat, a large portion of the Granadan Moors, including
most of the nobles, promptly availed themselves of the right of expatriation.
Before the year 1492 was out, it was reported to the sovereigns that the
Abencerrages had gone, almost in a body, and that, in the Alpujarras, few
were left save laborers and officials. The emigration [319] continued
and, in 1498, a letter of Ferdinand indicates that he was inclined to stimulate
it. (6)
While there might be good reasons for diminishing the large population
of those recently vanquished, who presumably might cherish hopes of independence
and had not forgotten the bitterness of unsuccessful struggle, this was
accompanied with a readiness to increase the number of Mudéjares,
who had adapted themselves to the situation, and who were regarded as in
every way a desirable element in the community.. When Manoel of Portugal
expelled the Moors who refused baptism, Ferdinand and Isabella welcomed
them to Spain. Royal letters were issued, April 20, 1497, permitting their
entrance with all their property, either to settle or in transit to other
lands; they were taken under the royal protection and all molestation of
them was forbidden. (7)
Up to this time, at least, there was no recognition of the political necessity
of unity of faith, which subsequently served as justification for cruel
intolerance and unwise statesmanship.
The condition of the Moriscos
was steadily growing worse, and the situation in Granada was becoming dangerously
explosive. The Inquisition was more active than ever; all the old oppressions
by the priests and judicial officers continued unchecked, and a new source
of intense irritation was the progressive spoliation of their lands by
"judges of boundaries" who, in the name of the king, deprived them of properties
inherited or purchased-- in short, they were gente sin lengua y sin
fabor--friendless and defenceless. (40)
Then, in 1563, an old order to present to the captain-general all licences
to bear arms was revived under a penalty of six years of galleys.
(41) In 1565 a fresh
source of trouble was created by extending the royal jurisdiction over
the lands of the nobles, in which many Moriscos, who in years past had
committed [334] crimes, had sought asylum. Eager for fees, the notaries
and justices searched the records and made arrests, until there was scarce
a Morisco who did not live in daily fear. Many took to the mountains, joining
the bands of monfíes, or outlaws, and committing outrages,
while the measures taken for their suppression only increased the disorder.
(42)
The sufferings of the exiles
did not end with deportation. Leonardo Donato, the Venetian envoy, who
was an eye-witness, tells us that many perished through miseries and afflictions,
which, in fact, was inevitable under the conditions.
(55) Their distribution
was entrusted to a special Consejo de Poblaciones, and an elaborate
edict, in twenty-three sections, issued October 6, 1572, specified the
regulations under which they were permitted to exist. These scattered them
among Christians, kept them under close and perpetual surveillance, and
reduced them almost to the status of predial serfs, bound to the soil.
No weapons were permitted, save a pointless knife, and savage punishments
were provided for the enforcement of the prescriptions. Children were to
be brought up, as far as possible, in Christian families, and were to be
taught reading, writing and Christian doctrine. The pragmática of
1566 was declared to be in force, with added penalties for the use of Arabic;
any one writing or speaking it, even in his own house, incurred, for a
first offence, thirty days' prison in chains, fro a second double, for
a third a hundred lashes and four years of galleys.
(56) The severity of this latter provision shocked even the town-council
of Córdova, which had shown itself by no means favorable to the
exiles. It represented to the alcalde that God alone could enable them
to speak a language of which they were ignorant, especially as the alguaziles
were constantly arresting and punishing them, and it begged that action
should be suspended until schools could be organized for their instruction,
but the alcalde replied that he had no choice and must execute the edict.
(57)
After the enforced conversion
of the Castilian Moors, the tribunal of Aragon overstepped its powers by
endeavoring, indirectly if not directly, to compel submission to baptism.
The Duke and Duchess of Cardona, the Count of Ribagorza and other magnates
complained, in 1508, to Ferdinand, who reprimanded the inquisitors sharply
for exceeding their jurisdiction, with much scandal to the Moors and damage
to their lords. No one, he said, should be converted or baptized by force,
for God is served only when confession is heartfelt, nor should any one
be imprisoned for simply telling others not to turn Christian. In future,
no Moor was to be baptized unless he applied for it; any who were imprisoned
for counselling against conversion were to be released at once, and the
papers were to be sent to Inquisitor-general Enguera for instructions,
nor were arrests to be made without his orders. As it was reported that
others had fled in fear of forcible conversion or imprisonment, steps must
be taken to bring them home with full assurance against violence.
(69) In the same spirit, in 1510, when some Moors in Aragon had
been converted, and had consequently been abandoned by their wives and
children, Ferdinand ordered the inquisitors to permit them to return, and
not to exert pressure on them or to baptize them forcibly.
(70) Ferdinand understood his Aragonese subjects and had learned
when to respect their fueros.
The commissioners, armed
with full powers as inquisitors, lost no time in announcing to the Moors
the irrevocable resolve of the emperor, with a term of grace of eight days,
after which they would execute the decrees. The frightened aljamas deputed
twelve alfaquíes to supplicate of Charles the revocation of the
edict. Queen Germaine granted them a safe-conduct, and they were received
at court, carrying with them fifty thousand ducats to propitiate persons
of importance and, although at the moment they accomplished nothing, eventually,
as we shall see, they secured a Concordia which, as usual, was granted
only to be violated. (98)
[362] The table in
the Appendix shows that, while the activity of the Inquisition seemed to
diminish somewhat after the Concordia, towards the close of the century
it increased greatly, there being two hundred and ninety-one cases in 1591
and a hundred and seventeen in 1592. The record furnishing these figures
ends with 1592 and we have no means of ascertaining the work in the years
which immediately follow, but the rigor of persecution continued. In the
auto of September 5, 1604, there were twenty-eight abjurations de levi,
forty-nine de vehementi, eight reconciliations and two relaxations--all
Moriscos, except a Frenchman penanced for blasphemy. In that of January
7, 1607, there appeared thirty-three Moriscos, of whom one was relaxed,
besides six whose cases were suspended, and in the trials torture was employed
fifteen times. (119)
The fluctuations in the number of cases can be accounted for by evidence
occasionally enabling the tribunal to make a raid on some Morisco village
when, as they were all Moors at heart, the whole community would be gathered
in. Thus, in 1589 and 1590 the little settlement of Mislata, near Valencia,
furnished a hundred cases and we are told that in the town of Carlet there
were two hundred and forty households that observed the fast of Ramadan.
(120)
From such a case as this,
it can readily be conceived how efficient an instrument was the Inquisition
in exciting and perpetuating among the Moriscos an abhorrence of the religion
imposed on them by force, and scarce known to them save as an excuse for
cruelty and exaction. To some extent this was recognized by the governing
powers. After the wise toleration had been discarded, which had rendered
the Mudéjares contented subjects, the apostasy of the neophytes
was the source of grave concern in the spiritual field, and their known
hostility was the cause of even greater disquiet in the sphere of statesmanship.
For more than three-quarters of a century it was the subject of a constant
series of efforts and experiments, alternating between moderation and severity.
With an efficient and honest administration, something might have been
accomplished by a consistent policy, but vacillation, incompetence and
greed resulted only in increasing exasperation. The story is long and intricate
and the barest summary must suffice here to indicate its leading features
and the causes of the failure to assimilate the races, on which depended
the ,peace and prosperity of Spain. We have seen the mistaken policy adopted
in Granada; in Valencia it was less unreasonable in spirit, but failed
miserably in execution.
These spasmodic and fruitless
efforts to convert the so-called converts were accompanied with frequent
relaxations of the rigid canons against heresy, interesting because they
infer a dim conception that toleration, after all, might be a more practical
method of winning human souls than oppression and persecution. Unfortunately,
this fluctuating policy was the most irrational that could be devised.
The Moriscos had been so sedulously taught to abhor Christianity and to
distrust their conquerors that leniency could be regarded only as dictated
by fear, and as affording licence to follow more undisguisedly the practices
of their ancient faith, while the alternations of severity only increased
their hatred of the religion of their oppressors.
[371] Edicts of Grace
were the favorite resort when there was a disposition to show moderation,
but these, as we have seen, were, for the most part, nugatory, because
they were contingent on recorded confessions and the obligation to denounce
accomplices. The recorded confession rendered the penitent liable to the
terrible penalties of relapse and, as the latter was sure to occur, the
Morisco naturally hesitated to incur the liability. To obviate this objection,
the unprecedented concession was made of suspending the canons concerning
relapse. This could be done only by papal authority and it was repeatedly
tried. The earliest instance seems to be a brief of Clement VII, December
5, 1530, empowering Manrique to appoint confessors with faculties to absolve
penitents, even if they had relapsed repeatedly, with secret absolution
and penance, and to release them and their descendants from all penalties,
disabilities and confiscation, the reason alleged for this liberal condonation
of apostasy being the lack of priests in the Morisco districts to instruct
the converts in the faith. It was not, however, until 1535 that Manrique
transmitted this to the Valencia tribunal with orders to execute it, and
even then it does not seem to have exercised much influence on the number
of trials, though if honestly put into operation it would have superseded
them. (134)
This policy continued to be followed spasmodically and grants exonerating
from the penalties of relapse were repeatedly made during the rest of the
century. (135)
There was also, in the Edicts
of Grace, the necessity of denouncing accomplices, which the Moriscos,
to their credit, could rarely persuade themselves to do. Bishop Figueroa
of Segorbe pointed this out to Philip III as a matter of supreme importance,
as it required them to accuse their parents, their wives and their children,
which even the secular laws pretermitted as a matter so horrible to human
nature. (136)
Still it was required by the canon law, and could not be omitted without
special papal authority. Philip II was so convinced of its impolicy that,
when a crucial effort was to be made to test whether the Moriscos could
be converted, as an alternative to expulsion, by an Edict of Grace on the
most [372] favorable terms, he endeavored to have this condition
removed, but Clement VIII, as we have seen (Vol. II, p. 462) while granting,
in 1597, an edict covering relapse and conceding that confession could
be made to the episcopal Ordinaries, insisted that confession must include
full denunciation of the apostasy of others. (137)
Even as early as 1512, Peter
Martyr, in describing the disturbed [385] condition of Granada,
declared that if some daring pirate leader should march into the interior,
the population would rise and, as Ferdinand was occupied with the conquest
of Navarre, all would go to ruin. (174)
In 1519, there was a scare in Valencia over a report that the Moors of
Algiers were coming to seize the kingdom, in concert with the Moriscos.
(175)
It is somewhat remarkable that, when a conspiracy was discovered in 1528,
the eagerness of the Valencia tribunal to defend its jurisdiction actually
led it to protect the conspirators. The authorities had arrested Pere de
Alba and his mother-in-law Isabel, as the leaders of the plot. The tribunal
claimed them as apostates and, when they were sent to it for examination,
it threw them into its prison and refused to surrender them, although the
viceroy demanded them as essential to unravelling the details of the conspiracy.
Cardinal Manrique was obliged to despatch a special courier with a letter
expressing his surprise, as the safety of the state was the first consideration,
but even then the tribunal only gave them up with a warning that they must
not be made to suffer in life or limb. (176)
Then, in 1608, there came
a fresh alarm through negotiations of the Valencian Moriscos with Muley
Cidan, a pretender to the throne of Morocco, to whom they promised two
hundred thousand men, if he would bring twenty thousand and seize a seaport,
while certain Hollanders agreed to furnish transportation. Philip III was
so impressed with this that, in sending the report to the Royal Council,
he ordered it to consider the matter to the exclusion of everything else.
He admitted the defenceless condition of Spain; Muley Cidan was its declared
enemy; Sultan Ahmed I had his hands free from the war with Persia and had
suppressed his own rebels; Spain's Italian possessions were exhausted and
ripe for revolt, while at home the Moriscos were impatient for liberation.
The Council was therefore ordered to consider the means of preserving peace,
short of butchering them all. (184)
The panic fear entertained
of the Moriscos is reflected in an elaborate memorial presented to Philip
III, on his accession in 1598, by the Marquis of Velada, who had been his
tutor and was his mayordomo mayor, seriously urging Sicilian Vespers to
prevent them from adopting the same expedient. (192)
Yet the simpler solution of allowing the irreconcilables to depart was
not without its advocates, and at one time came near to adoption. In 1598,
Don Martin González de Cellorigo submitted to Secretary Idiaquez
[391] the suggestion that they should be permitted or required to
leave Spain, scattering the rest throughout Castile, on their abjuring
their heresies, and subjecting them to the restrictions imposed on the
exiles from Granada. (193)
Even as late as 1607, the Junta de Tres, to which the whole affair of the
Moriscos had been entrusted, in a consulta of January 1st, favored the
plan of allowing all, who would not accept Christianity, to betake themselves
to Barbary, pointing out the futility of the objection that this would
increase the power of the Moors, and this it repeated, October 29th, adding
the suggestion that the Moriscos of Castile should be scattered and confined
to agricultural labor, in all of which Philip signified his concurrence.
(194)
However this may be, in so
far as the Inquisition was concerned, the expulsion was a success. In such
of its records as I have been able to examine, the cosas de Moros
virtually disappeared, the exceptions being scarce more than enough to
show that vigilance was unrelaxed. For awhile, it is true, there were Morisco
slaves to be looked after. A letter of March 14, 1616, from the commissioner
at Denia, asks for instructions concerning some baptized Morisco slaves,
who had plotted to escape to Barbary, which shows how carefully they were
watched. (225)
Then the exiles who chanced to be captured in Moorish corsairs, or who
were brought to Spain as slaves, or who were in the royal galleys, were
subject to prosecution as apostates because they had been baptized, until,
in 1629, the Suprema mercifully decreed that they should not be molested
unless they gave occasion for scandal. (226)
The scattering cases of Mahometanism, which figure in the autos de fe subsequent
to the expulsion, are mostly of Christian renegades, captured at sea, or
of Moorish slaves taken in the perpetual warfare of the Mediterranean,
who were baptized under legislation of 1626, repeated in 1638 and 1712.
(227) Occasionally,
however, we hear of a Morisco, such as Gerónimo Buenaventura--probably
one of the children [406] detained in 1609 or 1610--condemned to
relaxation by the tribunal of Valencia, transferred in 1635 to Valladolid
and, in 1638 to Saragossa, to be burnt for pertinacity.
(228)
1. The long-drawn tragedy of the Moriscos can only
be outlined within the compass of a chapter and I must refer the reader,
who desires greater detail, to my "Moriscos of Spain, their Conversion
and Expulsion" (Philadelphia 1901). Since that volume was issued Padre
Pascual Boronat y Barrachina has published two octavo volumes on the subject--"
Los Moriscos españoles y su Expulsion" (Valencia, 1901) in which
his industry has accumulated a very copious mass of original documents;
of these I have here freely availed myself.
This prohibition of bathing, even by Christians, is a curious illustration
of the civilization of the period. It had degenerated since the Fuero of
Teruel, granted in 1176, by Alfonso II of Aragon, which prescribed that
the public bath should be used by men on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays,
by women on Mondays and Wednesdays, and by Jews and Moors on Fridays. On
Sundays the bath was closed and no water was heated.--Forum Turolii: Transcripcion
de Francisco Aznar y Navarro, p. 142 (Zaragoza, 1905).
The Córtes of 1570 petitioned Philip to repeal the prohibition
of using arquebuses in the chase, pointing out that the war in Granada
had shown the scarcity of the weapon in Spain and the lack of men that
could use it. They also referred to the difficulty experienced in arming
the levies and suggested that the cities and towns should be permitted
to provide armories at their own cost under such restrictions as the king
might prescribe. To these petitions the royal replies were equivocal. It
is all highly significant of the suspicions entertained by the monarch
as to the loyalty of his subjects.--Córtes de Córdova del
año de setenta, fol. 6, 12 (Alcalá, 1575).
In the Appendix will be found a table of all the cases of heresy tried
by the Valencia tribunal from 1455 to 1592. In the fifteenth century the
culprits must have been almost exclusively Judaizers. Then in time Moriscos
were mingled with them, but the blanks in the fifth, sixth and seventh
decades, during which the Moriscos, as we shall see, were exempted from
the Inquisition, show that Judaizers
had virtually disappeared, except those punished in 1544, 1545 and 1546,
for retraction of confession (See Vol. II, p. 584).
There is also an imperfect table of the cases of relaxation. An examination
of these tables will show the varying activity of the Inquisition of the
period.
The facility with which, in this matter, the Church adapted its theories
to accomplished facts is well exhibited by Cardinal Toletus (Summae Casuum
Conscientiae Lib. n, cap. xxi). After explaining that, in adult baptism,
three prerequisites are necessary--intention, faith and sorrow for sins
committed--he proceeds "Haec autem non eodem modo sunt necessaria. Intentio
namque ita est necessaria ut si desit actualis vel virtualis, non sit baptismus.
Unde fit ut qui renuens invitus baptizatur, non sit veré baptizatus;
si tamen interius consensit, quamvis metu et vi, tune baptizatus est et
recepit characterem, sed non gratiam; cogendusque est ut maneat in fide
Christiana." Thus the coerced convert was burdened with the responsibilities
of baptism while denied its spiritual benefits.
Boronat asserts (I, 157) that the greater part of the Valencian Moors
embarked at Coruña, while large numbers, from the rest of Spain,
went to France by way of Biscay, but he cites no authority and the documents
and contemporary writers are silent as to any such exodus, while statistics
and the course of events show that, except those who escaped to Barbary,
practically the whole Moorish population was retained.
Bleda (Defensio Fidei, p. 125) says that Guevara exaggerates and that
in 1573 there were in Valencia only 19,801 Morisco families.
It is not easy to determine the Morisco population of Valencia. A detailed
list of the whole kingdom, dated 1520 (but which Padre Boronat thinks was
corrected up to 1550) gives a total of 52,689 hearths of Old Christians
and 31,815 of New Christians. In 1582 Ximenez de Reinosso, Valencian Inquisitor,
estimated the Morisco population at from 19,000 to 20,000 families. About
1601, Feliciano de Figueroa, Bishop of Segorbe, assumed that there were
460 Morisco settlements, comprising 28,000 hearths and 120,000 souls in
all.--Boronat, I, 428-42, 596; II, 431.
Yet the statesmanship of
the day, if not yet prepared to regard unity of faith as a political necessity,
considered it politically advantageous, while pious zeal inevitably sought
the salvation of the multitudes of souls thus brought under Christian rule.
The "third king of Spain," González de Mendoza, Cardinal-archbishop
of Toledo, and other prelates at the court urged upon the sovereigns that
gratitude to God required them to give to their new subjects the alternative
of baptism or exile. Ferdinand and Isabella, however, turned a deaf ear
to this advice, either not caring to break the faith so recently pledged,
or to provoke another war; the work of conversion had already been commenced
with fair prospects of success and it could safely be left to time.
(8) Isabella's confessor,
the saintly Hernando de Talavera, had been made Archbishop of Granada;
he was devoting his revenues and his tireless labors to missionary work,
inculcating Christianity by example more potent than precept. He relieved
suffering, he preached and he taught all who would listen to him; he required
his assistants to learn Arabic and he acquired it himself. He won [320]
many converts and there was a flattering prospect that his apostolic methods
would bring the mass of the population into the fold.
(9)
The process however was
too slow for the impatience that looked for immediate results. Ferdinand
and Isabella were in Granada from July until November, 1499, and called
in Ximenes to the aid of Talavera. His extraordinary energy and imperious
temper soon made themselves felt; with liberal presents he gained the favor
of the principal Moors; he held conferences with the alfaquíes,
whom he induced to instruct their people and, it is said that, on December
18th, three thousand were baptized and the mosque of the Albaycin, or Moorish
quarter, was consecrated as the church of San Salvador. The stricter Moslems
became alarmed and endeavored to check the movement by persuasion, whereupon
Ximenes had them imprisoned in chains; he summoned the alfaquíes
to surrender all their religious books, of which five thousand--many of
them priceless specimens of art--were publicly burnt. The situation was
becoming strained; the Moors were restive under the disregard of their
guarantees, and Ximenes grew more anymore impetuous. Rupture, under these
conditions was inevitable and Ximenes soon brought it about. Christian
renegades, known as elches, were protected under the capitulations,
but he argued that this did not extend to their children who, if not baptized,
ought to have been, and who thus were subject to the Inquisition. From
Inquisitor-general Deza he procured a delegation of power to deal with
them and used it for their arrest. It chanced that a young daughter of
a renegade, thus arrested, while being dragged through the plaza of Bib-el-Bonut,
cried out that she was to be forcibly baptized in violation of the capitulations.
A crowd collected and from words soon came to blows; the alguazil was slain
with a paving-stone, and his companion escaped only by a Moorish woman
conveying him away and hiding him under a bed. The agitation increased;
the Moors flew to arms, skirmished with the Christians and besieged Ximenes
in his house. He had a guard of two hundred men who defended the place
until the morning, when the Captain-general Tendilla came down from the
Alhambra with troops and drove away the mob. For ten days Talavera, Ximenes
and Tendilla parleyed with the Moors, who urged that they had not risen
against the sovereigns but in defence of the royal faith; that the officials
had [321] violated the capitulations, the observance of which would
restore peace. Then Talavera, with his chaplain and a few unarmed servants,
went to the plaza Bib-el-Bonut, where the Moors kissed the hem of his garments
as of old. Tendilla followed and promised pardon if they should lay down
their arms, as it should be understood that they were not in revolt, but
had only sought to maintain the capitulations, which should be strictly
observed in future. The city became quiet; those who had slain the alguazil
were surrendered, and four of them were hanged; the Moors cast aside their
arms and returned to work.
With such a population,
kindness and fair-dealing alone were required to accomplish the desired
result, but the inflexible temper of Ximenes had been aroused, and he was
resolved on the forcible accomplishment of his purpose. The rumors of the
disturbance had greatly alarmed the court at Seville, and Ximenes was bitterly
reproached, but he hurried thither, gave his own version of the affair,
and pointed out that the Moors had forfeited life and property by rebellion,
so that pardon should be conditioned on accepting baptism or expatriation.
With fatal facility his arguments were accepted; Tendilla's promises were
ignored; the capitulations were cast aside; the Moors were to be taught
how little reliance was to be placed on Christian faith; distrust and hatred
were to be rendered ineradicable, and a religion was to be forced upon
them which could not but be odious, as the visible sign of their subjection.
From this false step sprang the incurable trouble which weakened Spain
until statesmanship could devise no remedy, save the deplorable expulsion
of the most useful and efficient portion of her population. It was not
without reason that the admiring biographer of Ximenes admits that, so
imperious was his temper that he sometimes acted through fury rather than
through prudence, as was seen in the conversion of the Granadan Moors and
in the attempt to conquer Africa. (10)
He returned to Granada,
armed with full powers, and offered to the people the alternative of baptism
or punishment, while a royal judge, sent for the purpose, sharpened their
apprehension by executing or imprisoning the more active of the rioters.
The choice was readily made and they came forward in thousands for the
saving waters of baptism. Instruction in the new faith [322] was
impossible, nor was it wanted. When they asked for it in their own language,
and Talavera had the offices and parts of the gospels printed in Arabic,
Ximenes objected; it was, he said, casting pearls before swine; it was
in the nature of the vulgar to despise what they could understand and to
reverence that which was mysterious and beyond their comprehension. He
cared little for heart-felt conversion so long as he could secure outward
conformity. The number thus rudely inducted into the faith, in the city
and the Vega, was estimated at from fifty to seventy thousand and the process
which converted them could result only in undying hate for the religion
thus forced upon them. (11)
Although no outbreak occurred
during this forcible missionary work, the discontent which it excited was
threatening, and Ferdinand returned to Granada where he made no secret
of his displeasure at the imprudent zeal of Ximenes, especially as it interfered
with his designs on Naples. These had to be postponed to meet the imminent
danger at home for, although emigration had been large, many had taken
refuge in the Alpujarras and were exciting the mountaineers to revolt.
To meet this he wrote, January 27, 1500, to the leading Moors, assuring
them that all reports that they were to be Christianized by force were
false, and pledging the royal faith that not a single compulsory baptism
would be made. To reconcile those who had been baptized and to attract
others he issued, February 27th, a general pardon to all New Christians
for crimes committed prior to baptism and renouncing his claims to confiscation.
(12) Meanwhile he
had been engaged in raising an army as large as though the conquest was
to be repeated, and with this he was engaged, during the rest of the year,
in quelling the revolts which broke out in one place after another, supplementing
military operations with friars despatched through the mountains to instruct
the converts. Massacre and baptism went hand in hand, until the Alpujarras
were pacified and the army was disbanded, January 14, 1501.
(13)
[323] Then there
came trouble in the Western districts of Ronda and the Sierra Bermeja,
where the mountaineers rose, in dread of enforced conversion. Another army
was raised, which suffered a severe defeat at Caladui. This brought a pause,
during which the insurgents asked to be allowed to emigrate. Ferdinand
drove a hard bargain with them, demanding ten doblas for the passage-money
and requiring those who could not pay this to remain and submit to baptism.
The baptized lowlanders, who had taken to the mountains, were allowed to
return home, surrendering their arms and suffering confiscation. Large
numbers escaped to Africa, but more remained to curse the faith thus imposed
on them. To these New Christians, as we have seen, expatriation was forbidden.
Baptism imposed an indelible character, and incorporation with the Church
subjected them to a jurisdiction which could not be shaken off.
It was vitally important
that these New Christians should be interfused with the rest of the population,
with the same rights and privileges, so that in time they might form a
contented whole, but this was not to be. One wrong always breeds another.
The disregard of compacts and the violent methods of conversion inevitably
rendered them objects of suspicion, and an edict of September 1, 1501 prohibited
the new converts from bearing or possessing arms, publicly or secretly,
under penalty, for a first offence, of confiscation and two months' imprisonment
and of death for a second--an edict which was repeated in 1511 and again
in 1515. (14)
Not only was this a bitter humiliation but a serious infliction, at a time
when weapons were a necessity for self-protection. There was however another
distinction between the classes favorable to the New Christians, for it
was provided that, for forty years, they should not be subjected to the
Inquisition, in order that they might have full time to acquire knowledge
of their new faith. (15)
Yet, like all other promises, this was made only to be broken. It was thus,
in less than ten years after the capitulation, that the Moors of Granada
found themselves to be Christians in defiance of the pledges so solemnly
given. Such a commencement could have but one result and we shall see its
outcome.
[324] Something might
be urged in palliation of this forcible propaganda in that it was unpremeditated
and brought about in the turbulence of a settlement between hostile races
and religions, and that those who rejected conversion were allowed to depart.
All this was lacking in the next step towards enforcing unity of faith.
We have seen how the Mudéjares of Castile were loyal and contented
subjects, living under compacts centuries old, which guaranteed them the
full enjoyment of their religion and laws. To disturb this and convert
them, by a flagrant breach of faith, into plotting domestic enemies, without
even a colorable pretext, would appear to be an act of madness. Yet it
was this that Isabella was led to do, under the influence of her ghostly
counsellors, among whom Ximenes can probably be reckoned as the most influential.
In bringing about the conversion of Granada, he had cared for little beyond
outward conformity and this could be secured among the scattered and peaceful
Mudéjares, without encountering the risk attending the attempt among
the mountaineers of the Alpujarras, while subsequently the Inquisition
could be depended upon for what might be lacking in religious conviction.
God should no longer be insulted by infidel rites in Spain, and the land
could not fail to be blessed when thus united in the true faith. Such we
may assume to have been the reasoning which led Isabella to a measure so
disastrous. That Ferdinand's practical sense disapproved of it may be inferred
from the fact that, when he talked of similar action in Aragon, he readily
yielded to the remonstrances of his nobles.
Persuasion, backed by threats,
was first essayed. Instructions were sent to the royal officials that the
Mudéjares must adopt Christianity and, when the corregidor of Córdova
replied that force would be necessary, the sovereigns replied, September
27, 1501, that this was inadmissible, as it would scandalize them; they
were to be told that it was for the good of their souls and the service
of the king and queen and, if this proved insufficient, they could be informed
that they would have to leave the kingdom, for it was resolved that no
infidels should remain. (16)
But four years had elapsed since the refugee Moors from Portugal had been
invited to settle in Castile, and this sudden change of policy shows what
influences had been brought to bear on Isabella during that brief interval.
[325] This tentative
measure seems to have met with success so slender that more stringent methods
were recognized as necessary and, on February 12, 1502, a pragmática
was issued, shrewdly framed to give at least the appearance of voluntary
action to the expected conversion. It alluded to the scandal of permitting
infidels to remain after the conversion of Granada; to the gratitude due
to God, which would fitly be shown by the expulsion of his enemies, and
to the protection of the New Christians from contamination. All Moors were
therefore ordered to leave the kingdoms of Leon and Castile by the end
of April, abandoning their children, the males under fourteen and the females
under twelve years of age, who were to be detained. The exiles were allowed
to carry with them their property, except gold and silver and other prohibited
articles. There was nothing said as to an alternative of baptism, but the
conditions of departure rendered expatriation so difficult that it was
self-evident that there was no intention of losing so valuable a portion
of the population. Under pain of death and confiscation, the exiles were
to sail only from ports of Biscay; they were not allowed to go to Navarre
or the kingdoms of Aragon; as there was war with the Turks and with the
Moors of Africa, they were not to seek refuge with either, but were told
that they might go to Egypt or to any other land that they might select.
They were never to return, nor were Moors ever to be admitted to the Castilian
kingdoms, under penalty of death and confiscation, and any one harboring
them after April was threatened with confiscation. One exception was made
in favor of masters of Moorish slaves, who were not deprived of them, but
they were to be distinguished by the perpetual wearing of fetters.
(17)
The voluntary character
of the conversion which ensued is revealed in the fact that when zealous
Moslems, in spite of almost insuperable obstacles, preferred to risk the
perils of emigration they were not allowed to do so, but were forced to
become Christians. (18)
During the brief interval allowed, there was some pretence of preaching
and instruction and, as it neared its end, the Mudéjares were baptized
in masses. A report from Avila, April 24th, to the sovereigns, says that
the whole aljama, consisting of two [326] thousand souls, will be
converted and none will depart. (19)
In Badajoz, we are told that the bishop, Alfonso de Manrique--the future
inquisitor-general--won them over by kindness, so that they were all baptized
and took his name of Manrique. (20)
Thus, externally at least, the kingdoms of the crown of Castile enjoyed
unity of faith, but this was not accompanied with the desirable assimilation
of the population. The new converts continued to form a class apart and
came to be known by the distinctive name of Moriscos.
The nominal Christianity
thus imposed upon those reared in the tenets of Islam was only the beginning
of the task assumed by the state. The more difficult labor remained of
rendering them true Christians, if the advantage was to be secured of moulding
discordant races into a homogeneous community, which alone could justify
the violent measures adopted. The unity of faith, which was the ideal at
the time of both churchman and statesman, means more than mere outward
conformity; it means that all should form a united nation, animated with
the same aspirations and the same hopes, here and hereafter, and conscientiously
sharing a common belief. In a land like Spain, populated by diverse races,
this was an object worth many sacrifices; if it could not be attained,
the enforced baptism of a powerful minority only exaggerated divergence
and perpetuated discord.
To secure the desired result
by the employment of force, through the Inquisition, could not fail to
intensify abhorrence of a religion which, while professing universal love
and charity, was known only as an excuse for oppression and cruelty. Yet
the only alternative was the slow and laborious process of disarming the
prejudices already aroused, and winning over the reluctant convert by gentleness
and persuasion, by kindly instruction and demonstration that the truths
of Christianity were not mere theological abstractions, of no vitality
in practical life. We have seen the embodiment of the two methods in Ximenes
and Talavera, and it was the fatal error of those who ruled the destinies
of Spain that they had not patience and self-denial resolutely to follow
the latter. Haltingly and spasmodically they tried to do so, with only
persistence enough to put themselves in the wrong and deprive of [327]
justification the concurrent employment of the easier process of coercion.
From one cause or another, as we shall have occasion to see, the intermittent
and ineffective attempts at persuasion failed miserably, while the perpetual
irritation of persecution led inevitably to chronic exasperation.
Five years had elapsed since
the coercive baptism which, under the precepts of the church, should have
been preceded by competent understanding of the mysteries of the faith,
when Ximenes attained, in 1507, the inquisitor-generalship. One of his
earliest acts was a letter to all the churches prescribing the deportment,
in religious matters, of the New Christians and their children, including
regular attendance at the mass, instruction in the rudiments of the faith,
and avoidance of Judaic and Mahometan rites. (21)
Presumably this accomplished little and, in 1510, Ferdinand addressed all
his prelates, pointing out the neglect of Christian observances by the
Conversos, and ordering the bishops to enforce their presence at mass and
to provide for their instruction, matters to which the parish priests must
devote special attention. (22)
The council of Seville, in 1512, responded to this by calling attention
to the number of new converts who greatly needed religious instruction.
The prelates, who were responsible for the salvation of souls, were ordered
to depute for that purpose learned men, who should specially investigate
their manner of life and their commission of sins pertaining to their old
faith. All parish priests were ordered to make out lists of the converts
and see that they conformed to the mandates of the church, and special
lists were to be compiled of those who had been reconciled by the Inquisition,
with orders to attend mass on Sundays and feast-days, so that their fulfilment
of their sentences could be enforced. (23)
From what we know of the failure of subsequent measures of this kind we
may safely assume that these received little attention from those who would
have been obliged to expend money and labor in their execution.
Simultaneously with his
letters of 1510, Ferdinand had applied to Julius II, representing that,
since 1492, there had been converted many Jews and Moors who, through insufficient
instruction, had been led to commit many heretical crimes; he had ordered
their [328] instruction, but it would be inhuman to visit them with
the full rigor of the canons, and he therefore asked faculties to publish
an Edict of Grace, under which those coming in could be reconciled without
confiscation and public abjuration, so that, in case of relapse, they could
escape relaxation. (24)
The conditions appended to Edicts of Grace so reduced their effectiveness
that this has importance only as an indication that Ferdinand, as we shall
see elsewhere, was rather disposed to check inquisitorial ardor in the
prosecution of Moriscos, but he atoned for this on his death-bed, by a
clause in his will commanding his grandson Charles to appoint inquisitors
zealous for the destruction of the sect of Mahomet.
(25) This was superfluous
for, as the stock of Judaizers became reduced, Moriscos supplied their
place, and the Inquisition required curbing rather than stimulation. That
Charles recognized this is seen in various Edicts of Grace issued in their
favor, for certain districts, between 1518 and 1521, edicts which relieved
them from confiscation and the sanbenito but did not protect from relapse
or exempt from denunciation of accomplices. (26)
There was little practical
relief to be expected from such measures, but at least they indicate the
conviction of the rulers that it was both unjust and impolitic to visit
with the rigor of the canons those who had been forced into the Church
and had had no spiritual instruction. Still, the canon law was a positive
fact; an elaborate machinery had been instituted for its enforcement, with
no corresponding organization to render the new religion attractive instead
of odious, and a situation had been created for which there was no radical
cure. Alleviation was the only resource, and this was attempted, although
the fluctuating policy adopted only intensified the evil for the future.
In pursuance of this Cardinal Adrian, August 5, 1521, issued orders that
no arrests should be made except on evidence directly conclusive of heresy,
and even then it must first be submitted to the Suprema. This seems to
have received so little obedience that Archbishop Manrique, April 28, 1524,
repeated it in more decisive fashion. He recited the conversion of the
Moriscos by Ferdinand and Isabella, who promised them graces and liberties,
in pursuance of which [329] Cardinal Adrian had issued many provisions
in their favor, ordering the tribunals not to prosecute them for trifling
causes and, if any were so arrested, they were to be discharged and their
property be returned to them. In spite of this, the inquisitors continued
to arrest them on trivial charges, and on the evidence of single witnesses.
As they were ignorant persons, who could not readily prove their innocence,
these arrests had greatly scandalized them, and they had petitioned for
relief, wherefore the Suprema ordered inquisitors not to arrest them without
conclusive evidence of heresy, and when there was doubt it was to be consulted.
All who were held for matters not plainly heretical were to have speedy
justice, tempered with such clemency as conscience might permit.
(27)
How completely these instructions were ignored is manifest in the trials
of the Moriscos where, as in those of the Judaizers, any adherence to customs,
which for generations had formed part of daily life, was sufficient for
arrest and prosecution. It was not merely the fasting of the Ramadan, the
practice of circumcision, the Guadoc or bath accompanied with a ritual,
or the Taor, another kind of bath used prior to the Zala, or certain prayers
uttered with the face turned to the East, at sunrise, noon, sunset and
night. These were well-defined religious ceremonies admitting of no explanation,
but there were numerous others, innocent in themselves, which implied suspicion
of heresy, and suspicion was in itself a crime. Under skilful management,
including the free use of torture, arrest for these simple observances
might lead to further confessions, and the opportunity was not to be lost.
Abstinence from pork and wine was amply sufficient to justify prosecution,
and we hear of cases in which staining the nails with henna, refusal to
eat of animals dying a natural death, killing fowls by decollation, the
zambras and leilas, or songs and dances used at merry-makings and nuptials,
and even cleanliness, were gravely adduced as evidences of apostasy.
(28)
In pursuance of this policy,
elaborate lists of all Moorish customs were made out for the guidance of
inquisitors; abstracts of these were included in the Edicts of Faith, where
every one who had [330] seen or heard of such things was required
under pain of excommunication to denounce them; the Moriscos were subjected
to perpetual espionage, and any unguarded utterance, which might be construed
as inferring heretical leaning, was liable to be reported and to lead to
arrest and probable punishment. It is true that from these slender indications
the inquisitorial process frequently led up to full confession, but this
did not render the position of the Morisco less intolerable, and constraint
and anxiety contributed largely to intensify his detestation of the religion
which he knew only as the cause of persecution. Bishop Pérez of
Segorbe, in 1595, when enumerating fifteen impediments to the conversion
of the Moriscos, included their fear of the Inquisition and its punishments
which made them hate Christianity. (29)
At all events, it secured outward conformity, at least in Castile, where
they were gradually assimilating themselves to the Old Christians; they
had long since abandoned their national dress and language; they were assiduous
in attendance at mass and vespers, the confessional and the sacrament of
the altar; they participated in processions and interments and were commonly
regarded as Christians, whatever might be the secrets of their hearts.
(30)
Doubtless, as time wore
on, many were won over and became sincerely attached to their new faith,
but every now and then little communities of apostates were brought to
light. Thus, in 1538, Juan Yañés, Inquisitor of Toledo, included
Daimiel in a visitation. It had a Morisco population, which had been baptized
in 1502, and had apparently been overlooked so long that it had grown somewhat
careless. A woman reported to Yañés that she had lived with
Moriscos for twelve years and had observed that they did not use pork or
wine, on the plea that these things disagreed with them. This sufficed
to start an investigation which so crowded the secret prison that we hear
of nine women confined in a single cell, and of the hall of the Inquisition
being used as a place of detention. Yet this vigorous work did not extirpate
the evil for, in 1597, the Toledo tribunal was busy with heretics from
Daimiel. (31) More shocking was a case
in which María Páez, daughter of Diego Páez Limpati
of Almagro, figured, for she accused all her kindred and friends. Her father
was burnt in 1606, as [331] an impenitent negativo; her mother,
who confessed, was reconciled and imprisoned, and in all twenty-five Moriscos
of Almagro suffered, of whom four were relaxed. In the Toledo record, from
1575 to 1610, there are a hundred and ninety cases of Moriscos as against
a hundred and seventy-four of Judaizers, and forty-seven of Protestants,
showing that, notwithstanding the influx of Portuguese, the Moriscos were
the most numerous heretics with which the tribunal had to deal.
(32) The old Mudéjares
of Castile had fallen upon evil times, but worse were in store for them.
Granada presented a more
difficult and dangerous problem, requiring the most sagacious statesmanship
to reconcile political safety with the demand for unity of faith, yet this
delicate situation was treated with a blundering disregard of common-sense
characteristic of Philip II. The population was almost wholly Morisco,
and the country was rugged and mountainous, offering abundant refuge for
the despairing. The so-called conversion of 1501 had worked no change in
their belief. They were hard-working, moral, honorable in their dealings,
and charitable to their poor, but they were Moslems at heart; if they went
to mass, it was to escape the fine; if they had their children baptized,
they forthwith washed off the chrism and circumcised the males; if they
confessed during Lent, it was merely to obtain the certificate; if they
learned the prayers of the Church, it was in order to get married, after
which they were forgotten with all convenient speed. They had been promised
forty years' exemption from the Inquisition, but they were rendered disaffected
by the abuses of judicial avarice and the insolent domination of the officials,
secular and ecclesiastical. (33)
In 1526 Charles V was in
Granada, where, in the name of the Moriscos, three descendants of the old
Moorish kings, Fernando Vinegas, Miguel de Aragon and Diego López
Benexara, appealed to him for protection against the ill-treatment by the
priests, the judges, the alguaziles and other officials, whereupon he appointed
a commission to investigate and report. Fray Antonio de Guevara, shortly
to be Bishop of Guadix, was one of the commissioners and, in a letter to
a friend, he describes the Moriscos as offering so much that required correction
that it had better be done in [332] secret, rather than by public
punishment; they had been so ill-taught, and the magistrates had so winked
at their errors, that remedying it for the future would be enough without
disturbing the past. (34)
This shows the spirit in which the commission performed its work; the incriminated
priests and officials had turned the tables on their accusers, who were
now defendants. The report of the commission confirmed the complaints of
ill-usage, but stated that among the Moriscos there were not to be found
more than seven true Christians. This was submitted to a junta, presided
over by Inquisitor-general Manrique, and the result was an edict known
as that of 1526. It granted no relief from oppression, but concerned itself
with the apostasy of the Moriscos, which it sought to cure, not by instructing
them, but by rendering their condition still more intolerable. In violation
of promises, the Inquisition of Jaen was transferred to Granada. Amnesty
for past offences was granted, and a term of grace was provided for those
confessing voluntarily, after which the laws against heresy were to be
rigorously enforced, although for some years fines were substituted for
confiscation and time was allowed in which the penitents could earn them.
(35)
This was supplemented with a series of most vexatious regulations,
prohibiting the use of Arabic and of Moorish garments and of baths; Christian
midwives were to be present at all births; disarmament was enforced by
a rigid inspection of licences; the doors of Moriscos were to be kept open
on feast-days, Fridays, Saturdays and during weddings, to prevent the use
of Moorish ceremonies; schools to train children in Castilian were to be
established at Granada, Guadix and Almería: no Moorish names were
to be used and Moriscos were not to keep gacis or unbaptized Moors, whether
free or slave. (36)
This naturally caused great agitation; the Moriscos held a general assembly
and raised eighty thousand ducats to be offered to Charles for a withdrawal
of the edict. His advisers were doubtless propitiated and, before leaving
Granada, he suspended it during his pleasure and permitted the carrying
of a sword and dagger in the towns and of a lance in the open [333]
country. A special tax, known as farda, probably dates from about
this period, under which the use of Moorish garments and language was permitted
and, in 1563, we chance to learn that this amounted to twenty thousand
ducats per annum. (37)
It would seem that, for
awhile, the Inquisition troubled the Moriscos but little for, in its first
general auto, held in 1529, out of eighty-nine culprits, while there were
seventy-eight for Judaism there were but three for Mahometanism, and one
of these was in effigy. (38)
Still it provoked disquiet and, in 1532, Captain-general Mondéjar
suggested to Charles its suspension, since it had done nothing and could
find nothing against the Moriscos. This was unfortunate, for it stimulated
the tribunal to greater activity against them, leading to numerous offers
on their part to Charles and, after his abdication, to Philip II, of liberal
payments for relief. Charles's necessities prompted him to listen to these
propositions, but the Inquisition managed to prevent their success, while
Philip of course turned a deaf ear to them. Even Inquisitor-general Valdés,
in 1558, during his disfavor at court, seems to have taken a hand in these
negotiations, for we find him promising a subsidio of a hundred thousand
ducats from the Moriscos of Granada. (39)
The condition of Granada
was one which required firmness and conciliation, but infatuation prevailed
in Philip's court, and the occasion was seized to aggravate irritation
beyond endurance. Guerrero, Archbishop of Granada, in returning from Trent
in 1563, had tarried in Rome, where he lamented to Pius IV that his flock
was Christian only in name. Pius sent by him an urgent message to Philip,
reinforced by orders to his nuncio, the Bishop of Rossano, to the same
purport. Guerrero, on reaching home, assembled a provincial council in
1565, in which he endeavored to restrain the oppression of the Moriscos
by the ecclesiastics, but his chapter appealed from the conciliar decrees
and the effort was nugatory. He had more success in inducing the bishops
to join in urging upon the king the adoption of measures to prevent the
Moriscos from concealing their apostasy, and he wrote to Philip, begging
him to purify the land from this filthy sect; it could readily, he said,
be found who were really Christians by prohibiting the things through which
their rites were kept from view. (43)
Philip referred Guerrero's
memorial to a junta presided over by Diego de Espinosa, recently made President
of Castile and soon to be inquisitor-general. It reported that, presuming
the Moriscos to be Christians by baptism, they must be compelled to be
so in fact, to which end they must be required to abandon the language,
garments and customs of Moors, by reviving the edict of 1526, and this
was solemnly charged upon the royal conscience. Philip thereupon consulted
privately Dr. Otadui, professor of theology at Salamanca, and shortly to
be Bishop of Avila, who, in his reply, told the king that, if any of the
lords of the Moriscos should cite the old Castilian proverb '' The more
Moors the more profit" he should remember an older and truer one, "The
fewer enemies the better" and combine the two into "The more dead [335]
Moors the better, for there will be fewer enemies"--advice which, we are
told, greatly pleased the monarch, in place of opening his eyes to the
policy which was converting his subjects into his enemies.
(44)
A pragmática was
speedily framed, embodying the most irritating features of the edict of
1526, and Pedro de Deza, a member of the Suprema and of Espinosa's junta,
was appointed president of the chancellery of Granada and sent there, May
4, 1566, under orders to publish and enforce it without listening to remonstrances.
It illustrates Philip's method of government that Captain-general Mondéjar,
although at the court, was not even apprised of the measure, until an order
was conveyed to him through Espinosa to return to Granada and be present
at the publication. He was captain-general by inheritance, being grandson
to the Tendilla placed there at the conquest; he had lived in Granada from
his boyhood, he had been captain-general for thirty years and was thoroughly
familiar with the situation. He represented that Granada was destitute
of troops and of munitions, and he begged either that the measure be suspended
or that he be furnished with forces to suppress the revolt that he foresaw
to be inevitable. It was in vain; Espinosa curtly told him to go to his
post and mind his own business and, although the Council of War supported
him, he was given only three hundred men to guard the coast, where he was
ordered to reside during certain months and to visit frequently.
(45)
Deza reached Granada, May
25, 1566, where he at once assembled his court and had the pragmática
printed to be in readiness for publication on January 1, 1567, the anniversary
of the surrender of the city, as though to create additional exasperation.
Its provisions were sufficiently exasperating in themselves. After three
years the use of Arabic was absolutely prohibited, in speech and writing;
so were Moorish garments after one year for silken and two years for woollen;
house doors were to be kept open on Friday afternoons, feast-days and marriage
celebrations; zambras and leilas, though not contrary to religion, were
forbidden on Fridays and feast-days; the use of henna for staining was
to be abandoned; Moorish names were not to be used; all artificial [336]
baths, public and private, were to be destroyed, and no one in future was
to use them. (46)
Provisions for instructing the Moriscos in the faith were conspicuous by
their absence.
All this could only seem
to them a wanton interference with habits that had become a second nature
and when, on January 1, 1567, the edict was published it created indescribable
excitement. As an earnest of its enforcement, all baths were forthwith
destroyed, commencing with those of the king. The aljamas throughout the
kingdom consulted with the leaders of the Albaycin, or Morisco quarter
of the city, and it was agreed that, if relief was not to be had by entreaty,
resort must be had to rebellion, for life was insupportable under such
tyranny. Even Deza recognized the threatening prospect and wrote to the
court that precautions should be taken against a rising; during 1567, he
mitigated, in some degree, the enforcement of the law and inflicted no
punishment under it. The Moriscos appealed to Philip, but, when he referred
the memorial to Espinosa, the latter replied that no suspension could be
considered; religious men had charged the king's conscience, telling him
that he was responsible for the souls of the apostates. In the Council
of State, the Duke of Alva and the Commendador of Alcántara were
in favor of suspension, and the Council suggested the gradual enforcement
of one article a year, but Espinosa and Deza had more influence than soldiers
and statesmen--it was a religious question with which the latter had nothing
to do. (47)
On January 1, 1568, orders
were issued to abandon all Moorish silken garments, and the priests were
instructed to take all Morisco children, between the ages of three and
fifteen, and place them in schools, where they should learn Castilian and
Christian doctrine. This increased the agitation and a deputation was sent
to remonstrate with Deza, who gave assurances that their children were
not to be taken from them, but that the king was resolved to save [337]
their souls and enforce the pragmática. (48)
The naked alternative was before them of submission or rebellion.
Desperate as rebellion might
seem, it was not wholly hopeless. The Moriscos estimated that they could
raise a hundred thousand fighting men, lamentably deficient in arms, it
is true, but hardy and enured to privation. They counted largely on aid
from Barbary, hoping that the rulers there would not miss the opportunity
of striking a deadly blow at their traditional enemy. Their brethren, too,
in Valencia, who were equally oppressed, might reasonably be expected to
rise and throw off the Spanish yoke. They could not, moreover, be ignorant
that the imposing Spanish monarchy was in reality exhausted--that its internal
strength in no way corresponded with its external appearance. All the Venetian
envoys of the period, in fact, describe the absence of military resources
in Spain, the difficulty of raising troops and the unfamiliarity with arms
of those who made such splendid soldiers when disciplined and trained.
It was in this very year that Antonio Tiepolo, when commenting on the strange
neglect which exposed the southern coast to the ravages of the Barbary
corsairs, expresses apprehension that an invasion from Africa, supported
by the Moriscos, might expose Spain to the fate which it experienced of
old. (49)
It had been bled to exhaustion by Charles V and Philip was continuing the
process. As with men, so was it with money. Charles had left such an accumulation
of debt that Philip, on his accession, seriously contemplated repudiation,
and he staggered under an ever-increasing burden, from which the treasures
of the New World afforded no relief. His revenues were consumed in advance,
and during the rebellion it was with the utmost difficulty that moderate
sums could be furnished for the most pressing necessities. It was most
fortunate for the monarchy that the hopes of the insurgents as to external
aid were [338] disappointed, for a united effort of the Crescent
against the Cross might have changed the destiny of the Peninsula. As it
was, the Moriscos of Valencia were kept quiet; the Sultan held aloof; the
Barbary princes only gave permission for adventurers to go as volunteers,
and some five or six hundred straggled in small bands across the sea. Yet
the resources of Spain were strained to the utmost in subduing the isolated
rebellion thus heedlessly provoked.
Arrangements were made for
a rising on Holy Thursday (April 18, 1568), but the secret was betrayed
and the design was postponed. Even this failed to induce the precaution
of placing Granada in a state of defence and, when the rebellion broke
out, December 23d, it found the Christians wholly unprepared. Mondejar
met the crisis with great vigor and ability. Raising a hurried force of
a few thousand men, he marched out of the city on January 2, 1569 and,
in a difficult winter campaign amid the mountain snows, by the middle of
February he had virtually crushed resistance. Deza, however, backed by
those who thirsted for rapine and plunder, poisoned the mind of the king;
Mondéjar's agreements for the submission of the insurgents were
set aside; Philip sent his half-brother, Don John of Austria, then an inexperienced
youth, to take command, assisted by a council of war, each member of which
had his own plan of campaign, while no action was to be taken without the
approval of the king. This opéra bouffe method of making war had
its natural result. The rebellion revived and grew stronger than ever,
making raids on the Vega, almost to the gates of the city, in which Don
John and his council were virtually beleaguered.
The details of the war that
ensued do not concern us here except to say that it was carried on with
ferocious greed and cruelty. Military expeditions were frequently mere
slave-hunts, in which the men were massacred, while women and children
were brought in thousands to the auction-block and were sold to the highest
bidders. Nor were the Moriscos the only sufferers, for the Córtes
of 1570 complained bitterly of the rapine and excesses of the troops on
their way to the scene of action. (50)
Hostilities were prolonged until the opening months of 1571 and, when resistance
was finally suppressed, Spain was well-nigh exhausted. The pacification
[339]was as ruthless as the prosecution of the war. In advance,
it had been proposed at the court to remove the whole population to the
mountains of Northern Spain, and Deza, the evil genius of Granada, never
lost sight of the suggestion. (51)
At his earnest solicitation it was commenced with the Albaycin, as early
as June, 1569. No distinction was made between loyalists and rebels. The
men were shut up in the churches and then transferred to the great Hospital
Real, a gunshot from the city, where they were divided into gangs, with
their hands tied to ropes like galley-slaves, and were marched off to their
destinations under guard. The women were left for a time in their houses,
to sell their effects and follow. Some seven or eight thousand were thus
disposed of, and even the chroniclers are moved to compassion in describing
the misery and despair of those thus torn from their homes without warning
and hurried off to the unknown. Many died on the road of weariness, of
despair or of starvation, or were slain or robbed and sold as slaves by
those set to protect them. It relieved the Christians of fear, we are told,
but it was deplorable to see the destruction of prosperity and the vacancy
left where had been so much life and industry. (52)
This policy was carried
out everywhere, as one district after another was reduced. Final instructions
from Philip to Don John, October 25, 1570, ordered the deportation of all
and designated the provinces to which they were to be taken, some of them
as far as Leon and Galicia. Families were not to be separated; they were
to move in bands of fifteen hundred men, with their women and children,
under escort of two hundred foot and twenty horse, with a commissioner
who made lists of those under his charge, provided them with food and distributed
them in their respective destinations. These orders were carried out. Don
John writes, November 5th, from Guadix to Ruy Gómez, that the number
removed from that district had been large; the last party had been sent
off that day and it was the most unfortunate thing in the world, for there
was such a tempest of wind, rain and snow that the mother would lose her
daughter on the road, the wife her husband and the widow her infant. It
cannot be denied, he added, that the depopulation of a kingdom is the most
pitiful thing that can be imagined. It was more than pitiful in some [340]
districts, where the undisciplined soldiery, entrusted with the task, converted
it into pillage, massacre and the enslavement of the women and children.
(53) Such was the
outcome of the pledges given, eighty years before, by Ferdinand and Isabella,
but the object of clearing Granada of its Morisco population was measurably
accomplished. In an auto de fe celebrated there, in 1593, there appeared
eighty-one delinquents convicted of Judaism and only one charged with Mahometanism.
(54)
In spite of these restrictions
on exiles suddenly cast adrift, penniless in strange places, their indomitable
industry and thrift [341] soon carved out careers which aroused
the envious hostility of the indolent populations among whom they were
thrown. Cervantes, in his Colloquio de los perros, stigmatizing
them as a slow fever which slew as certainly as a violent one, gives expression
to the feelings with which the Spaniard, whose only ambition was a position
in the army, the Church or the service of the State, and who was a consumer,
looked upon the producer and grudged him the product of his toil.
(58) Already, in 1573,
the Córtes took the alarm and petitioned Philip that they should
not be allowed to act as architects or builders, or to hold public office
or judicial positions. (59)
In truth, only ten years after the exile, an official report complains
that the numbers of the deported Moriscos are increasing, because none
go to war or enter religion, and they are so hard-working that, after coming
to Castile ten years before, without owning a handsbreadth of land, they
are now well off and many are rich, so that, if it continues at the same
rate for twenty years, the natives will be their servants. This grievance
only increased with time. In 1587, Martin de Salvatierra, Bishop of Segorbe,
in an enumeration of the evil deeds of the Moriscos, includes the fact
that the exiles from Granada had already become farmers of the royal revenues
in Castile, depositing cash as security in place of giving bondsmen; that
there were individuals worth more than a hundred thousand ducats in Pastrana,
Guadalajara, Salamanca and other places and that, if the king did not devise
some remedy, they would soon greatly surpass the Old Christians in both
numbers and wealth. (60)
This jealousy found official utterance in the Córtes of 1592, which
represented to Philip that previous ones had asked him to remedy the evils
of the Granadan exiles scattered through Castile. Those evils were constantly
increasing; they had obtained possession of trade, and were becoming so
rich and powerful that they controlled the secular and ecclesiastical tribunals
and lived openly in disregard of religion. The response to this was an
edict ordering all magistrates to enforce rigidly the restrictive legislation
of 1572. (61)
This effected nothing for, in 1595, the Venetian envoy describes them [342]
as constantly increasing in numbers and wealth, as they never went to the
wars and devoted themselves exclusively to trade.
(62) In 1602, Archbishop
Ribera bears the same testimony; they were hard-working and thrifty, and
as they spent little on food or drink or clothing, they worked for what
would not support an Old Christian, so that they were preferred by employers
and consumers; they monopolized the mechanic arts and commerce, as well
as daily labor. (63)
The envious prejudices which thus found expression were a factor not unimportant
among the causes leading to the expulsion.
All the exiles however were
not thus peacefully laborious. About 1577, there arose complaints of seven
or eight bands of Moriscos who lived by robbery and murder and terrorized
the districts in which they operated. There was also a noted centre of
lawlessness in Hornachos, near Badajos, populated by Moriscos. For thirty
thousand ducats they bought from Philip the privilege of bearing arms;
they had a regular organization and a treasury and a mint employing thirteen
operatives for the coinage of counterfeit money, while, by judicious bribery
of the courts, they protected their criminals when caught. In 1586 the
Llerena tribunal made a raid on them with such success that it was obliged
to hire houses to accommodate its prisoners, but the effect of this was
temporary and, in October 1608, an alcalde of the court, Gregorio López
Madera, was sent there to investigate and punish. Alcaldes of the court
were noted for unsparing justice, and Madera did not belie this reputation.
His inquest resulted in finding eighty-three dead bodies in the vicinity;
he hanged ten members of the town-council and its executioner; he sent
a hundred and seventy men to the galleys, scourged a large number, and
left the place peaceful for the short interval before it was depopulated
by the expulsion. (64)
In the kingdoms of
the crown of Aragon the position of the Moriscos was different from that
in Castile. They were mostly vassals of the nobles, settled on lands of
which they held the [343] dominium utile, while their lords
owned the dominium directum. For these lands they paid tribute in
money, in kind, or in service, and we are told that these imposts amounted
to the double of what could be exacted from Christians.
(65) It is easy to
appreciate the old proverb "The more Moors the more profits," and also
that the nobles were vitally interested in protecting their vassals from
external interference. Their ability to do this was largely owing to the
sturdy independence with which the ancient fueros and privileges were maintained.
Alarm was taken early for,
in 1495, the Córtes of Tortosa obtained from Ferdinand a fuero that
he would never expel or consent to the expulsion of the Moors of Catalonia
and, after the occurrences in Castile, the Córtes of Barcelona,
in 1503, represented the destruction which it would cause and obtained
a repetition of the pledge. (66)
At the Córtes of Monzon, in 1510, he renewed this, with the addition
that he would make no attempt to convert them by force, nor throw any impediment
in the way of their free intercourse with Christians and, to the observance
of this, he took a solemn oath, a repetition of which was exacted of Charles
V, on his accession in 1518. (67)
Under these guarantees, both the Moors and their lords might well imagine
themselves secure.
As we have seen, the jurisdiction
of the Inquisition did not extend to the unbaptized, so long as they committed
no offences against religion. It had little scruple however in disregarding
its limitations and, in Valencia as early as 1497, it undertook to prevent
the wearing of Moorish costume and sent officials to Serra to arrest some
women for disobedience. They were not recognized and were maltreated, while
the women were conveyed away. We have seen how the tribunal arbitrarily
avenged itself by arresting all residents of Serra who chanced to come
to Valencia and that, when appeal was made to Ferdinand, he expressed his
displeasure and ordered greater moderation in future--yet the leaders in
the resistance at Serra were imprisoned for three years and suffered confiscation
and banishment, leading to considerable correspondence in which Ferdinand
sought to mitigate the harshness [344] of the tribunal. He showed
the same disposition towards the Moorish aljama of Fraga, which was concerned
in the confiscation of a certain Galceran de Abella, and also towards the
Moors of Saragossa, when involved in trouble with that tribunal by reason
of harboring a female slave who had escaped from Borja.
(68)
These incidents indicate
that there was a movement on foot which sometimes overstepped the limits
of persuasion. There was, in fact, a process of voluntary conversion, affording
hope that in time the wished-for unity of faith might be accomplished without
coercion. A Catalan alfaquí, named Jacob Tellez, was baptized and
brought several aljamas to embrace Christianity, when Ferdinand to aid
him granted him licence to travel everywhere and to have entrance into
all aljamas, whose members were required to assemble and listen to him.
(71) The Moors of Caspe [345] sought baptism in 1499;
in the district of Teruel and Albarracin, in 1493, a mosque was converted
into the church of the Trinity and, in 1502, the whole population embraced
Christianity. (72)
Wholesale conversions such as these were apt to furnish backsliders and,
when the Inquisition undertook to punish those of Teruel and Albarracin,
Charles V interposed, in 1519; he understood, he said, that many of the
children of the Conversos, who had lapsed, desired to return to the faith,
but were deterred through fear of punishment, wherefore he granted them
a term of grace for a year, during which they could come forward and confess
without incurring confiscation, and similar concessions were made in Tortosa
and other cities. (73)
Valencia, which had the
largest and densest Moorish population, was also the scene of considerable
proselyting and of vigorous inquisitorial action. An influential alfaquí,
named Abdallah, was converted, took orders as a priest, under the title
of Maestro Mossen Andrés, and devoted himself to winning over his
brethren. He wrote a work controverting the Koran chapter by chapter, which
was printed and circulated. (74)
The little town of Manices must have been converted almost in mass, for
we happen to have a sentence uttered in the church there, by the inquisitors
of Valencia, April 8, 1519, on two hundred and thirty Moriscos, then present,
who had come in under an Edict of Grace, confessing and abjuring the errors
into which they had relapsed. They were received to reconciliation, apparently
without confiscation, and the penances prescribed were purely spiritual,
although in addition they were subjected to the customary severe disabilities.
There must have been not a little cruel preliminary work for, in the list
of these penitents, no less than thirty-two women are described as the
wives or daughters of men who had been burnt. (75)
It is [346] easy for us now to recognize how powerful an impediment
was this method of preserving the purity of the faith by obstructing the
wished-for conversion, for the Mudéjares who refused baptism could
congratulate themselves that they were not subject to a jurisdiction which
visited with such severity the adherence to ancestral habits that had become
a second nature.
The missionary work thus
impeded received an unlocked for impulse from the insurrection known as
the Germanía or Brotherhood, which suddenly broke out in 1520. This
was a revolt of the people against the oppression of the nobles which,
in its peaceful beginning, won the approval of Charles and of his representative,
Cardinal Adrian. It speedily developed into civil war, in which the nobles
had the aid of their Moorish vassals; these formed a large portion of the
forces with which the Duke of Segorbe won the victories of Oropesa and
Almenara, early in July, 1521, and they constituted a third of the infantry,
under the Viceroy Mendoza, in the disastrous rout of Gandía, July
25. To cripple the nobles, the leaders of the Germanía conceived
the idea of baptizing by force the Moors, thus giving them the status of
Christians and releasing them from vassalage. (76)
Urgelles, the chief captain, mortally wounded at the siege of Játiva,
which surrendered July 14th, was already busily engaged in compelling the
baptism of the Moors in the places under his control; and his successor,
Vicente Peris, who won the decisive victory of Gandía, adopted the
same policy. Full particulars as to proceedings in the different towns
and villages were obtained by a commission, formed in 1524 to ascertain
whether the baptisms were voluntary or coerced, and the evidence in its
report shows that bands of Agermanados traversed the territory between
Valencia and Oliva, terrorizing the Moors and offering them the alternative
of baptism or death. A few homicides punctuated their commands, and the
helpless infidels flocked to the baptismal font for safety. Of course there
was no pretence of instruction or of ascertaining what the neophytes knew
of the religion thus imposed upon them; [347] they were baptized
by sprinkling them in batches and squads and, when holy water was not at
hand, that from running streams was employed. The only redeeming feature
in the evidence is the frequent allusion to friendly relations between
Christians and Moors and to the refuge and protection willingly given to
the terrified victims, showing how the antagonism of race was gradually
subsiding and how its extinction might have been hopefully anticipated
if matters had been allowed to develop naturally.
(77)
Attempts were also made
to convert the mosques into churches. In a few places they were consecrated;
in some others only a paper picture of Christ or the Virgin was hung up,
or attached to the door. Occasionally divine service was performed, which
the neophytes attended with more or less regularity, but their adhesion
to their new faith lasted only while the impression of terror continued.
In some places they felt safe to recur to their old religion in three weeks,
in others they remained nominally Christian for a few months, but everywhere,
as soon as they felt the danger to be passed, they resumed their Moslem
rites and worshipped in their mosques as before. In this, for the most
part, they were encouraged by their lords, who assured them that the coercive
baptism was invalid, and that they were free to revert to their faith.
Others more prudently seized the opportunity to escape to Africa, and it
was estimated that no less than five thousand houses were left vacant,
inferring an emigration of some twenty-five thousand souls.
(78)
The suppression of the Germanía,
in 1522, enabled the Inquisition to commence action against those who had
been brought under its jurisdiction by baptism. Inquisitor Churrucca of
Valencia entertained no scruple as to the validity of the sacrament, but
there was difficulty in the fact that the hurried proceedings had precluded
the making of records that would identify individuals. When the officiating
priests had made lists he demanded their surrender and, towards the close
of 1523, he was busy in obtaining evidence from eye-witnesses. Some fragmentary
documents show that he was partially successful, and that he was prosecuting
those whom he could prove to be apostates, but there was no disposition
to treat them harshly. It would appear, indeed, [348] that Cardinal
Adrian adopted a policy of toleration which, after his elevation to the
papacy, enabled the advocates of the Moriscos to claim that they had the
benefit of a dispensation. (79)
The situation, in fact,
was perplexing. In Castile, enforced conversion had been universal, under
threat of expulsion; all were constructively baptized and could legally
be held to the consequences. In Valencia, however, the Germanía
had occupied but a portion of the territory, and even there the work had
been partial, and so irregularly executed that identification was impossible
save in isolated cases. As soon as the pressure was removed all had reverted
to their pristine belief, and the sovereign was under a solemn oath that
no compulsion should be employed. The simplest solution that offered was
to complete the work and to convert the whole Moorish population, after
securing the assent of the nobles by conceding that their rights should
not be affected, and that converts should not be permitted to change their
domicile. (80)
Missionaries were therefore sent to try the effect of persuasion, prominent
among whom was Fray Antonio de Guevara. In a letter of May 22, 1524, he
says that for three years he had labored at the task, doing nothing but
dispute in the aljamas, preach in the Morerías and baptize in the
houses. (81)
Well-meant as was this effort, its success was not commensurate with its
merits; the question refused to be solved, and the claims of the Inquisition
to exercise jurisdiction over the so-called apostates inevitably provoked
discussion as to the validity of enforced baptism, the degree of coercion
by the Agermanados, and the sufficiency of the rite so irregularly performed.
We have seen above (Vol.
I, p. 41) that, when the Goths coerced their Jewish subjects to baptism,
the fourth Council of Toledo enunciated the principle that, while the act
was wrong, the baptism was indelible and the baptized must be forced to
remain in the Church, a principle which became embodied in the canon law.
Still there was a question as to the degree of coercion and Boniface VIII,
while assuming to exempt those whose coercion was absolute, took care to
define that the fear of death was not such [349] coercion.
(82) In the refinement
of scholastic theology, two kinds of coercion were distinguished--conditional
or interpretative and absolute; it was decided that coerced volition is
still volition, and absolute coercion was reduced to the proposition that,
if a man tied hand and foot were baptized while uttering protests, the
rite would be invalid. (83)
Such was the received practice of the Church, although a few schoolmen
of high repute denied the validity of the sacrament under coercion, rather
as an academical question, for the Church assumes consent and compels the
so-called convert to the observance of the faith imposed on him.
(84)
It was inevitable that the
converts of the Germanía were to be held to their responsibilities
as Christians. Charles V had already resolved on his policy and had applied
to Clement VII to be released from his oath not to impose Christianity
on the Moors, but the proceedings of Inquisitor Churrucca were exciting
murmurs, and a decent show of preliminary investigation was advisable.
Charles at first ordered this to be done by the Governor of Valencia in
conjunction with the inquisitors and some theologians and jurists, but
this was not a sufficiently authoritative body to justify the far-reaching
measures in contemplation and Manrique suggested, January 23, 1524, the
formation of a junta under his presidency, in view of the opposition of
the nobles and gentry, who dreaded the loss accruing to them from the Christianization
of their vassals. (85)
That this was merely to save appearances is evident from the fact [350]
that, when Charles, on February llth, gave orders for the assembling of
the junta, he wrote on the same day to Germaine, Vice-queen of Valencia,
instructing the inquisitors and vicar-general to take due action with the
apostate Moriscos. (86)
Nine days later, Manrique issued a commission to Churrucca and his assessor
Andrés Palacio to make a complete investigation into all the circumstances
of the conversion and backsliding of the Moriscos-- a selection which indicates
the foregone conclusion, as they had already committed themselves on all
the questions involved. Two other commissioners--Martin Sánchez
and Juan de Bas-- were added to them when, in November, they started on
their work, and meanwhile the inquisitors had been taking testimony on
their own account. (87)
The investigation lasted
only from November 4th to the 24th, as the commission moved from place
to place, in the little district between Alcira and Denia. A hundred and
twenty-eight witnesses were interrogated on a series of questions drawn
up by Manrique and their evidence established beyond doubt that submission
to baptism was under the influence of mortal terror. The report of the
commission consisted simply of the testimony, as taken down by the secretary,
but it was supplemented by a learned argument in scholastic form by the
fiscal of the tribunal, Fernando Loazes, the future Archbishop of Valencia.
In this he made no pretence that the baptism was voluntary. The violence
he admitted to be a crime, for which the actors should be punished, but
the effect was good and should be maintained; it was the way in which God
evokes good out of evil. The Moors had been saved from perdition and from
slavery to the demon and, as this was a public benefit, the converts must
be compelled to adhere to the Catholic faith, and those who upheld them
in apostasy must be prosecuted as fautors and defenders of heresy. All
doctors agree that, when there is danger of infecting the faith, the prince
can compel uniformity or can expel the unbelievers.
(88)
It was an imposing assemblage
to which the report was submitted, consisting of a reunion of the Councils
of Castile, of Aragon, of the Inquisition, of Military Orders and of Indies,
together with eminent theologians, and it was under the presidency of Manrique.[351]
There evidently was not unanimity, for the discussion occupied twenty-two
days, and some of the theologians, with Jaime Benet, the most eminent canonist
of Spain at their head, denied the validity of the baptisms. Still, the
inevitable conclusion was that, as the neophytes had made no resistance
or complaint, they must adhere to the faith, willingly or unwillingly.
On March 23, 1525, the emperor attended a meeting, in which Manrique announced
to him the decision, which he confirmed and ordered measures to be taken
for its enforcement. In pursuance of this a royal cédula on April
4th, after reciting the care bestowed on the question, and the unanimous
conclusion reached, declared the baptized Moors to be Christians, and ordered
their children to be baptized, while churches in which mass had been celebrated
were not to be used as mosques. (89)
It would be difficult to
exaggerate the importance of this action on the fate of the Moriscos, for
all that followed was its necessary consequence. Without loss of time an
imposing inquisitorial commission was organized, with Gaspar de Avalos,
Bishop of Guadix, at its head, and a retinue of counsellors and familiars.
On May 10th they arrived at Valencia and, on Sunday the 14th, the bishop
in a sermon ordered the publication of the royal cédula, with an
edict granting thirty days within which apostates could return with security
for life and property, after which they would forfeit both.
(90) It could scarce
have been intended to execute this atrocious threat, and no attempt seems
to have been made to do so. The apostates were not easily distinguishable
among their unbaptized brethren, among whom they constituted perhaps ten
per cent., but the commissioners endeavored to identify them, travelling
through the land, making out lists, and confirming all whom they could
discover, as a preliminary to prosecuting the backsliders.
(91) Their numbers
suggested moderation, for which papal authority was requisite. It was obtained,
for a brief of Clement VII, June 16, 1525, recites that Charles had applied
to him for a remedy; the multitude of delinquents called for gentleness
and clemency, wherefore they were to be prosecuted with a [352]
benignant asperity; those who should return to the light of truth, publicly
abjure their errors and swear never to relapse, could be absolved without
incurring the customary infamy and disabilities.
(92)
Threats and promises availed
little. The ten or fifteen thousand Moriscos, who had passed through the
hands of the Agermanados, did not wait to experience the; benignant asperity
of the commission, but took refuge in the Sierra de Bernia, and the nobles,
so far from attempting to dislodge them, favored them, in hopes that their
resistance might lead Charles to abandon his purpose. He had been moved
to indignation on hearing that the magistrates of Valencia had begged the
commission not to ill-treat the Alfaquíes, as the prosperity of
the land depended on the Moors, and he now rebuked the nobles, ordering
them to go to their estates and teach their vassals to be good Christians.
Preparations at length were made to attack the refugees of Bernia, who
had held out from April until August; they surrendered under promise of
immunity and were taken to Murla where they were absolved and kindly treated.
(93)
The commission, wearied
with its fruitless labors, was about to abandon the field, when it received
a letter from Charles, stating that, as God had granted him the victory
of Pavia, he could evince his gratitude in no way more effective than by
compelling all the infidels in his dominions to submit to baptism; they
were therefore ordered to remain and to undertake this new conversion,
in conjunction with a fresh colleague, Fray Calcena, afterwards Bishop
of Tortosa. (94) We have seen that, in
preparation for this, he had, near the end of 1523 or in the early part
of 1524, applied to Clement VII to absolve him from the oath taken in 1518
not to expel or make forced conversions, and Clement is said to have at
first refused the request, declaring it to be scandalous.
(95) The persistence
of the ambassador, the Duke of Sesa, however prevailed over Clement's scruples
and the brief was issued, May 12, 1524, though for a time it was kept secret.
It commenced by reciting
the papal grief on learning that, in [353] Valencia, Catalonia and
Aragon, Charles had many Moorish subjects, with whom the faithful could
not hold intercourse without danger, and who served as spies for their
brethren in Africa. He was therefore exhorted to order the inquisitors
to preach to them and, in case of obstinacy, he was to designate a term
after which they should be expelled, under pain of perpetual slavery, to
be rigorously enforced. The tithes, which they had never paid, should in
future accrue to their lords, in recompense for the damage caused by the
expulsion, under condition that the lords should supply the churches with
what was requisite for divine service, while the revenues of the mosques
should provide endowments for benefices. The fateful brief concluded by
formally releasing Charles from his oath of 1518, absolving him from all
penalties and censures for perjury, and granting him whatever dispensation
was necessary for the due execution of the foregoing, and it further conferred
on the inquisitors ample faculties to suppress opposition, notwithstanding
all apostolical constitutions and all laws of the land.
(96)
Charles was thus set free
to work his will, in despite of oaths and of laws. Yet for eighteen months
he held the brief without using it, waiting perhaps for the settlement
of the question of baptism and for the agitation in Valencia to subside.
At length, on September 13, 1525, he addressed letters to the nobles, informing
them of his irrevocable resolve not to allow a Moor or an infidel to dwell
in his dominions except as a slave; he recognized that expulsion would
affect their interests, and consequently he urged them to go to their estates
and co-operate with the commissioners in procuring the conversion and instruction
of their vassals. Accompanying this was a brief letter to the Moors, informing
them of the determination to which he had been inspired by Almighty God
that His law should prevail throughout the land, and of his desire for
their salvation, wherefore he exhorted and commanded them to submit to
baptism; if they did so, they should have the liberties of Christians and
good treatment; if they refused, he would find other means. The next day
a proclamation was addressed to the Moors, emphatically repeating these
threats and promises, and forbidding any interference with conversion or
insults to converts, under penalty of five thousand [354] florins
and the royal wrath. The same day a letter to Queen Germaine tacitly admitted
the futility of depriving the Moriscos of their religion without providing
a substitute. He had learned, he said, that in many villages of the converts
there were no priests to give instruction or to celebrate mass, and he
ordered her to see that they were instructed and ministered to, thriftily
adding that, in lands of royal jurisdiction, care must be taken to reserve
the patronage of the new churches to the crown. (97)
Meanwhile, on November 3d,
Charles enclosed the papal brief to the inquisitors, with instructions
to enforce it without delay. At the same time he notified the authorities,
secular and ecclesiastical, that it invalidated all the fueros, privileges
and constitutions to which he had sworn; that he had instructed the Inquisition
to enforce it, and that the local magistrates, under pain of ten thousand
florins, must execute whatever the inquisitors might decree.
(99) Having thus made
the Moors understand the fate in store for them, on November 25th he issued
a general decree of expulsion. All those of Valencia were to be out of
Spain by December 31st, and those of Catalonia and Aragon by January 31,
1526. As in 1502, there was no exemption promised for conversion, but similarly
the obstacles thrown in the way of expatriation showed the real intent
of the edict. The Valencians were ordered to register and obtain passports
at Sieteaguas, on the Cuenca frontier, and then plod their weary way to
Coruña, where they were to embark, under pain of confiscation and
slavery, while [355] the nobles were threatened with a fine of five
thousand ducats for each one whom they might retain. At the same time was
published a papal brief ordering, under pain of excommunication, all Christians
to aid in enforcing the imperial decrees, and all Moors to listen without
replying to the teachings of the Gospel. Still another edict, which ordered
that all Moors must be baptized by December 8th, or be prepared to leave
the country, showed by implication that conversion would relieve from exile.
Then the Inquisition gave notice that it was prepared to act, and it published
tremendous censures, with a penalty of a thousand florins, against all
failing to aid it against those who obstinately resisted the sweetness
of the gospel and the benignant plans of the emperor.
(100)
When the alfaquíes
reported the failure of their mission, the great bulk of the Valencian
Moors submitted to baptism. Fray Antonio de Guevara, who was foremost in
the work, boasts that he baptized twenty thousand families, but the Moriscos
subsequently asserted that this wholesale conversion was accomplished by
corraling them in pens and scattering water over them, when some would
seek to hide themselves and others would shout ''No water has touched me!"
They endured it, they said, because their alfaquíes assured them
that deceit was permissible, and that they need not believe the religion
which they were compelled to profess. (101)
Many hid themselves; some took refuge in Benaguacil [356] which
surrendered, March 27th, after a five weeks' siege, but the Sierra de Espadan
was the scene of a more formidable revolt, which was not subdued until
September 19th, with considerable slaughter. Others again betook themselves
to the Sierra de Bernia, to Guadalete and Confridas, but these mostly succeeded
in escaping to Africa. Thus was Valencia converted and pacified; the Moriscos,
we as may now call them, were disarmed, the pulpits of their alfaquíes
were torn down, their Korans were burnt, and orders were given to instruct
them competently in the faith-- orders, as we shall see, perpetually reissued
and never executed. (102)
In Aragon, before the edicts,
premonitions of the future had aroused much agitation. The Moors ceased
to labor in the fields and shops, causing great anxiety as to impending
famine. The Diputados were called upon to act and, while preparing to send
envoys to Charles, they gave to the Count of Ribagorza, who chanced to
be at the court, a memorial addressed to him. This appealed to the solemn
oaths taken by him and Ferdinand; it represented that the whole industry
and prosperity of the land rested upon the Moors, who raised the harvests
and produced the manufactures, while the incomes of churches and convents,
of benefices and the gentry, of widows and orphans, were derived from their
censos or loans. They were practically the slaves of their feudal lords,
to whom they were obedient, and they had never been known to pervert a
Christian or cause scandal; they lived at a distance from the coast, so
that they could hold no intercourse with Barbary, and the law punished
by enslavement all attempts to leave the kingdom; their expulsion would
cause ruin while, if converted, they would be enfranchised and enabled
to go abroad. As they had ceased to sow their lands, immediate relief of
their fears was necessary to avert a famine. Ribagorza's influence procured
a brief delay, but Charles's practical reply was a proclamation, published
in Saragossa December 22d, forbidding any Moor to leave the kingdom, prohibiting
all purchases of property from them, closing their mosques and abolishing
their public shambles. (103)
This increased the alarm, and risings occurred in some places, followed
by others after the publication of the edict of expulsion, but they were
not serious. The date of expulsion [357] was postponed until March
15, 1526, and, as it approached, there were other risings, but they were
readily suppressed; the Moors were disarmed and, as a whole, they submitted
to baptism. (104)
The whole Morisco population
was now at the mercy of the Inquisition, but every consideration, both
of policy and of charity, dictated a tolerant exercise of power, until
they could be instructed and won over to their new faith. This the Suprema
recognized by ordering that they should be treated with great moderation.
(105) Possibly this
may explain the absence of trials for heresy by the Valencia tribunal in
1525 and 1527, but, in the intermediate and subsequent years, there is
no abatement in its activity, which was not only in disobedience of the
commands of the Suprema, but a direct violation of the Concordia, agreed
to January 6, 1526, although not published until 1528.
This Concordia was the result
of the labors of the alfaquíes sent to the court in 1525. It was
granted with the consent of Inquisitor-general Manrique; it was solemnly
confirmed by Charles in the Córtes of Monzón, in 1528, when
it was declared to comprehend all the kingdoms of the crown of Aragon,
but when it was published by the Bayle-general of Valencia, under orders
from Charles, Manrique rebuked him for so doing. Its main provisions are
worth reciting if only to show the questions arising and as an instance
of the faithlessness habitually shown to the Moriscos, for scarce one of
the articles favorable to them was observed.
It set forth that the new
converts could not at once abandon the Moorish ceremonies, which they observed
rather through habit than with intention, and that prosecution by the Inquisition
would be their total destruction, wherefore the Inquisition should not
proceed against them for forty years, as had been granted to the Moors
of Granada. As for their garments, they might wear out those existing,
but new ones must be made in the Christian fashion. As most of the men
and all the women could speak only Arabic, they could use it for ten years,
during which time they must learn Castilian or Valencian. New cemeteries
were to be consecrated for them, near the mosques now converted into churches.
Dispensations were to be granted by the legate or the pope for all existing
marriages and betrothals within the prohibited degrees, but future ones
must conform to the canons. To the request that [358] their arms
should be restored to them, the answer was that they should be treated
like other Christians. To the argument that they could not pay the old
tributes and imposts, if they were forbidden to work on feast-days, nor
was it reasonable that they should be prevented from changing domicile,
the equivocal reply was that they should be treated like other Christians,
but without prejudice to third parties. There was also permission to continue
as corporations the old Morerías in royal territory. All this Charles
guaranteed for himself and for Prince Philip, and ordered its strict observance
by all officials, from the highest to the lowest, under pain of the royal
wrath and a fine of three thousand ducats. (106)
The Inquisition, however,
was a law unto itself and was bound by no compacts. In a few months after
the promulgation of the Concordia, the Suprema published everywhere a declaration
that it referred only to trivial customs and did not condone the use of
Moorish rites and ceremonies, and that those who performed them or lapsed
from the faith were to be duly prosecuted, to all of which it stated that
the emperor acceded. (107)
When, therefore, the Aragonese nobles, in 1529, presented remonstrances
to Charles and to Manrique, the latter replied that it was their salvation
and not their injury that was sought, and that he hoped that God might
lay his hands upon them, so that all would eventuate well.
(108) The hand of
God, as laid upon them through the Inquisition, was not merciful for, in
1531, the Valencia tribunal had fifty-eight trials for heresy, with some
thirty-seven burnings in person, most of whom presumably were Moriscos.
Saragossa was somewhat milder for, in 1530, it reported that in the last
auto it had reconciled a number of Moriscos, commuting confiscation and
prison into fines and, in some cases, to scourging; that the fines had
been assigned to a cleric who should instruct the penitents, but the receiver
had refused to surrender the money, whereupon the Suprema suggested a separate
collection of fines and their payment to instructors.
(109) Thus the Inquisition went imperturbably on its way and,
when the Córtes of the three kingdoms complained that it was notorious
that there had been no attempt to instruct the Moriscos, or to provide
churches for them, and that it was a great [359] abuse to prosecute
them as heretics, Cardinal Manrique unctuously replied that they had been
treated with all moderation and benignity and that, for the future, provision
would be made, with the assent of the emperor, as best comported with the
service of God and the salvation of their souls.
(110)
Even more defiantly self-willed
was the conduct of the Inquisition with regard to confiscations. We have
seen that these were the property of the crown and that, when the Inquisition
was allowed to retain the proceeds, it was a concession dependent upon
the will of the sovereign. Yet it sturdily set aside the laws of the land
and the commands of the emperor, and persisted in confiscating the property
of its penitents. The earliest fuero of Valencia, granted by Jaime I after
the conquest, provided that, in capital cases of heresy and treason, allodial
lands and personal property should accrue to the king, while feudal lands
and those held under rent-charge or other service, should revert to the
lord. The new Inquisition disregarded this and, in 1488, the Córtes
of Orihuela demanded its observance, to which Ferdinand assented. Still
the Inquisition persisted and he agreed to the demands of the Córtes
of 1510, that he should compound for all lands thus illegally obtained.
This was equally fruitless and, in 1533, the Córtes of Monzón
repeated the complaint; it was the lords and churches that suffered by
the confiscations inflicted on their vassals, and some compromise should
be reached as to past infractions of the fuero. To this the answer was
equivocal; there was no confiscation and, please God, with the efforts
on foot for the instruction of the converts, there would be no necessity
for it in the future but, if there should be, provision would be made to
protect the lords, and meanwhile a commission could decide as to what would
be just for the past. (111)
Charles, in fact, the next
year, at Saragossa, issued a pragmática ordering that, when the
new converts incurred confiscation, the property should be made over to
the legal Catholic heirs, without prejudice to the lords of the delinquents.
The Inquisition, however, was equal to the occasion; it obeyed the law
in the letter but not in the spirit, for, in 1547, the Córtes complained
to the inquisitor-general that, in lieu of confiscation, the Saragossa
[360] tribunal imposed fines greater than the wealth of the penitents
who, to meet them, were obliged to sell all their property and impoverish
their kindred. To this the contemptuous answer was returned that if any
one was aggrieved he could apply to the inquisitors or to the Suprema.
(112)
In Valencia the contest
was more prolonged. The Córtes of 1537 reiterated the old complaints
and asked Charles to order the tribunals to obey the law, which he promised
to do. The Suprema rejoined, in a consulta, that confiscation was the most
efficient penalty for the suppression of heresy; the culprit could escape
burning by reconciliation and, without confiscation, heresy would be unpunished.
The Inquisition accordingly went on confiscating and, in 1542, under urgent
complaints by the Córtes, Charles assented to a law that the dominium
utile of the culprit should revert to the dominium directum of the lord
and that the royal officials, under pain of a thousand florins, should
put the lord in possession. The pope seems to have been appealed to, to
make the Inquisition obey, for in a brief of August 2, 1546, which virtually
suspended it, he decreed that for ten years, and during the pleasure of
the Holy See, there should be neither fines nor confiscation in the case
of Moriscos. (113)
Royal and papal utterances
were alike in vain. In 1547, the Córtes renewed the complaint of
the persistence of the Inquisition and introduced the new feature of asking
that the inquisitor-general should join in signing the fuero, thus recognizing
him as an independent power in the state. Prince Philip promised to obtain
his signature, but it was not done. Again in 1552 and 1564 the same comedy
was acted, but Philip's promise in the latter year was neutralized by specific
instructions of the Suprema, to the Valencia tribunal, to confiscate Morisco
property, without regarding what the people might say about having a privilege
against confiscation. (114)
At length a compromise was
reached. In 1537 the Córtes had suggested a payment to the Inquisition
of four hundred ducats [361] per annum in return for Morisco impunity
from pecuniary penance, but the Suprema had refused the proposition as
inadequate and as a disservice to God. (115)
In 1571, negotiations were renewed, resulting in a royal cedula of October
12th, reciting that Inquisitor-general Espinosa had condescended to grant
to the Moriscos of Valencia the articles presented by them. These provided
that, in consideration of an annual payment of fifty thousand sueldos,
or twenty-five hundred ducats, to the tribunal, the property of those contributing
to it should be exempt from confiscation. Warning, moreover, was taken
from the experience of Aragon, and fines were limited to ten ducats, but
the aljamas of the culprits were responsible for their payment. It rested
with the aljamas whether or not to come into the arrangement, but so many
of them did so that thenceforth it was spoken of commonly as in force throughout
Valencia. (116)
This suited the Inquisition
as assuring it a settled income; it relieved the Moriscos from the ever-present
dread of pauperism and the miseries of sequestration, and it gratified
the nobles and churches by securing them from the alienation of their lands
and the impoverishment of their vassals. To the rigid churchman, however,
it was a compact with evil and an encouragement of heresy. Archbishop Ribera
of Valencia protested against it, and Bishop Pérez of Segorbe, in
1595, advocated its revocation, but Philip II resolved that it should continue
during the period agreed upon for the instruction of the Moriscos.
(117)
The tribunal naturally took
care to increase its assured income by exploiting to the fullest its remaining
power of inflicting fines, and it did so with little regard to the limitation.
In 1595, the aljamas complained of these infractions.
(118) That such complaint
continued to be justified would appear from the auto de fe of January 7,
1607, alluded to above (Vol. II, p. 395) where there were twenty fines
of ten ducats each on Moriscos, of whom only eight were reconciled, besides
other fines, one of twenty, one of thirty and one of fifty.
In fact, as the Moorish
faith of the Moriscos was notorious, the whole population was at the mercy
of the Inquisition, and the comparative moderation shown by the records
may perhaps be explained by a system of secret bribery or compositions
whereby immunity was purchased. The possibility of this is suggested by
a case which throws considerable light upon the manner in which the inquisitorial
power was exercised.
The family of Don Cosme,
Don Juan and Don Hernando Abenamir of Benaguacil ranked among the first
of the old Moors of Valencia; the brothers were rich and influential; they
held licences to bear arms, and Inquisitor Miranda had appointed them familiars--a
position which they resigned at the instance of the Duke of Segorbe, on
whose lands they dwelt, for he said that they had no need of such protection,
as they had only to appeal to him if aggrieved. In May, 1567, during the
absence of Inquisitor Miranda, the fiscal presented to the other inquisitor,
Geronimo [363] Manrique, a clamosa against the brothers.
Their arrest was voted but, in view of the importance of the ease, the
Suprema was consulted, which confirmed the vote and, on July 1st, the warrants
were issued. The accused could not be found; edicts summoning them were
published and, on January 12, 1568, Don Cosme presented himself. It is
his trial that has been preserved, but presumably the others took the same
course, except that Don Hernando's name disappears towards the end, probably
in consequence of death.
At the first audience Don
Cosme said that he presumed he had been baptized when a child, yet he did
not consider himself a Christian but a Moor; he had through life performed
Moorish rites and had gone to confession only to conform with the edicts,
but in future he desired to be a Christian and to do whatever the inquisitors
might require. He offered no defence in the various stages of his trial,
but on July 15th, in consequence of the crowded condition of the secret
prison, he was given the city as a prison on furnishing security in two
thousand ducats.
Notwithstanding this he
visited Madrid where, for seven thousand ducats, he purchased for himself
and his brothers a pardon from the king, the inquisitor-general and the
Suprema, and he also exercised important influence in securing the Concordia
of 1571. His stay in the capital was prolonged when, after an interval
of nearly three years, the tribunal suddenly revived his case, May 25,
1571 and, on June 6th, it summoned his bondsmen to produce him within nine
days, a term extended to twelve days on their protesting that it was notorious
that he was in Madrid, on business with the Suprema. This action brought
from the Suprema a curt letter stating that Don Cosme complained that,
after compounding his case, it had been revived, and ordering the tribunal
to drop the matter and explain its motives. This it did and received from
the Suprema a second order to do nothing, but to send the papers and await
instructions. Subsequently Don Cosme returned to Valencia and exhibited
certificates of the pardons for himself and his brothers to Juan de Rojas,
then inquisitor, who told him to go enhorabuena, for they were pardoned
and the Inquisition had nothing further to do with them.
Six years passed away when
suddenly, without further evidence being sought for, on September 3, 1577,
the Suprema returned to the tribunal the papers in the cases of Don Cosme
and Don [364] Juan, and ordered it to summon them, examine them,
vote on them and report to the Suprema for its decision. Don Cosme by that
time seems to have been impoverished, and was supporting himself by farming
the revenues at Genoves; after some delay he was brought to the prison,
December 24th and his trial was resumed. At first he refused to be examined,
alleging his pardon, but it was elaborately explained to him that it was
not intended to interfere with it but to render it operative, for which
it was necessary for him to abjure his errors and be reconciled, to which
end he must make full confession as to himself and his accomplices; if
he refused, it would show that he desired to remain in his old errors and
under excommunication. After some fencing, he submitted and described how,
about the age of twelve, his mother had taught him to perform the zala
and fast the Ramadan and to believe in one God; that Santa María
was a virgin and holy, but not the Mother of God; that the Lord Jesus Christ
was a son of God and prophet of God, who had ever spoken truth, and it
was a sin not to believe in what he had uttered, but that Mahomet was also
a prophet of God, whose utterances were to be believed; he had also been
taught to commit no murder, not to covet his neighbor's daughter and not
to bear false witness--all of which would seem to indicate that there was
developing among the Moriscos an intermediate faith which in time would
have become Christian had opportunity been allowed. Don Cosme further declared
that, since his first arrest, he had always been a Christian and desired
to live and die in the faith of Christ; he repeated all the Christian prayers
accurately, in both Latin and Romance, and wished that he had been born
among Christians, as it would have been better for him, both in body and
in soul. This went on, until February 21, 1578, when he was allowed the
city as a prison, under bail, and on March 26th he was permitted to return
home, keeping himself subject to summons.
Then fifteen months elapsed,
until July 17, 1579, his case was voted upon in discordia, requiring its
reference to the Suprema which, October 2d, ordered torture at discretion
for Don Cosme and Don Juan. Preliminary audiences, however, were prescribed
in order that they might discharge their consciences and satisfy the evidence,
especially as to accomplices, giving them to understand that this was necessary
to enable them to enjoy the pardon of 1571. Under this the trial was resumed,
but the record [365] ends before the stage of torture was reached,
and the archivist, Don Julio Melgares Marin, who copied it, assumes that
the case remained suspended. Probably either the two brothers had succeeded
in raising a sum sufficient to satisfy the Suprema, or they were recognized
as too poor to be worth further prosecution. (121)
After the Germanía
and the edict of 1525, some futile attempts were made at missionary work
among the so-called converts, but the situation, in 1526, is correctly
described by Navigero, the Venetian envoy, who says that there was so little
care about teaching them, priestly gains being the main object, that they
either were as much Moors as before or had no religion of any kind.
(122) It was self-evident
that to Christianize a large population, scattered over the land, for the
most part in exclusive communities, would require a complete organization
of parish churches with schools and all the necessary appliances. A basis
for this existed in the property of the mosques, which Clement VII, in
1524, had ordered [366] to be converted into churches, and in the
tithes, which were now imposed as a fresh burden upon the converts. These
were spoils which all, who saw a chance for gain, hastened to grasp. To
recompense the lords for the expected loss of tribute from their vassals,
who were promised to be treated in all things like Christians, the tithes
were made over to them, in return for which they were to provide the churches
with what was requisite for divine service, while the revenues of the mosques
were expected to furnish foundations for benefices, the patronage of which
was given to the lords. For this, as we have seen, the requisite papal
authority was procured, but the measure was attacked in innumerable suits,
some of which were carried up to the Roman Rota, with the consequent interminable
delays. (123)
In some fashion, two hundred and thirteen mosques were converted into churches
in the archbishopric of Valencia, fourteen in the see of Tortosa, ten in
Segorbe and fourteen in Orihuela, but the object kept in view was the revenues,
and not the religious training of the Moriscos.
(124)
Nearly ten years passed
away with nothing accomplished. A thorough reorganization was seen to be
necessary, and papal faculties were obtained empowering Cardinal Manrique
to provide persons to instruct the converts, to erect and unite churches,
to appoint and dismiss priests, to regulate tithes and to decide summarily
all the suits that were expected from archbishops, bishops, chapters, abbeys,
priests and secular lords, thus rendering him and his delegates independent
of the bishops who thus far had done nothing. (125)
Under this, in 1534, Manrique despatched commissioners with detailed instructions,
including provisions to be made for a college to be founded for the instruction
of Morisco children, who should in turn instruct their parents.
(126) The scheme,
however, though well intended, was wrecked on the money-question which,
to the end, proved an obstacle frustrating all intelligent work in conversion.
The revenues of the mosques, the tithes and first-fruits seem to disappear--swallowed
up by noble and prelate and, although they derived their incomes in great
part from the labor of the Moriscos, it seemed impossible to wring from
them what was necessary to support the new establishment. In 1544, St.
Thomas of Vilanova, then Archbishop of Valencia, urged the [367]
emperor to place zealous and exemplary rectors in the Morisco villages,
with ample salaries to enable them to distribute alms, but it does not
seem to have occurred to him that this was part of his duty and that of
the Church. (127)
Manrique's commissioners
established a hundred and ninety rectories, endowed with the beggarly stipend
of thirty crowns a year. It was impossible to find suitable priests for
such livings, and the complaint was general that they were, for the most
part, ignorant and depraved, creating repulsion rather than attraction
to the religion which they assumed to teach. Many were nonresident and
neglected their duties entirely, or found vicars at still lower salaries
to replace them. There was no one to inspect them or keep them in order.
A pension of two thousand ducats a year had been levied on the archbishopric
of Valencia, to maintain the projected college for Morisco youths, but
two-thirds of this was diverted to the support of the rectories and the
rest was made up from various sources, not always adequate, for some holders
of benefices refused to pay the moderate assessments made on them.
(128)
It was in vain that one
effort after another was made to remedy these deficiencies. The indifference
of the ecclesiastical authorities, or their opposition when asked for funds,
paralyzed every plan devised. In 1564, the Córtes of Monzon pointed
out the failure of all attempts to instruct the converts, who were punished
for their ignorance, and they made some remedial suggestions. Philip in
response assembled a junta under the presidency of Valdes, the conclusions
of which were embodied in a royal cédula. This confided the instruction
of the Moriscos to the bishops in their several dioceses, who were to appoint
proper persons and keep them under supervision, treating the neophytes
with the utmost kindness, rewarding the good according to their deserts,
and appointing the more prominent among them to familiarships. Archbishop
Ayala, on his return from this junta, called a provincial council, but
the bishops took no action to carry out the provisions of the cedula, contenting
themselves with inflicting heavy fines on those who did not have their
children baptized at birth in the best clothes that they could afford;
on alfaquíes who visited the sick, and on secular officials who
neglected to denounce Moorish observances. The pious hope was expressed
that, by compelling [368] them to attend mass on Ash Wednesday,
Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and All Saints, they might be attracted to
Christian worship, and their salvation was cared for by ordering them on
the death-bed to give something for the benefit of their souls, in default
of which the heirs must at least have three masses sung for them.
(129)
This was the spirit in which
the prelates conceived their duties towards those whom clerical pressure
had made their spiritual children, and to whom they owed great part of
their revenues. Juan de Ribera who, in 1568, succeeded to the archbishopric
of Valencia was a man of different stamp. He preferred the radical cure
of expulsion but, so long as the Moriscos remained, he recognized the duty
of laboring for their conversion. In 1575 he held a conference with the
Bishops of Tortosa and Orihuela (Segorbe being vacant), when it was agreed
that the rectorial stipends were inadequate, as there were no offerings
at the altar, which led many to abandon their cures, while those who would
accept the position were mostly unfitted, through ignorance and character.
It was therefore resolved to increase the stipends to a hundred crowns.
The king made a contribution, and a sum of seven thousand ducats per annum
(or 7350 libras) was assessed on the bishops and those who enjoyed the
tithes of the Moriscos. Ribera's share of this was thirty-six hundred ducats,
levied on the income of his "table," which was forty thousand ducats, so
that the assessment was 9 per cent. The rest fell upon ecclesiastics, except
a negligible amount to be paid by five laymen. A brief of June 16, 1576,
was obtained from Gregory XIII confirming this arrangement, and Ribera
punctually paid his portion into the taula or bank of Valencia,
but the other churchmen were recalcítrant. The share of his cathedral
chapter was eight hundred libras a year, which it not only refused to pay
but organized a league to contest the whole measure; the procrastinating
resources of litigation were limitless and, in 1597, Philip sent to Valencia
the Licentiate Covarrubias to settle the matter if possible. For three
years he labored, and finally induced the chapter to obey the papal brief,
but on some pretext it refused to abide by the agreement and the litigation
continued. The chapter of Segorbe, although its portion was only seventy
libras a year, threatened to raise a tumult if it was forced to pay, and
sent its treasurer to Rome to work for [369] the revocation of the
brief; in 1604 it procured an inhibition on the execution of the brief,
but finally, in 1606, the matter was decided against the chapters. By this
time their arrearages amounted to a hundred and fifty thousand crowns,
which Philip III forgave them and, for the few remaining years they paid
theif assessments. Meanwhile, Ribera's contribution had gone on accumulating
with interest until it amounted to 157,482 libras 13 s., 11 d. Of this
about thirty-two thousand libras had been expended on the rectories; in
1602, sixty thousand were devoted to the college for Morisco youths and,
in 1606, thirty-one thousand were given to endow a girl's college; part
went for expenses and, in 1607, a balance of over thirteen thousand was
given to the Collegiate Seminary of Corpus Christi which he had founded.
(130) Thus this well-intended plan came to naught, like all other
attempts, through the covetousness and indifference of those whose duty
and interests alike demanded their earnest co-operation.
What might have been accomplished
by zealous Christian prelates can be gathered from the experience of Feliciano
de Figueroa, Bishop of Segorbe. He had long been Ribera's secretary and
was thoroughly familiar with the question. Promoted to the see of Segorbe,
in 1599, he writes, in 1601, that there were twenty Morisco villages in
his diocese; at his own cost he put resident rectors in them, with doctrineros,
or religious teachers, and twelve preachers, supervising the whole work
himself. Already he reports a notable reformation in the adults, while
the children manifested affection and readiness to embrace the faith; moreover,
during the past forty years, many Moorish ceremonies had fallen into disuse.
Again, in 1604, he describes his continued labors without discouragement,
although he complains of the obstacles thrown in his way by the secular
authorities, who aided the alfaquíes in opposing his efforts.
(131)
This alludes to a serious
difficulty which aided in bringing about the catastrophe. The lords of
Morisco vassals were actuated by the most purely selfish motives. Exploiting
their dependents to the utmost, they feared that, if the latter became
Christians in fact as well as in name, they would be unable to extort the
imposts and tribute which they exacted almost at discretion, for the Moriscos
were helpless and defenceless, and the pledges that they should [370]
be treated as Christians were forgotten. The lords therefore discouraged
all missionary work and, as far as they could, protected their vassals
against the Inquisition. When the latter obtained evidence of this interference
with conversion, it did not hesitate to prosecute the highest nobles. In
1570 it condemned Don Sancho de Cardona, Admiral of Aragon, to abjure de
levi, to a fine of two thousand ducats and to reclusion in a convent
at the pleasure of the Suprema--reclusion which proved perpetual, for he
died in the convent of his confinement. He deserved much more if the testimony
was true which asserted that he advised his vassals to appeal to the king,
to the pope, and finally to the Grand Turk to induce him to threaten to
persecute the Christians in his dominions if the Moriscos were not left
in peace, and further that he advised them to rise and promised to arm
them if they would do so. This was not the only case for, in 1571 the Master
of Montesa and two other nobles appeared in an auto for the same offence
and, in 1578, two others were the subjects of investigation.
(132)The
lords further made themselves obnoxious by seeking to protect their vassals
from the ceaseless exactions of the alguaziles set over them to see that
they attended mass regularly, and to fine those who did not, or who worked
on feast-days. These gentry were paid by a half or a third of their collections;
their position was not enviable, threatened as they were both by the lords
and the Moriscos in the remoter districts, and it was impossible to fill
the position with men of fitting character. (133)
Various causes delayed the
publication of the edict until 1599, after Philip III had succeeded to
the throne. Great preparations were made for it as for a final experiment;
rectors, preachers and commissioners were sent through the land, under
detailed instructions from Ribera, who told them that the work was difficult
but not impossible; Ribera's fund was drawn upon for the colleges; the
barons were to found schools for the instruction of young children, and
a hermandad was organized to place girls in convents or in the families
of Old Christians. (138)
The edict was duly published in Valencia, August 22, 1599; its term was
for only one year, but it was extended to eighteen months. Philip III eagerly
awaited the result, which was conveyed to him in a report of August 22,1601,
by the tribunal. During the eighteen months of the edict, the inquisitors
said, only thirteen persons had come forward to take advantage of it and
these had made such fictitious confessions, and had so protected their
accomplices, that they deserved condemnation rather than absolution; some
of them, indeed, had already been denounced to the Inquisition, so that
they had evidently been impelled by fear rather than by the desire of conversion.
The inquisitors went on to describe the Moriscos as Moors who would always
be Moors and, if the Inquisition did not convert them, it at least compelled
them to sin with less publicity and thus diminished their evil example.
(139) This failure
may be regarded as virtually deciding the fate of the Moriscos. Archbishop
Ribera emphasized it in two strong memorials addressed to Philip III, and
expulsion came to be recognized as the only solution of the situation,
although the vacillation and irresolution of the court postponed for some
years the execution of the measure.
A glance at the tables in
the Appendix will show how little influence the successive Edicts of Grace
had on the operations of the Inquisition, which reaped its harvests irrespective
of them. Yet [373] those tables reveal that, between 1540 and 1563,
there were periods during which the tribunal was idle, at least as to cases
of heresy. These intervals represent some remarkable efforts to try the
effect of moderation, which, although neutralized by lack of cooperative
work in winning over the converts, merit examination as measures without
example in the career of the Spanish Holy Office.
The nobles of Valencia complained
forcibly of the disquiet caused among their vassals by the operations of
the Inquisition, and the Córtes petitioned that thirty or forty
years might be allowed for their instruction during which they should be
exempt from prosecution. Charles assembled a junta of prelates and theologians,
which suggested various plans of moderation and conciliation, from among
which he selected that of granting a term of grace for past offences, allowing
them to confess sacramentally to confessors, and that a period should be
provided for their instruction, during which the Inquisition should not
prosecute them. This period was liberally fixed at twenty-six years, with
the warning that, as they should use or abuse it, it would be extended
or shortened. We have seen the failure to provide them with churches and
instructors, and it is scarce surprising that they commenced to live openly
as Moors, saying that, as they had thirty years in which to do as they
pleased, they would take full advantage of it. (140)
This could not be permitted, and the effort to convert by toleration came
to a speedy end. The tribunal which had no cases in 1541, 1542 and 1543
resumed operations and had 79, 37 and 49 in 1544,1545 and 1546--a portion
of which, however were undoubtedly the Judaizers prosecuted for revoking
confessions (Vol. II, p. 584).
Then, in 1547, came a reversion
to a milder policy. A brief dated August 2, 1546, was obtained from Paul
III, of so liberal a character that it virtually superseded the Inquisition,
by granting faculties to appoint confessors with full power to absolve
in utroque foro--both sacramentally and judicially--even those who
had been condemned by the Inquisition, and to relieve them and their descendants
from all disabilities. (141)
Unfortunately the faculty to appoint confessors was conferred on Antonio
Ramirez de Haro, who had for some years been acting as " apostolic [374]
commissioner" in Valencia, with extensive powers over everything relating
to the Moriscos, but he had, in 1545, left Valencia, on a summons, as Bishop
of Segovia, to attend the Council of Trent-- from which summons he succeeded
in getting himself excused-- and had not subdelegated his authority. According
to the Archbishop St. Thomas of Vilanova, this made little difference,
because the brief was ineffective, inasmuch as it required abjuration de
vehementi, entailing relaxation for relapse, to which none of the converts
would expose themselves. He, therefore, suggested that more extensive faculties
should be obtained, to absolve and pardon without legal forms, seeing that
these people had been forcibly converted, that they had never been instructed,
and that their intercourse with Barbary indisposed them to Christianity.
(142)
What followed is strikingly
illustrative of the procrastination and neglect that rendered Spanish administration
so ineffective. The commission of the Bishop of Segovia superseded both
the inquisitorial and the episcopal jurisdiction, and his absence left
everything in confusion. Archbishop Thomas wrote, April 12, 1547, to Prince
Philip that, since the bishop had gone, the Moriscos had daily become bolder
in performing their Moorish ceremonies, as there was no one to restrain
them; the bishop had left no one to represent him, and no time should be
lost in getting him to subdelegate some one who could come at once. Promises
were made that a person should shortly be sent, but the habitual mañana
postponed it indefinitely. On November 10th, the archbishop again represented
the complete liberty enjoyed by the Converses, with no one empowered to
correct them, but his representations were neglected and, in 1551 and 1552,
he was still calling for some one authorized to keep the Moriscos in order.
Even when, in 1551, the Bishop of Segovia, who still retained his commission,
appointed the Inquisitor Gregorio de Miranda as a delegated commissioner,
he granted him no inquisitorial power, and the Valencia Moriscos remained,
for ten years longer, free from persecution. (143)
This anomalous condition
explains why the tables show only a few cases in 1547, 1548 and 1549, and
then an entire cessation up to and including 1562, the former being probably
the unfinished work of previous years. In 1561, Paul IV empowered [375]
Valdés to grant faculties to the Archbishop of Valencia and his
Ordinary to reconcile secretly the New Christians: in those cases which
could be judicially proved, the confessions were to be made before a notary
and delivered to the tribunal, where they remained of record against both
the penitent and his accomplices, while in cases that could not be proved,
the penances were to be purely spiritual. (144)
This fresh experiment indicates a revival of interest in the Morisco question,
to be necessarily followed by a return to the old methods. In 1562, accordingly,
the tribunal began to act in Teruel, where the town of Xea had the reputation
of an asylum for malefactors; it was exclusively Morisco, no Old Christian
being permitted to reside there. Finally, all restrictions were removed
and, in 1563, the Inquisition was vigorously at work, with sixty-two cases,
and held two autos, in which appeared nine cases from Xea.
(145)
After that there was no further interference with its functions, and it
continued to the end to contribute its share to rendering Christianity
odious. What Archbishop Ayala thought of its influence in this direction
is indicated by his offer, in 1564, to undertake the instruction of the
Moriscos at his own expense, but only on condition that the Inquisition
should have nothing to do with them, except in cases of open and defiant
sin. (146)
Even without the aggravation
of the Inquisition, the condition of the Moriscos was deplorable. They
had been promised, in return for baptism, that they should have all the
privileges of Christians, but this, like all other pledges, was made only
to be broken. Enforced conversion had added to their burdens and had brought
no compensatory relief--they were Christians as regards duties and responsibilities,
but they remained Moors in respect to liabilities and inequality before
the law. In 1525 the syndics of the aljamas pointed out that, in order
to enjoy their religion, they had been subjected by their lords to many
imposts and servitudes which they could not render as Christians, for they
would not be allowed to work on Sundays and feast-days, wherefore they
asked to be taxed only as Christians. To this it was replied, [376]
in the Concordia of 1528, that they should be treated as Christians and
that, to avoid injury to parties, investigation should be made to prevent
injustice. Their lords, however, did not admit this and, in the same year,
the Córtes of Valencia declared that they retained all their rights
over their vassals, who were forbidden to change their domiciles.
(147)The lords accepted
the tithes and the first-fruits as a compensation, but merely added these
fresh burdens on their vassals, who were powerless to resist.
Charles recognized this
injustice and his responsibility for it, but he dared not raise a conflict
with the nobles, and he sought to shield himself behind the awful authority
of the Inquisition. He therefore procured from Clement VII, July 15,1531,
a remarkable brief reciting that, when the Saracens were converted, the
barons and knights, in compensation for the loss inflicted on them, were
empowered to exact from their vassals the tithes and first-fruits, but
they have not only enjoyed these new imposts but have continued to extort
the personal services and açofras (148)and
other demands of the ante-conversion period. Thus the converts, unable
to endure these accumulated burdens, allege them as justifying their retaining
their old customs and disregarding the Christian feasts and ceremonies.
As Charles had asked him for a remedy, and as he knew nothing of the matter,
he committed it to Manrique with power to hear complaints and render justice,
enforcing his decisions with censures. (149)
The rôle of protector of the Moriscos was novel for the Inquisition
and Manrique kept the brief until January, 1534, when, in sending Fray
Antonio de Calcena and Antonio Ramírez de Haro as commissioners
to organize the Morisco churches, he informed them that the king ordered
the Concordia to be enforced; the New Christians were in all things to
be treated like the Old; they were to investigate secretly and report whether
this was the case. (150)
Apparently the Inquisition shrank from the unaccustomed task; there is
no trace of its intervention in behalf of the oppressed Moriscos, and its
only prosecutions of the nobles were for favoring their vassals against
its persecution. As for [377] the Córtes, their sole efforts
were directed to increase the burdens of the vassals and, in case of their
condemnation, to profit by the confiscations.
Thus they were mercilessly
pillaged. Besides the division of the crops, of which one-third or one-half
went to the lord, and besides the tithes and first-fruits, there were innumerable
imposts of all kinds and forced loans or benevolences. In 1561, one of
the numerous consultas on the Morisco question alludes to the hardship
of forcing them to live like Christians and pay like Moors. The king, it
added, ought to relieve them from these unjust impositions, but it would
throw the whole kingdom into confusion and impede the work of conversion,
so the commissioners ought to see how it could be brought about that they
should pay no more than the Christians. This continued to the end. In 1608,
Padre Antonio Sobrino, S. J., argued that one of the chief obstacles to
conversion was the tyranny of the lords and, in addition to the exactions
in money and kind, he alludes to the forced labors imposed on them, on
meagre wages and still more meagre food, or frequently with no wages.
(151) In fact, they
were virtually taillables et corvéables à miséricorde,
and their oppression was tempered only by the ever-present apprehension
of rebellion and, in the coast districts, by the facilities of escape to
Africa. Even their ecclesiastical persecutors were almost moved to pity
by the hopeless misery of their lot, but we are told that there was no
compassion felt for this, as it was generally deemed advisable to keep
them impoverished and in subjection. (152)
The control of the lords
over their vassals was further safeguarded by a pragmática of Charles
V, in 1541, forbidding the Moriscos of Valencia, under pain of death and
confiscation, from changing either domicile or lord, and any one accepting
them as vassals, without special royal licence, was fined five hundred
florins, or was scourged in default of the money. Granadan and Castilian
Moriscos were threatened with death for entering Valencia and this, in
1545, was extended to those of Aragon. This ferocious legislation was repeated
in 1563 and 1586. (153)
[378] Akin to this
was the suicidal policy of forbidding the emigration of those who were
recognized as dangerous domestic enemies. This, as we have seen, was begun
by Ferdinand and Isabella and was rigidly persisted in--partly, no doubt,
from a pious scruple of allowing the baptized to apostatize in Barbary,
and partly to protect the lords from the loss of their vassals. In time
this was enforced in Aragon by the Inquisition, which published edicts
to that effect, including the guidance over the mountains of emigrants
by Christians. In the auto of June 6, 1585, the tribunal punished two who
were seeking to leave the country and two who served as guides, with scourging
and the galleys for three men and scourging and imprisonment for a woman.
(154)
Not only was this a grievous hardship, by depriving the oppressed of all
hope of relief, but it was a fatal error for, if the discontented had been
allowed to expatriate themselves, the remainder could have commanded better
treatment, and the Morisco question which, for half a century, distracted
Spanish statesmanship, might have settled itself without the desperate
expedient of expulsion.
Disarmament was another
precaution entailing a grievance which was keenly felt. We have seen it
in Granada, and that in Valencia it was a prudent preliminary to enforced
baptism in 1525. In the Concordia of 1528, the Moriscos asked that their
arms be restored to them, and were told that they would be treated as Old
Christians. This promise, like the rest, was broken. The pragmática
of 1541, among its other restrictions, included that of bearing arms. This
was not enforced and, in 1545, orders were sent to carry it into effect,
but the methods suggested show that it was regarded as a dangerous business,
and the purpose was abandoned. In 1552, St. Thomas of Vilanova urged that
it should be done, and so did Inquisitor Miranda in 1561. Finally, in 1563,
the work was done by a sudden simultaneous action of the lords, when the
inventories compiled show that, in 16,377 Morisco houses, there were seized
14,930 swords, 3,454 cross-bows and a long list of other weapons, indicating
how industriously the Moriscos had provided themselves.
(155)
[379] In Aragon,
the matter was confided to the Inquisition. The tribunal of Saragossa issued
a decree, November 4,1559, forbidding the Moriscos from carrying arms,
but the nobles appealed to the Suprema and procured its indefinite suspension.
(156) The question
was revived, in 1590, but a quarrel with the archbishop on a point of precedence
delayed its consideration, and then the troubles of Antonio Perez distracted
attention. Finally, in 1593, Philip II ordered the disarmament, the execution
of which was entrusted to the tribunal. Two inquisitors traversed the land
and collected 7,076 swords, 3,783 arquebuses, 489 cross-bows, 1,356 pikes,
lances and halberds and large numbers of other weapons. Knives were permitted,
but these increased in size until they became formidable; after two or
three officials of the Inquisition had been killed with them when making
arrests, a royal edict of 1603 limited them to a third of an ell in length
and required them to be pointless. (157)
The result of these precautions was seen when the edict of expulsion was
enforced and the desperate wretches who essayed a hopeless resistance were
slaughtered.
The growth of the absurd
cult of limpieza brought another hardship of no little moment. At first
there was a disposition to exempt Moriscos from its exclusiveness. When,
in 1565, Philip II was trying conciliation he ordered that leading and
influential Moriscos should be appointed as familiars, and we have seen
that Inquisitor Miranda gave commissions to the brothers Abenamir. Paul
IV forbade admission to holy orders to the descendants of Jews to the fourth
generation and, in 1573, Gregory XIII extended this to the Moriscos, but
the Córtes of Monzon, in 1564, had decreed that those trained in
the Morisco college of Valencia should be allowed to hold benefices and
the cure of souls among their people, and we are told that it graduated
some good priests and preachers and doctors of theology.
(158) Yet in time
the exclusion became general, and throughout Spain no distinction was made
between descendants of Jews and Mudéjares. In a land where a career
in office, secular or ecclesiastical, was the ambition of every man who
had a smattering of education, this barrier condemned to obscurity [380]
able men who naturally devoted their energies to stimulating disaffection
and provoking revolt. Navarrete, as we have seen, even thinks that the
necessity of the expulsion would have been averted but for this; that the
Moriscos could have been Christianized, if they had had the opportunity
to identify themselves with the nation and to share in its public life,
in place of being driven to desperation and to hatred of religion by the
indelible stigma imposed upon them. (159)
The baptism of Morisco children
furnished a perpetual source of irritation. Rigid regulations were prescribed
to ensure the administration of the sacrament, as it was essential to their
salvation and to rendering them subject to inquisitorial jurisdiction.
No Morisco woman was allowed to act as midwife, but in every village there
was a Christian midwife, carefully selected and instructed. She kept watch
on all pregnant women, under a fine of a hundred reales for every case
she missed. After putting the infant to the breast, her first duty was
to notify the priest and alguazil, after which she was not to leave the
bed-side save for indispensable household duties. The baptism was performed
the same day or the next, and careful registers were kept, so that identification
could be secured. There is doubtless truth in the universal assertion that,
on returning home, the father scraped and washed the spots touched by the
chrism, in the belief that he thereby effaced the sacrament.
(160)
Marriage was the source
of infinite trouble. The Church had prohibited unions within the fourth
degree of kinship and, by inventing spiritual affinity, it had complicated
and enlarged the incestuous area while, by assuming for the pope the profitable
power of selling dispensations, it admitted that the restriction was purely
artificial. Among the Moors, marriage between first cousins was permitted
and, as the Moriscos dwelt confined in their Morerías, or in small,
isolated villages, without power to change domicile, intermarriage throughout
generations had created such complexity of relationship that unions lawful
under the canon law must have been exceptional. We have seen the question
raised in the Concordia of 1528, with the result that existing marriages
and betrothals were dispensed for, but that future ones [381] must
conform to the canons. This was a virtual impossibility; the rectors sought
to make their subjects purchase dispensations, but we are told that they
rarely did so; that, in some places, they merely told the lord that the
parties were of kin and that, if he made no objection, the marriage would
take place--an indifference for which more than one noble was prosecuted
and publicly penanced. (161)
Under such circumstances, there could have been no Christian marriage-rites,
and the union was legally pure concubinage, or at best clandestine marriage,
which the Council of Trent, in 1563, pronounced invalid.
(162) It was probably
the conciliar definitions that induced the Córtes of Monzon, in
1564, to petition that facilities should be afforded for obtaining dispensations
from the Commissioner of the Santa Cruzada, who possessed the requisite
faculties, and further that the offspring of such unions should be legally
legitimate. To this not unreasonable request the bishops of the Council
of Valencia, in 1565, replied by threatening excommunication and other
penalties on all marrying within the prohibited degrees, and on all concerned
in evasions of the canons. (163)
The matter was universally
admitted to be of supreme importance, but it was treated with the customary
negligence and procrastination. At length, in 1587, Philip II represented
it to Sixtus V, but he only obtained a brief, January 25, 1588, granting
to the Valencia bishops, for six months only, faculties to validate such
marriages, legitimate the children and absolve the parents in utroque
foro, with salutary penance, for all of which no fees were to be exacted.
It is not likely that the officials took much interest in performing this
gratuitous labor, or that the Moriscos, even if they chanced to hear of
the brief, exposed themselves to the annoyances which it entailed. The
last recorded action in the matter is that Philip, in 1595, resolved to
apply for another brief of the same nature. He doubtless obtained it with
the same nugatory result. (164)
The Moorish rule, to eat
no meat slaughtered by the uncircumcised, was made the pretext for some
troublesome intermeddling. In the Granada decree of 1526, Charles V forbade
all slaughtering by Moriscos, in places where there was an Old Christian;
where [382] there was none, the priest was to designate a person
to perform the office. (165)
Little attention appears to have been paid to the matter, until Archbishop
Ribera issued an edict prohibiting Moriscos from eating meat that had not
been slaughtered by an Old Christian. This was trespassing on the jurisdiction
of the Inquisition and, in 1579, the Suprema called upon the Valencia tribunal
for a report, including what Bishop Gallo of Orihuela had done with regard
to the same matter. The tribunal replied that the edict was obeyed, but
that the Moriscos would eat no meat slaughtered by Old Christians, except
in a few places, under compulsion by their lords. The edict ought to be
perpetuated, for the refusal to eat the meat of a Christian butcher was
proof of suspicion, requiring prosecution by the Inquisition. In Orihuela
there was doubt whether a cow killed at Aspe had been properly slaughtered;
the Moriscos refused to eat of it, for which the Murcia tribunal punished
a number of them, leading Bishop Gallo to order that, at Aspe and Nobelda,
the butchering should be done by Old Christians. It was probably this which
led to general legislation forbidding Moriscos to follow the trade of butchers,
or even to kill a fowl for a sick man, a law repeated as late as 1595.
(166)
Subjected to the perpetual
exasperation of interference with their habits and customs, to the oppression
of their lords and the persecution of the Inquisition, denied all opportunity
to rise in the social scale, forbidden to enjoy the faith of their ancestors,
while sedulously trained to hate the religion imposed on them, and despairing
of relief in the future, it is no wonder that the Moriscos were discontented
subjects, eager to throw off the insupportable yoke and to rise against
their oppressors. They were, however, but little more than half a million
of souls, weaponless and untrained, in a population of eight or ten millions--a
negligible quantity in the vigorous days of Ferdinand and even in the earlier
years of Charles V. The Spanish monarchy, however, had squandered its strength
on distant enterprises; even before the fearful drain in the Netherlands,
the exhaustive effort required to crush the Moriscos of Granada showed
that it was already [383] bankrupt in resources. That episode was
a warning which Spanish statesmanship might well take to heart, and, year
by year, the fear grew greater of what might be the fate of Spain if internal
enemies should unite with external.
There had long been a source
of humiliation and annoyance, though not in itself of danger, in the ravages
of Moorish corsairs along the southern coast, for which the Moriscos were
held responsible. Undoubtedly they aided by conveying information, maintaining
relations with Barbary, and availing themselves of the razzias to escape
thither when they could, but the primary fault lay in the incredible fatuity
of a policy, so preoccupied with foreign ambitions and the fatal Burgundian
inheritance, that it neglected the protection of the Spanish shores, until
it became a proverb that these were the Indies of the Turkish and Moorish
sea-rovers.
Complaints of these ravages
commence with the Christianization of Granada and continue uninterruptedly
for more than a century, while the measures to guard against these attacks
were spasmodic and miserably insufficient. Boronat gives a list of thirty-three
descents, between 1528 and 1584, but this cannot include the innumerable
landings from small vessels to carry away bands of Moriscos and such pillage
as could hastily be gathered--little raids such as that picturesquely described
by Cervantes, with its characteristic feature of the fortified church,
in which the Christians of the sea-coast village defended themselves, while
the Moriscos eagerly hurried to embark. (167)
In the larger expeditions, the Moriscos sometimes escaped in considerable
numbers. In 1559, Dragut carried off twenty-five hundred; in 1570, all
those of Palmera were taken; in 1584, an Algerine fleet removed twenty-three
hundred, and the next year another fleet took away the whole population
of Callosa, all of which was exceedingly damaging to the lords who lost
their vassals. (168)
These raids were practically
unresisted and unavenged, for the coasts were unguarded by land or sea.
Occasionally, as in 1519, we hear of a few hundred troops sent, when news
was received of an expected hostile fleet: sometimes there were negotiations
between the central government and the exposed provinces to maintain [384]
a force on the water, but the inadequacy of these precautions is illustrated
by the bargaining in 1547, when the Catalan Córtes complained of
the irreparable damage inflicted by the Moorish corsairs and asked that
six of the Castilian galleys be sent to winter there. Prince Philip would
only promise that he would do what was suitable, which brought an offer
that Catalonia would equip and man one galley while Valencia promised one
or two, and Philip acceded to the request that the Castilian galleys should
cooperate with them. (169)
Another expedient was based on the assumed collusion of the Moriscos with
the corsairs, and it seemed easier to exclude them wholly from the coast
than to guard it effectually. As early as 1507 Ferdinand undertook to depopulate
it from Gibraltar to Almería, but the experiment proved a failure.
(170)
It was tried again repeatedly, in various savage laws to prevent Moriscos
from travelling within prescribed distances from the sea, and from holding
communication with the corsairs, but this naturally effected nothing.
(171)
In 1604, the Córtes of Valencia even proposed to enlist the cooperation
of the Moriscos, by suggesting that they should redeem all Christians captured
and enslaved on the Valencian coast, in return for which the rigor of the
Inquisition should be relaxed and their evidence against each other should
not be required, but it is needless to say that the plan was rejected.
(172)
While this matter of the
corsairs was comparatively trivial in itself, it bore a disproportionately
large share in the discussions on the Morisco question, and undoubtedly
had its influence on the final decision. The result, indeed, showed that
there was a connection between the Moriscos and the corsairs, for one of
the benefits derived from the expulsion was relief to the coasts.
(173)Vastly
greater, however, in the eyes of statesmen, was the impending danger of
rebellion, coincident with attack from Barbary or from the Turk or, in
later years, from France.
When Philip II returned
to Spain, in 1559, he called for a report on the Moriscos, and the information
submitted to him comprised an account of a plot with the Turks for an invasion.
(177)
In 1565, a number of arrests were made on charges of treasonable correspondence
with the Turk, and it was public rumor that thirty thousand Moriscos were
enrolled, awaiting only the capture of Malta to rise in aid of an invasion.
The French ambassador, who reported this, subsequently added that the story
of the conspiracy was contradicted, but the Moriscos were so badly treated
by the Inquisition that despair might readily lead them to rise in arms
to aid the Turk. (178)
In 1567, the trial of Gerónimo Roldan, by the Valencia tribunal,
revealed evidence of envoys from the ruler of Algiers with a letter urging
the Moriscos to rise, together with plans to organize and arm them.
(179) It is
true that the rebellion of Granada showed that there was no such eagerness
to invade Spain as was apprehended, but, on the other hand if, with the
aid of five or six hundred Moors and Turks, the insurgents [386]
had taxed to the utmost the power of the kingdom, what was the prospect
if a powerful fleet, holding command of the sea, should land a heavy force
of trained and well-armed fighting men? During the rebellion, the Venetian
envoy, Sigismondo Cavalli, pointed out that assistance from Barbary would
involve the kingdom in the greatest straits, for there were about six hundred
thousand Moriscos to help an invader. So, in 1575, Lorenzo Priuli, estimating
them at four hundred thousand, described them as the source of perpetual
danger. (180)
The peril constantly increased with time. It was universally recognized
that, through the drain to the colonies, the external wars, and the growth
of the celibate clergy, the Old Christians were constantly diminishing
in numbers, while the Moriscos were rapidly increasing; the material and
especially the military resources of Spain were becoming gradually exhausted,
and Spanish statesmen looked forward anxiously to the time when, as Fray
Bleda tells us, the Moriscos hoped eventually, to reconquer the land with
the aid of the Moors and Turks. (181)
Nor was this all for, with
the pacification of France under the able control of Henry IV, there loomed
before them a new and more dangerous enemy. Henry had a long debt of vengeance
to pay, and was but awaiting his opportunity. He was in alliance with the
Turk and had no conscientious scruple as to Moslem aid. Even as early as
1583, while as yet he was only King of Navarre, there was a scare over
an asserted combination between him and the Turk, for an invasion in combination
with the Moriscos, which led the Suprema, in January, 1584, to order from
the Saragossa tribunal a report on all the evidence in the records as to
plots for rebellion. (182)
This was furnished in detail and shows the incessant vigilance and constant
anxieties, since 1565, to which the disaffection of the Moriscos had given
rise, and their correspondence not only with the Barbary States and the
Turk, but with the French Huguenots. A portion of the evidence was undoubtedly
manufactured by the spies in the pay of the Inquisition, but there was
enough of genuine to show that plots and intrigues were constantly on foot
among the Moriscos. Henry [387] IV was quite ready to utilize their
disaffection in furtherance of his plans for the overthrow of the Spanish
monarchy and, in 1602, he entered into negotiations with them, through
the Marshal Duke de la Force, his governor in Béarn and Navarre.
They promised to raise eighty thousand men and to deliver three cities,
one of them a seaport and, as an earnest of their resolve, they paid to
la Force, at Pau, in 1604 or 1605, a hundred and twenty thousand ducats,
but Henry decided that the moment was not favorable and the plan was postponed.
(183)
This scare passed away;
Muley Cidan rejected the Morisco overtures, and Ahmed sent his fleet against
the coasts of Italy. The impression remained, however; the final impulsion
had been given, and thenceforth the expulsion of the Moriscos was only
a question of means and opportunity. Its execution can scarce be said to
have been premature for, although those of Valencia were deported in the
autumn of 1609 and those of Aragon in the spring of 1610, Henry IV still
relied on those who were left to aid him in his plans for the destruction
of Spain. A part of his design was an invasion by la Force with ten thousand
men, trusting to the cooperation of the Moriscos, with whom negotiations
had been resumed. La Force was in consultation with him, and was in his
carriage on May 14, 1610, when, in the Rue de la Ferronerie, the knife
of Ravaillac gave Spain a respite. (185)It
was evidently [388] supposed that the expulsion had been imperfect
and that Spain was still an easy prey. The Baron de Salignac, French Ambassador
at Constantinople, wrote to Henry, May 2, 1610, that no matter how many
Moriscos had been banished, enough remained to give the Spaniards trouble;
war that elsewhere could cost a crown would not there cost a maravedí,
and when it should begin Spain would find it more difficult to raise a
maravedí than it would be to raise a doubloon elsewhere.
(186)
As events turned out, these were vain speculations, but they have interest
as showing how, in the estimation of her enemies, Spain had fatally crippled
herself by the mismanagement of her Morisco subjects. To the Spanish statesmen
of the time the situation had become one from which extrication was imperative
at whatever cost.
It can readily be believed
that the matter had long before awakened the earnest solicitude of Philip
II and his counsellors. As early as 1581, when in Lisbon consolidating
his rule over Portugal, he formed a junta of his chief advisers to formulate
a definite conclusion. That which they reached was the merciful one of
sending to sea all the Moriscos who would not be catechised or did not
desire to remain, embarking them on worthless ships which were to be scuttled,
for it was deemed unwise to add to the population of Africa; it was resolved
that, when the fleet returned from the Azores, the plan should be executed
by Antonio de Leyva but, when the fleet arrived, it was wanted in Flanders,
and the project was abandoned. When, in 1602, Philip III was informed of
this, he expressed his pleasure because it justified what was then in contemplation.
(187)
As Fray Diego de Chaves,
confessor of Philip II, was a member of the junta, there could have been
no conscientious scruples concerning this wholesale murder. The Church
for centuries had taught that death was the penalty for heresy; this was
past discussion and was accepted as a matter of course, so that anything
short of it was a grace undeserved--slavery, the galleys, the mines, castration,
were mercies for which the culprits should feel grateful. So all theologians
taught and so Fray Bleda learnedly set forth in his hideous book, the Defensio
Fidei, which was approved in Rome after careful examination, and was printed
at the [389] expense of Philip III. (188)
Yet, for the honor of humanity, it must be said that there were a few rare
souls who held that religion should be spread by love and charity--at least
we may so assume from a memorial presented to the Lisbon junta, setting
forth that the proper means of conversion had never yet been tried; that
the cure had failed through the use of violence, for the disease was not
incurable and the fault lay in the methods adopted; Christ had sent forth
the apostles to convert the world by preaching the gospel, and the effort
should be to find teachers of exemplary life, who would preach with love
and gentleness. The memorial recited calmly and temperately the mistakes
that had been made in the use of coercion and the absence of instruction
and persuasion, and it proposed a series of measures which show that the
writer was familiar with the difficultes of the task, the essential condition
of which was that those entrusted with it should persuade themselves that
it was not impossible. The junta contented itself with proposing that,
if the king so desired, the memorial could be sent to the prelates of Valencia,
Aragon and Granada, for examination and report. It seems to have been so
sent, but only two answers are on record. Archbishop Ribera replied with
the alternative of immediate expulsion or, what would be better, thinning
out the Moriscos by appointing a body of special inquisitors, who should
execute speedy justice, until there should be so few left that they could
be expelled without trouble, thus calmly proposing to burn men and women
by the hundred thousand. A shade less ferocious was the suggestion of the
Inquisitor of Valencia, Ximenez de Reynoso, who favored expulsion to Newfoundland,
under the guard of soldiers, who should receive allotments of land and
vassals, similar to those of the conquistadores in the New World.
(189)
Such an expulsion averted the danger of increasing the African population
and was recommended, with a characteristically savage addition, by Martin
de Salvatierra, Bishop of Segorbe, when, in 1587, his advice was sought
by Philip. He responded by a long and brutal attack on the Moriscos, and
suggested deportation to Newfoundland, where they would speedily [390]
perish, especially if the precaution were taken of castrating all the males,
old and young. (190)
It is to the credit of Philip
II and his counsellors that, after the failure of the Lisbon project of
1581, they refused to entertain the inhuman suggestions of their ecclesiastical
advisers. The matter continued to be threshed out, over and over again,
in repeated juntas and councils, in innumerable consultas, and in the system,
which Philip had reduced to perfection, of endless talking and writing,
which served as an excuse for inaction. One device after another was discussed,
such as reducing all the Moriscos to slavery, or sending the able-bodied
to the galleys, but the idea of expulsion gradually forged to the front.
In this confused tangle of prejudice, passion and fanaticism, it is refreshing
to meet with a more statesmanlike view, expressed in a letter of the royal
secretary, Francisco de Idiaquez, October 3, 1594, concerning a paper,
submitted to him by the king, from some zealous but unpractical person,
who argued that the existing scarcity arose from overpopulation, which
would be relieved by the expulsion of the Moriscos. So far from this being
the case, said Idiaquez, Spain had less inhabitants than for the last two
or three centuries. If the presence of this vile race were as safe as it
was profitable, there was not a corner of land that should not be placed
in their hands, for they alone would bring fertility and plenty by their
skill and thrift, which would reduce the price of provisions and with them
that of other products. Cheapness was not caused by scanty population but
by dense, if the people would work; the high prices were the result of
the vice, the idleness, the luxury and the excessive superfluities indulged
in by all classes. (191)
This was too sensible and
humane to suit the ecclesiastics, who were bent on getting rid of the obnoxious
apostates by expulsion or extermination, and Spain was not to be allowed
so easy a solution of the difficulties created by a century of fanaticism
and wrong-doing. In the irresolute and vacillating policy of the court,
a final effort was made, as we have seen, to conciliate and instruct, in
the Edict of Grace of 1599, under conditions that rendered it nugatory.
Its failure, in 1601, was followed by the memorials of Archbishop Ribera
urging expulsion, and any subsequent efforts to convert, such as a junta
of bishops held in 1608 and 1609, were merely to keep the Moriscos amused
and in ignorance of the more drastic measures proposed, during the years
in which Philip III and his advisers discussed and rediscussed the question,
pondered over details and avoided an irrevocable decision.
When, under pressure of
the alarm about Muley Cidan, Philip called upon his Council of State for
an immediate decision, it admitted that there had been too much delay and
that the matter must not be left for the next generation, for the Christians,
through wars and religion and dissolute lives, were constantly diminishing
in numbers, while the Moriscos, through peace and frugality, were multiplying
until in time they would be the majority. The alternatives of massacre
or slavery, or the galleys, or allowing the discontented to emigrate were
barely alluded to, and expulsion was in the minds of all. The external
relations of Spain rendered the opportunity propitious and it ought not
to be wasted. The work should commence with Valencia, which was the most
dangerous [392] centre, and the other kingdoms could be kept quiet
with assurances that the expulsion was not to go further. The opposition
of the nobles could be bought off by granting them the real and personal
property of their vassals, and preparations should be made to have a powerful
fleet off the coast by the end of Spring, and sufficient forces on land
to crush resistance. As the Inquisition was in the habit of making many
arrests, it could readily seize the influential Moriscos, so as to deprive
the rest of their leadership. This sketched out the plan eventually followed,
and the only partially dissentient voice was that of the royal confessor,
Cardinal Fray Gerónimo Xavierr, who pleaded the forcible baptism
and the futile endeavors to instruct by ministers, many of whom were of
lives so depraved that they wrought harm by their evil example; he asked
that efforts to convert should continue and if, by the time set for expulsion,
there was no prospect of improvement, the proposed rigor would be justified.
A process could then be formed by the Inquisition as to their apostasy,
when they could be condemned for treason against God, or, if rebellion
were proved, for treason against the king. (195)
This last suggestion refers
to a characteristic scruple. Ribera had alluded to it in his second memorial,
to the effect that expulsion would be an invasion of ecclesiastical jurisdiction,
depriving it of inflicting the canonical punishments, but this, he suggested,
could be removed by application to the pope. (196)
It was doubtless in view of this scruple, and to avoid interference by
the Inquisition, which was interested in maintaining the existing situation,
that the edict of expulsion represented the measure as purely secular,
caused by the treasonable correspondence of the Moriscos with the enemies
of Spain, and by the necessity of placating God for their heresies.
(197)
Still there were irresolution
and delay, and the die was not cast until, in April, 1609, the Council
of State presented a consulta unanimously agreeing on expulsion and virtually
determining that the work should commence in autumn, the interval being
employed in organizing the militia, bringing troops from Italy, and assembling
squadrons to command the coast. Early in May orders were sent to the viceroys
of Sicily, Naples and Milan to [393] have the galleys in readiness
and, at the end of June, the squadrons were instructed to rendezvous at
Majorca on August 15th. Even after this there were evidences of hesitation
and vacillation, but the plan was adhered to. (198)
Early in August, Don Agustín
de Mexia, an officer of high rank, who had distinguished himself at the
siege of Ostend, was sent to Valencia, ostensibly to inspect the fortifications,
but armed with full powers to carry out the expulsion. He bore a letter
from the king to Ribera, expatiating on the influence which the latter
had had in leading him to a decision. Ribera had obtained more than he
had bargained for. His somewhat selfish theory had been that, by expelling
the Moriscos from the rest of Spain, those of Valencia and Aragon could
be controlled, and he shrank from the loss and misery to be inflicted on
his immediate surroundings. As late as December 19, 1608, he had urged
this view in a letter to the royal secretary, arguing that they were an
injury to Castile and Andalusia, while their removal would be ruin to Valencia
and Aragon, now the most flourishing kingdoms of Spain. The larger cities,
he said, lived on the provisions brought by the Moriscos; the churches,
hospitals, monasteries, brotherhoods, pious bequests, nobles, gentry and
citizens depended on their services and were supported by the censos charged
on their communities; he often wished to die rather than to witness such
destruction. (199)So,
when Mexia reached Valencia, August 20th, and, after conference with the
Viceroy Caracena, Ribera was sent for and read the royal letter, he repeated
these arguments and proposed that all three should join in appeal to the
king to commence with Andalusia. When the conference ended at 4 p.m., he
was still firm and was told that a courier for Madrid would start at midnight
when he could write what he saw fit. On reflection he concluded that the
king wanted obedience, not advice, and he sent to the palace, in time for
the courier, a letter to the king, and word to Mexia and Caracena, setting
forth that the royal resolution came from heaven and he would further it
with all his power. Still, he could not reconcile himself to the prospect
of poverty. On August 23d he wrote to Secretary de Prada repeating his
urgency that commencement be made with Castile and Andalusia and, on September
3d, he said to Fray Bleda and the Dominican [394] Prior Alcocer
"Padres, we may well in the future have to eat bread and herbs and to mend
our own shoes." (200)
The secret had been admirably
kept, but the mission of Mexia on a duty so incompatible with his rank
caused suspicions which grew from day to day. The Moriscos commenced to
fortify their houses, to cease laboring and bringing provisions to the
city, which suffered in consequence; the nobles brought their families
to town to be prepared for the worst, and Ribera's action in increasing
his guard and laying in stores of victuals increased the excitement. The
Estamento Militar, or House of Nobles, held two or three stormy
meetings, in which it was resolved to send a deputation to the king to
represent the ruin which expulsion would bring upon every class in the
kingdom, where eleven millions of ducats were invested in the censos charged
on the Morisco communities. The envoys went but, when they reached Madrid,
they were told by the king that it was too late, for the edict had been
already published in Valencia. (201)
Everything, in fact, had
worked with precision. By September 17th the fleet, consisting of sixty-two
galleys and fourteen galleons, conveying about eight thousand disciplined
troops, had reached their stations at Alicante, Denia and the Alfaques
de Tortosa, and had commenced landing the men. Possession was taken of
the Sierra de Espadan, while Castilian cavalry guarded the frontiers. When
all was in readiness, royal letters to the Jurados, Diputados and Estamento
Militar were read and, on the 22d, the edict was published.
The comparative liberality
of the terms and the short notice allowed manifest the sense of weakened
power. Under irremissible pain of death, within three days after publication
in the several towns and villages, all Moriscos were to depart for the
port of embarkation designated by a commissioner. They could take such
portable property as they could carry on their backs; they would find vessels
ready to carry them to Barbary and would be fed on the voyage. During the
three days all must remain at home awaiting the orders of the commissioners
and, after that, any one absent from his domicile could be robbed by the
first comer and carried to a magistrate or be slain if offering resistance.
As the king gave to the lords all real and personal property not [395]
carried off, any firing of houses or harvests or hiding of portable things
would be punished by putting to death all the inhabitants of the place.
In order to preserve the houses, the sugar mills, the rice crop and the
irrigating canals, six per cent, of the Moriscos were allowed to remain.
The same permission was given to those who, for two years, had lived among
Christians without attending the meetings of the aljamas, as well as those
admitted to communion by their priests. Children under four years of age
desiring to stay could do so, with consent of parents or guardians. Children
under six, whose fathers were Old Christians, were to stay, together with
their Morisco mothers: if the father was a Morisco and the mother an Old
Christian, he was to go and children under six were to stay with their
mother. Sheltering fugitives was forbidden, under pain of six years of
galleys, and all soldiers and Old Christians were strictly forbidden to
insult or injure Moriscos by word or deed. As an evidence of good faith,
after every instalment had been carried to Barbary, ten were allowed to
return and report to their fellows what their treatment had been.
(202)
The publication was followed
by days of anxious suspense. The people, we are told, rejoiced, for they
hated both the Moriscos and the nobles, and there were symptoms of a rising
against the latter. The lords grieved over the ruin of their lands and
the religious communities over the loss of their enormous investments in
censos. The Moriscos at first were inclined to resist and, after vainly
offering large sums to the viceroy, they sought to arm themselves by forging
ploughshares and reaping-hooks into pikes, which with slings were their
only weapons. (203)
Then suddenly their purpose changed. They were awed by the large bodies
of disciplined troops and by the cavalry on the border. A meeting was held
of their alfaquíes and leaders, in which it was agreed that resistance
was hopeless and that, in case of defeat, their children would be brought
up as Christians, while prophecies were talked of which promised an unexpected
blessing. Consequently it was resolved that all should go, including the
six per cent, allowed to remain, and that any one who stayed should be
regarded as an apostate. This had such an effect that those who had been
offering large sums to be included in the six per cent, now refused to
stay, although asked to name their own terms. The Duke of [396]
Gandía, who had an enormous sugar crop and who could get no other
skilled labor to work his mills, vainly offered whatever they might ask.
The only condition they would accept was the free exercise of their religion;
the Duke applied to the viceroy, but Ribera declared it to be a concession
beyond the power of king or pope to grant, for they were baptized.
(204)
The nobles, for the most
part, loyally accepted the situation and aided in the execution of the
decree. The Duke of Gandía who, next to the Duke of Segorbe, had
the largest number of vassals, wrote to. the king, October 9th, that on
September 28th the Marquis of Santa Cruz had embarked for him five thousand
of them, whom he desired to be the first, in order to quiet the apprehensions
of the rest as to the safety of the voyage. To protect and reassure their
vassals, a number of the nobles--the Duke of Gandía, the Marquis
of Albaida and others--accompanied them and saw them safely on shipboard,
and the Duke of Maqueda even sailed with them to Oran, the point of debarkation.
(205) All, however,
were not thus self-sacrificing. Bishop Balaguer of Orihuela reported, October
31st, that some were retaining their vassals by threats or by force, and
that, unless energetic commissioners were sent, many would be kept.
(206)
The Moriscos objected to
abandoning their personal effects to their lords and sought to convert
what they possessed into money. Gandía and some others permitted
this, but many insisted on their rights and, on October 1st, the viceroy
issued a proclamation forbidding all sales, but this led to imminent danger
of rebellion and was wisely abandoned. The land became a universal fair
in which stock, produce and household gear were sold at a fraction of their
value, and finally were given away. The Grao or port of Valencia, while
the exiles were awaiting fair winds, became a bazaar, in which exquisite
Moorish garments, rare embroideries, rich gold and silver laces and the
like were bought for a song. (207)
As soon as the first shock
was over, of abandoning home and possessions, the prospect of reaching
a land, where they could openly [397] profess their faith and escape
paralyzing oppression, stimulated them to intense eagerness to leave Spain.
They contended for places in the first embarkation, and the commissioners
had no trouble in assembling and leading them to the designated ports.
Troops escorted them to protect them from the savage greed of the Old Christians,
who gathered in bands, robbing and often murdering those whom they encountered.
Royal edicts commanding swift justice were issued, gallows were erected
along the roadsides and executions were numerous, but it was impossible
to prevent outrages. In spite of this the Moriscos pressed forward to the
shores. At Alicante they came with music and song, thanking Allah for the
happiness of returning to the land of their fathers, which suggests how
simple a solution of the question it would have been to permit the emigration
of the discontented. Many, indeed, distrusting the royal faith, preferred
to charter ships and pay for transportation, which was encouraged by providing
elaborate regulations to ensure, as far as possible, their safe passage
and fair treatment. All the Spanish ports were ordered to send their ships
to the Valencia coast, even discharging those which were loaded, and all
arrivals were pressed into service. Seeing this eagerness, the promise
of free passage was broken after the first embarkation, and the royal galleys
charged the same fare as the private vessels--seventy-five reales per head
for all over sixteen and thirty-five for those younger. In all there were
three embarkations, occupying about three months and including, according
to lists kept at the ports, over a hundred and fifty thousand souls.
(208)
This eagerness to go was,
however, not universal. There were many who, not unreasonably, felt little
confidence in the royal faith and preferred the chances of resistance.
Gathering into bands they sought refuge in two easily defensible positions,
one on a peak in the Val del Aguar, where their numbers were reckoned at
from fifteen to twenty-five thousand, and the other in the Muela de Córtes,
where there were said to be nine thousand. Mexia paid no attention to them,
until the business of embarkation [398] was nearly concluded, when
they were readily reduced. In the Val del Aguar it was a massacre of the
weaponless wretches, rather than a battle; three thousand Moriscos were
slain and only one Spaniard, Bautista Crespo, who was killed by his own
firelock. The survivors, starved, frozen and dying with thirst, surrendered
at discretion, November 28th, and were conducted to the port of embarkation,
but many perished of exhaustion on the road and many women and children
were stolen by the soldiers and sold as slaves, while of those who embarked
but few reached Africa. At the Muela de Córtes they surrendered
on promise of safety to life and property, provided they embarked within
three days, but the soldiery, disappointed at the loss of expected booty,
fell upon them. Only three thousand were brought to the sea-ports, and
more than two thousand scattered among the mountains, where for a year
or two they gave much trouble. They had elected as king Vicente Turixi,
who was tracked to a cave and brought to Valencia, where he was put to
a cruel death, December 18th. He died as a good Christian and made a most
edifying end, for we are told that he had been a most liberal almsgiver
and was devoted to the Virgin and to the religious Orders.
(209) This ended the only open resistance to the expulsion throughout
Spain.
The unexpected ease of the
affair in Valencia, regarded as the most dangerous district, quickened
the preparations for the other kingdoms. Thus far it had been represented
as confined exclusively to Valencia, but the rest felt that their turn
was to come, and remonstrances were showered upon the government, which
met them with equivocating denials and assurances. The mask was gradually
thrown off. Towards the end of October the Marquis of San German was sent
to Seville to prepare for the expulsion from Murcia, Granada and Andalusia.
Murcia succeeded in obtaining a suspension of the decree, which was published
for the other provinces on January 12, 1610, after the galleys and troops
had been brought from Valencia. It gave the exiles thirty days--subsequently
reduced to twenty--after which they were threatened with death and confiscation
without trial or sentence. Their lands were confiscated to the king, for
the service of God and the public, but they were allowed to sell movable
property and carry away the proceeds in merchandise bought of Spanish subjects,
but were forbidden to take bills of exchange, jewels, bullion [399]
or money, beyond what was needed for transportation. They could take their
children with them, provided they went to Christian lands, which led many
to charter vessels, ostensibly for France, but in reality for Africa. In
spite of the reports of the cruelties perpetrated in Algiers on the Valencia
exiles, they are said to have gone with cheerfulness, and many of them
sought Morocco. By April, Andalusia was reported clear of Moriscos and
that a few remained on the coast of Granada, waiting for vessels. The whole
number was estimated at from eighty to a hundred thousand, besides twenty
thousand who had voluntarily gone in advance. They were reported to have
carried much wealth with them, which is not improbable, as many, especially
those of Seville, were rich and prosperous and held positions of honor.
A significant incident was the desire of Córdova to retain six per
cent, of them and, when this was refused, it petitioned for the retention
of two Morisco saddlers, for the encouragement of horsemanship, especially
as they were old and childless. Apparently there were no Spaniards capable
of making harness. (210)
Yet, at first, there were
some exceptions made. It had been represented to the king that there were
many descendants of Mudéjares, voluntarily converted prior to the
enforced baptism, who were Spaniards in dress, language and religion, including
many beatas and persons vowed to chastity. Accordingly an order
was issued, February 7, 1610, to the bishops to examine all such cases
and report to San German those whom they found worthy to be retained. This,
however, amounted only to a brief reprieve. Their cases were referred to
the Royal Council and those who did not, within the impossibly brief term
of thirty or sixty days, obtain favorable decisions were hunted like wild
beasts and forcibly carried off. (211)
Expulsion from Castile had
been resolved upon by the Council of State, September 15, 1609, but was
deferred to await the result in Valencia. In preparation, an attempt was
made in October to organize the militia, by enrolling one in five of the
able-bodied men--a measure twice attempted in vain by Philip II--but it
[400] met with resistance which forced its abandonment, for there
was no military ardor in Spain, even for local service. Then an enumeration
of the Moriscos was ordered which, in conjunction with events in Valencia,
aroused much excitement. Appeals to the court were unanswered, while orders
to the magistrates intended to quiet alarm, only increased it. Many commenced
to sell their lands, and this diminution of prospective confiscations was
met, towards the end of October, by prohibiting sales, but they were continued
under various devices. (212)
On November 3d, the Count
of Salazar was appointed to superintend the expulsion from Old and New
Castile, La Mancha and Extremadura. From their anxiety to sell their lands
he assumed that they mostly would go voluntarily, and he suggested the
granting of permission to emigrate. This was adopted, and a royal cédula
of December 28th allowed them to leave Spain within thirty days, under
the same conditions as those of Andalusia. Such multitudes arranged to
pass through Biscay into France that the term was extended for thirty days
and, on January 19, 1610, Salazar was sent to Burgos to register them and
issue certificates. Under this arrangement 16,713 persons, of 3,972 families
were registered up to May 1st, when intimations that further admissions
to France would be refused, turned the stream to Cartagena, where 10,642
embarked, nominally for Christian lands, in order to retain their children.
(213)
The prohibition to carry
money or jewels was naturally evaded as far as possible and, for infractions
of it, more than thirty were hanged at Burgos. There were also at hand
obliging Portuguese brokers, who undertook the transmission of the forbidden
valuables and who were detected and prosecuted. A safer conduit was found
through the French ambassador at Madrid, who received very large sums,
to be repaid in various French cities. His steward was despatched with
the documents, but the Spanish authorities were on the alert; he was arrested
at Buitrago and brought back to Madrid, whereupon the ambassador threatened
that, if the letters were opened, thereafter no Spanish courier should
pass through France without seizure of his papers. After an angry [401]
correspondence, the Spaniards yielded, and the steward was allowed to resume
his journey. (214)
Aragon and Catalonia were
next taken in hand. There had been much disquiet there, which the glozing
assurances from the court failed to allay. The Old Christians began to
maltreat the Moriscos, who ceased their labors and commenced to sell their
movables, while their creditors and holders of censos became alarmed and
proceeded to collect their claims with rigor. Envoys were sent to the king
from Aragon with an elaborate memorial detailing the enormous damage to
result from expulsion, and the impolicy of reducing the diminishing population
of Spain. Philip made fruitless efforts to prevent the mission from coming,
and when it came it was put off with reassuring generalities.
(215)
The edicts for Aragon and
Catalonia were the same as that for Valencia, except in two points. The
Catalan one retained children under seven years of age, whose parents were
going to infidel lands, which led them to make their way through France
to Barbary. The other exception, induced by the expense of the Valencia
expulsion, the cost of which had been swelled to eight hundred thousand
ducats, threw upon the exiles all the charges, not only of the journeys
and voyage, but the wages of the superintending officials and half a real
per head as export duty on what they carried with them, all of which amounted
to twenty-four reales at the Alfaques de Tortosa. The rich were required
to pay for the poor, and the commissioners were unmerciful in their exactions,
making them pay for the water in the brooks and the shade of the trees
in their long summer journeys, besides exacting from them as wages much
more than was due. (216)
The edicts were published
simultaneously, in Saragossa and Barcelona, on May 29, 1610. No resistance
was attempted, but there went up a cry of despair which moved even their
persecutors to compassion; they protested that they were Christians and
would die as such, even though torn to pieces, but it was too late for
[402] this, and they were led submissively in bands of from one
to four thousand souls, without guards, although they suffered severely
from the brigandage of the Old Christians. This apathy of despair was most
fortunate for Spain, as resistance would have been overcome with difficulty.
The troops, debarked at the Alfaques de Tortosa, had not been paid since
they left Italy; after vainly clamoring for their money, they disbanded,
leaving none but the officers, who were fain to gather together such raw
recruits as they could find. From Aragon the number of exiles was estimated
at seventy-five thousand and from Catalonia at fifty thousand.
(217)
France was inundated by
the emigration. Henry IV had anticipated it and, in February, had issued
an ordonnance permitting those who would profess the Catholic faith to
settle in the lands beyond the Garonne and Dordogne, while shipping should
be provided for those desiring to sail for Barbary.
(218)
Under this the immigration from Castile had been taken care of, but his
assassination in May threw everything into confusion, and there was no
preparation for the twenty or twenty-five thousand from Aragon, who passed
through Navarre, or sought to make their way over the mountains. La Force,
after some delay, arranged to admit them in bands of a thousand each, so
as not to oppress the population of the sterile district through which
they had to pass, and thus they struggled on towards Marseilles and other
ports where they hoped to find shipping. (219)
There was one body, of some
fourteen thousand souls, that was refused admission to France, after they
had reached Canfranc, the last Spanish town on the mountain road over the
Pyrenees. They had paid forty thousand ducats for permission to go to France,
besides the export duties on what they carried, and the expense of the
commissioners in charge of them. Forced to turn back on the long road to
the Alfaques, so many of them sickened and died in the summer heat that
it was feared that they would bring pestilence to the ships.
(220)
In short the story of the exodus from Aragon is one of heartless greed
and reckless inhumanity.
The dangers which had weighed
so heavily on Spanish statesmanship [403] were thus removed, but
fanaticism and race hatred were not yet satisfied, and it was resolved
to root out all traces of the old Moorish population. An edict of July
10, 1610, banished all Moriscos of Granada, Valencia and Aragon, who were
settled in the Castilian kingdoms, and this was followed, August 2d, by
a similar provision for the kingdoms of Aragon. These edicts exempted those
who had lived as good Christians, but this was a point difficult to establish,
and the claims under it were multitudinous and embarrassing. To save the
trouble of deciding them an end was put to the matter by banishing all
who had thus far been exempted, including even the Moriscos antiguos,
descendants of the old Mudéjares. This was effected by orders of
March 22d and May 3, 1611, to the corregidores, stating that it was for
the service of God and the kingdom that the matter be perfected, wherefore
all who had previously been exempted and all who, after expulsion, had
returned, were given two months to leave the kingdom, under the irrevocable
penalty of death and confiscation, the only exceptions being priests, nuns
and the wives of Old Christians with their children.
(221)
This final rooting-out gave
infinite trouble. There was often nothing to distinguish these Moriscos
from Old Christians, in language, dress or mode of life, and there was
no lack of persons to harbor them, whether from compassion or to have the
benefit of their services. Commissioners were sent to the different provinces
with instructions that no privileges or antiquity should avail them, while
the courts were expressly prohibited from interference; it was added, indeed,
that those who bore the reputation of Old Christians could appeal to the
king, but his representatives soon grew tired of the multitude of perplexing
cases thus thrust upon them. The number thus expelled was computed at about
six thousand, exclusive of young children, who were given to Old Christians
to bring up. The difficulty of effecting this final clearance was increased
by the number of exiles who persisted in returning, in spite of an edict
of September 12, 1612, which consigned them all to the galleys. The work
seemed endless and finally it was confided to the Count of Salazar. In
this he labored long and strenuously. At Almagro he found more than eight
hundred returned exiles, of whom he consigned some to the galleys, others
to the quicksilver mines of Almadén, and the rest he sent [404]
abroad at the expense of the magistrates, who had been remiss in detecting
and punishing them. His greatest trouble, we are told, lay in deciding
the numerous suits of those who claimed that they were not comprised in
the edicts and, to cut matters short, on October 26, 1613, he issued, in
the name of the king, an edict commanding all Moriscos to leave the kingdom
within fifteen days; any person receiving or harboring them was threatened
with confiscation and, as he included in this fiefs, castles, vassals and
royal grants, it shows that nobles were sheltering them. Finally a reward
of ten ducats was offered for information leading to the capture of a Morisco.
(222) In this
insane determination to purify the land of all trace of Moorish blood,
and in the confusion of the process, many Catholics as sincere as their
persecutors must have been consigned to infidel lands.
The time came at last for
the Moriscos of Murcia and the Val de Ricote to share the fate of their
brethren. Influence had been exercised to procure the suspension of the
edict of December 9, 1609, and of a subsequent one of October 8, 1611,
but, after the work was completed elsewhere, the Duke of Lerma and the
royal confessor, Fray Aliaga, sent investigators who of course reported
them to be Christians only in name. Lerma insisted, Philip yielded, and
a cédula of October 6,1613, ordered Salazar to enforce the edicts.
He was hurried from Madrid, November 20th, with instructions to lose no
time and, in January 1614, some fifteen thousand were deported, although
many old people and invalids were allowed to remain. Many women married
Old Christians in order to obtain exemption, and numerous husbands and
wives of honorable birth entered religion, to the great enrichment of the
monasteries, for which the bishops and the superiors of the Orders cheerfully
granted licence. Early in February, Salazar returned to Madrid with his
work accomplished, although some had escaped to Valencia and had returned
on being driven out from there. In 1615 Salazar reported that he had sent
his assistant Manrique to Murcia to complete the expulsion, but there were
still some Moriscos in Tarragona and the Balearic Isles, and he knew of
others in Sardinia and the Canaries. (223)
[405] For some years
yet the effort was continued to discover and eject those who were concealed
among the Old Christians--an effort complicated by the numbers who persisted
in returning after experiencing the inhospitable reception accorded to
them in Africa. They offered themselves as slaves to those who would receive
them, and in this manner many succeeded in remaining. To prevent this,
royal orders were repeatedly issued, but they were ineffective, and the
Royal Council at length grew tired of reiterating them, so that Bleda,
writing in 1618, deplores the fact that he would die without seeing his
land purified of this evil seed. Total purification, in fact, was impossible.
We are told that, in Valencia, La Mancha, and Granada, there are still
communities which in dress, customs and tendencies may be regarded as Moriscos
with scarce any trace of Christianity, and Padre Boronat ascribes to this
element the growth of modern scepticism and the mingled fanaticism and
superstition which afflict certain portions of Spain.
(224)
Yet, in spite of the sleepless
vigilance of the Inquisition, there were descendants of the Old Moriscos
who managed to preserve an organization for the perpetuation of their faith.
In 1727 such a one was discovered in Granada, so numerous that it furnished
forty-five reconciled in an auto of May 9,1728, followed by twenty-eight
more in that of October 10. They must have been wealthy, for the confiscations
proved so profitable that the Inquisition granted to the chief informer
and his heirs a perpetual pension of a hundred ducats.
(229)
Probably one of these Granadans, escaped to Jaén, was the Ana del
Castillo, condemned in the Córdova auto of March 4, 1731, as a herege
Mahometana, to reconciliation, confiscation and irremissible prison.
(230)
The latest allusions to these persistent Moriscos occurs in a report, in
1769, by the Inquisition to Carlos III, that it had verified the existence,
in Cartagena, of a mosque maintained by New Christians.
(231)
Details are lacking but, if there were prosecutions and convictions, they
may safely be assumed to be the last endured by Moriscos. In the complete
record of the operations of all the tribunals from 1780 to 1820, there
is not a single case of a Morisco and the only Mahometans are renegades.
(232)
Contemporary estimates of
the number of exiles vary from three hundred thousand to three millions,
and the statistics furnished are too fragmentary to admit of accurate computation.
(233)
In modern times Llórente assumes a total of a million, while Janer
estimates at the same figure the total Morisco population, of whom a hundred
thousand perished or were enslaved, leaving nine hundred [407] thousand
exiles. Vicente de la Fuente reduces the number to a hundred and twenty
thousand, while Danvila y Collado, after a careful comparison of all official
statistics,reaches an estimate of something under five hundred thousand
souls, which Padre Boro-nat accepts. (234)
This is probably somewhat under the mark. The nearest approach to a contemporary
official statement is that of Sebastiano Gigli, the Lucchese envoy, August
12, 1610, placing the number at six hundred thousand. This he doubtless
procured at head-quarters, for he adds that the ministers assured him that
it was much greater than they had foreseen. (235)
Considering how large had been the Mudejar population and its notorious
fecundity, these figures indicate how many had been Christianized and had
merged into the general mass. One cannot help concluding that with time
and reasonable treatment, there would have been no Morisco question to
perplex the statesmen of Spain.
The fate of the exiles parallelled
that of the Jews in 1492, and indeed was even worse, for they were banished
more precipitately, and were absolutely forbidden to return even as Christians.
They were thrust into the new and strange life before them under most unpromising
conditions, intensified by the inhumanity of their reception in the homes
which they sought. The transit to Africa in the royal ships was doubtless
safe enough, but the masters of the vessels chartered by them had no scruple
in robbing and murdering them, despite the regulations adopted for their
safety. Many who sailed were never accounted for as arriving. It was not
that the Spanish authorities were indifferent. Fonseca relates that in
Barcelona, on December 12, 1609, he witnessed the execution of the captain
and crew of a barque which had sailed with seventy Moriscos. Falling in
with a Neapolitan felucca, the united crews conspired to kill the passengers
and divide the booty, amounting to three thousand ducats. Under promise
of pardon a dissatisfied sailor revealed the crime, when not only were
the Spaniards punished but the Viceroy wrote to Naples with details that
enabled the authorities there to seize and execute the crew of the felucca.
(236)
In France, la Force no doubt
did what he could to minimize the sufferings of the outcasts, but their
hardships were such as to [408] call forth energetic remonstrances
from Ambassador Salignac and from Ahmed I himself. Cardinal Richelieu tells
us that some of the officials commissioned to superintend their passage
were guilty of much thievery and even permitted murder, but they were punished
with such severity that the outrages ceased. (237)
France, however, was only a place of transit. Some who passed through sought
refuge in Italy, where their reception was not hospitable. In 1610 and
1611 the Holy See refused to allow those arriving at Civita Vecchia to
remain but, in 1612, some seventy, who reached Recanati and asked to be
allowed to live as Christians, were permitted to settle at a distance from
the coast, broken up into small parties and under close surveillance.
(238)
Barbary, however, was the
destination of the vast majority of the exiles, whether direct from Spain
or by way of France, and their reception by their fellow religionists was
terrible. They were landed at Oran, whence they had to make their way to
the Moorish states; they had the reputation of bringing money with them
and, after the first embarkation had been safely convoyed by paying heavily
for a guard, they were plundered and slain without mercy, and their women
were taken from them. Even before the year 1609 was out, the Count of Aguilar,
Governor-general of Oran, wrote that, through fear of the Arabs, many were
remaining and were starving; twenty of their principal men had come to
him, professing to be Christians, for they had not known what to believe
until they had seen the abominations of the Moors, and now they desired
to remain and die as Christians. In his perplexity, Aguilar threw them
into prison and applied for instructions. What were given to him we know
not, but there is doubtless truth in the statement of the Comendador de
Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes of Oran that, what between disease
and the atrocities of the Arabs, two-thirds of the exiles had perished.
Indeed, the general estimate was that the proportion was at least three-quarters.
(239)
These horrors are heightened
by the fact that, in the vigorous determination to eradicate every vestige
of Islam, and in the cruel haste of the process, many who were really Christians
were cast [409] upon the tender mercies of the infidel. Discrimination
was difficult and doubt was settled adversely. A typical case is furnished
in a petition, November 26, 1609, of Gaspar Galip, a priest and vicar of
the general hospital of Valencia, in favor of his two brothers-in-law,
Francisco Castillo and Vicente de Alcázar. Galip himself was the
son of a Morisco father and Old Christian mother; his sisters were Christians
and so were their husbands and children, two in each family, the latter
being even ignorant that they had Morisco blood. Yet Ribera was pitiless
and both families were deported, doubtless to perish among unbelievers.
(240)
Escolano tells us that in Tunis some of the Castilians continued to hear
mass and to live as Christians, and he prints a letter from a Valencian
in Algiers expressing his determination to persevere in the faith.
(241)If
remorse were possible to those who believed that they were rendering a
service to God, it might have been felt by the prime movers of the expulsion
when they learned that in Tetuan, exiled Moriscos, firm in the faith, were
lapidated or otherwise put to death, because they resolutely refused to
enter the mosques. (242)These
were true martyrs, and the Church might well have canonized them, in place
of beatifying their persecutor Ribera. (243)
Among the arguments advanced
in favor of expulsion was that the confiscation of Morisco property would
bring permanent relief to the treasury and enable it to discharge the enormous
and constantly increasing indebtedness. Undoubtedly the amounts realized
from the rapacious seizure of the property of the exiles were large. Already,
in October, 1610, the Council of Finance reported that, in Ocana and Madrid,
it had mostly been sold, and that two hundred thousand ducats had been
paid in. (244) Whatever was the magnitude
of the receipts, they were quickly dissipated to the greedy courtiers who
profited by Philip's reckless prodigality. Sir Francis Cottingham, the
English Ambassador, in letters of March 4th and May 16, 1610, reports that
commissioners [410] had been sent to the provinces to sell the houses
and farms of the exiles, but the king did not propose to lighten the burdens
of the state, for he was dividing the proceeds among his favorites in advance
with scandalous liberality. To Lerma were assigned two hundred and fifty
thousand ducats, to his son, the Duke of Uceda, a hundred thousand, to
his daughter, the Countess of Lemos, fifty thousand and to her husband
a hundred thousand. (245)We
need not be surprised, therefore, to find Philip, in 1611, when appealing
to the Córtes for relief, enumerating, among the reasons for his
poverty, the expulsion of the Moriscos, in which he had postponed the interest
of the treasury to the service of God and of the state.
(246)
Thus, nine hundred years
after the overthrow of the Gothic monarchy, Spain purified her land of
the invader by a stroke which Cardinal Richelieu qualified as the boldest
and most barbarous in human annals. (247)
The yearning for unity of faith was gratified, and the anxiety as to attack
from without was allayed. That the price paid was heavy is seen in the
premature decrepitude which overtook the monarchy during the rest of the
century. The causes of decadence were many, but not least among them must
be reckoned the fierce intolerance which led to the expatriation of the
most economically valuable classes of the population.
108. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 76, fol. 183.
109. Ibidem, fol. 312 Archivo de Simancas, Patronato Real, Inq., Leg. único, fol. 38. 39.
111. Col. de Documentos, XVIII, 106-13.--Archivo de Simancas, loc. cit., fol. 37,
112. Archive de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 939, fol. 9; Lib. 922, fol. 15.
113. Ibidem, Inquisicion, Lib, 78, fol. 192; Patronato Real, Inq., Leg. único, fol. 37, 38.--Col. de Documentos, XVIII, 114,116.--Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. iii, fol. 33.
114. Col. de Documentos, XVIII, 119-24.---Bledae Defensio Fidei, pp. 333-6.--- Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 2, n. 16, fol, 187,
115. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 922, fol. 15.
116. Danvila y Collado, pp. 183-88.--Cf. Archive hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, Leg. 5, n. 1, fol. 107.
117. Archive de Simancas, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3.--Danvila y Collado, p. 228.
118. Archive hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 5, n. 2, fol. 14, 15.
119. Archive hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 2, n. 10, fol. 79.--Danvila y Collado, p. 263.
122. Gachard, Voyages des Souverains des Pays-Bas, I, 208.
123. Sayas, cap. ex.--Dormer, Lib. II, cap. i.
124. Danvila y Collado, p. 116.--Bledae Defensio Fidei, p. 190.
125. Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. II, fol. 94, 96, 105.
126. Archive de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 77, fol. 227.
127. Col. de Documentos, T. V, p. 81.
128. Ibidem, T. V, pp. 92, 93, 102-7.
129. Danvila y Collado, pp. 167-71.--Boronat, I, 238.--Bledae Defensio Fidei, p. 192.--Aguirre, Concil. Hispan. V, 415, 419, 432.
130. Boronat, II, 45-6, 69-71, 169, 435, 438, 478, 683.
132. Danvila y Collado, pp. 126, 129, 181, 183, 194.--Boronat, I, 443-69, 569.
133. Archive de Simancas, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 3.
134. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 926, fol. 57, 80--Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. II, fol. 79.
135. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 926, fol. 49, 53, 59, 63, 67.--Bulario, Lib. III, fol. 51, 85, 88, 109; Lib. IV, fol. 24, 103.--Archivo de Alcalá, Hacienda, Leg. 1049.--Boronat, I, 495.
137. Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib, iv, fol. 128.--Archive de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 926, fol. 71.
138. Boronat, I, 669; II, 8.--Escolano, Decada primera de la Historia de Valencia, II, 1783-97 (Valencia, 1610-11).
139. Archive hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 5, fol. 185,186, 220, 295, 297-99.
140. Danvila y Collado, p. 130.
141. Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. III, fol. 33.
142. Col. de Documentos, T. V, p. 104.
143. Ibidem, pp. 100,101,107,108,122.
144. Archive de Simancas, Sala 40, Lib. IV, fol. 262.
145. Danvila y Collado, pp. 164, 167.--Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 98.
146. Discorso de la Vida de D. Martin de Ayala (Revista crítica de Historia y Literatura, 1902, p. 375),
147. Dormer, Lib. II, cap. i.--Danvila y Collado, pp. 101, 105.
148. The zofres or zofras were imposts or excise paid by the Mudéjares in addition to the division of crops. It remained a grievance to the last.--Ximenez, Vida de Ribera, pp. 362, 444.
149. Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. I de copias, fol. 118.
150. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 77, fol. 227.
151. Boronat, I, 531; II, 147.
152. Bleda, Corónica, p. 1030; Defensio Fidei, pp. 47, 51.--Fonseca, Giusto Scacciamento, p. 65.
153. Danvila y Collado, pp, 128, 133, 211.--Boletin, Abril 1887, p. 288.--Boronat, I, 469.
154. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Sala 40, Lib. IV, fol. 263.--Bibl. nacional, MSS., PV, 3, n. 20.
155. Danvila y Collado, p. 127.--Col. de Documentos, V, 88, 102, 123.--Janer, Condicion social de los Moriscos, p. 342.--Boronat, I, 233.--Danvila, in Boletin, Abril, 1877, pp. 276-306.
156. Guadalajara y Xavierr, Expulsion de los Moriscos, fol. 62.--Archive de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 13, fol. 372.--Relazioni Venete, Serie I, T. VI, p. 407.
157. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 940, fol. 296.--Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol 64--Lanuza, Historias de Aragon, II, 417 (Zaragoza, 1622).
158. Bledae Defensio Fidei, p. 372.--Fonseca, p, 377.
159. Navarrete, Conservation de Monarquías, pp. 51-3 (Madrid, 1626).
160. Bleda, Corónica, pp. 951-2.
161. Fonseca, p. 72.--Cf. Bleda, op. cit., p. 905.
162. C. Trident. Sess. XXIV, de Reform. Matrim. C. 1.
163. Danvila y Collado, p. 169.--Aguirre, Concil. Hispan. V, 418.
164. Bulario de la Orden de Santiago, Lib. IV, fol. 101, 102.--Boronat, I, 661.
165. Nueva Recop., Lib. VIII, Tit. ii, ley 13, cap. ix.
166. Boronat, I, 589.--Bledae Defensio Fidei, pp. 57, 42a1.--Dnvila, p. 230.
167. Boronat, I, 208-12.--Escolano, II, 1746-68, 1798-1810.--Persiles y Sigismunda, Lib. II, cap. xi.
168. Danvila y Collado, pp. 161, 182, 205, 207.
169. Boronat, I, 207.--Constitutions en la Cort de Barcelona en lany 1520; en lany 1547 (Barcelona, 1520, 1548).
170. Pet. Mart. Angler. Epist. 499,--Mariana, Hist. de España, IX, 217 (Ed. 1796).
171. Danvila y Collado, pp. 109-12, 118, 129, 132, 210.--Nueva Recop., Lib. VIII, Tit. ii, ley 20.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 940, fol. 69, 184.--Boronat, I, 471, 499.
173. Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 160-3
174. Pet. Mart. Angler., Epist. 499.
177. Danvila y Collado, p. 158.
178. Dépêches de M. de Fourquevaux, I, 8, 13.
179. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 30. Relazioni Venete, Serie I, T. VI, pp. 165, 241.
181. Bledae Defensio Fidei, pp. 272, 276, 285.
182. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Cartas del Consejo, Leg. 5, fol. 192. Mémoires du Duc de la Force, I, 217-20, 339-45 (Paris, 1843).--Escolano, II, 1811-18.
185. Mémoires de la Force, I, 217, 221-2.
186. Ambassade en Turquie de Jean de Gontaut-Biron, Baron de Salignac, II, 353 (Paris, 1889).
187. Danvila y Collado, pp. 250-4
188. Bleda, Corónica, p. 928; Defensio Fidei, pp. 13-14, 502.
189. Boronat, I, 291-4, 596, 603-4.--Danvila y Collado, pp. 196-200.
The memorial, in a somewhat more elaborate form, was presented to the conference of bishops in Valencia, November 22, 1608, when Ribera pronounced it to be a hallucination, founded on ignorance--Boronat, II, 132, 493 sqq.
191. Danvila y Collado, p. 227.
196. Ximenez, Vida de Juan de Ribera, p. 381.
198. Danvila y Collado, pp. 274-86.--Boronat, II, 506.--Janer, pp. 282-91.
199. Ximenez, p. 397.--Boronat, II, 501.
200. Boronat, II, 501, 167.--Bleda, Corónica, p. 988.
201. Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 109.--Fonseca, pp. 148-58.
204. Fonseca, pp. 199 sqq.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 2.--Bleda, Corónica, p. 1000.
205. Danvila y Collado, p. 301,--Fonseca, p. 219.
207. Fonseca, pp. 202 sqq., 219.--Janer, p. 203.--Bleda, Corónica, p. 1004.-- Boronat, II, 210.
208. Fonseca, pp, 212-22,--Escolano, II, 1988.--Bleda, Corónica, pp. 999, 1001-3, 1005-7, 1020.--Boronat, II, 234.
A report, apparently drawn up by the Valencia tribunal, puts the number at the more moderate figure of 100,656, viz., at Valencia, 17,766; at Alicante, 32,000; at Denia, 30,000; at Vinaros, 15,200; and at Moncofar, 5,690,--Archivo de Simancas, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 2.
209. Fonseca, pp. 234-49.--Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1009-20.--Escolano, II, 1972.
210. Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 386, 390, 396, 402.--Nueva Recop., Lib. VIII, Tit. ii, ley 25.--Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1038-42.--Janer, pp. 295, 296.--Cf. Bravo, Catálogo de los Obispos de Córdova, p. 582. Guadalajara, fol. 144.--Aguilar y Caro, Memorial Ostipense, I, 164-66. (Estepa, 1886).
212. Danvila y Collado, p. 292.--Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 386, 389, 390.--Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1036-7.
213. Danvila y Collado, p. 310.--Boronat, II, 288-91.--Bleda, Corónica, p. 1051. --Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 393, 396.
214. Tapía, Historia de la Civilizacion española, III, 272.--Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 402.--Bofarull y Broca, Historia de Cataluña, VII, 292 (Barcelona, 1878).-- Watson's Philip III, Appendix B. Lanuza, II, 49.--Bleda, Corónica, p. 1045.--Danvila y Collado, p. 311.-- Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 124-8. Janer, p. 280.--Boronat, II, 298, 301, 596.--Bledae Defensio Fidei, pp. 602-6, 612-18.--Watson's Philip III, Appendix B.--Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 135-41. Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1046-50.--Guadalajara y Xavierr, fol. 142.--Janer, p. 90.--Lanuza, II, 249.
218. Mémoires de Richelieu, I, 88 (Paris, 1823).
219. Mémoires de la Force, II, 8-12, 288-311.
220. Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 410, 413, 415, 418.
221. Janer, pp. 344, 345, 350.--Boronat, II, 293-4.--Bleda Corónica, pp. 1051-2; Defensio Fidei, pp. 524-5, 607-12.--Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 415.
222. Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 434, 437, 440, 522.--Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1044, 1057-8, 1060.--Janer, pp. 351, 355, 356, 357, 360--Danvila y Collado, pp. 212, 213. Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1058-60.--Janer, pp. 361-66.--Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 531, 546.--Danvila y Collado, pp. 314, 317.--Boronat, II, 285-7, 593.
224. Bleda, Corónica, pp. 1021-3.--V. de la Fuente, Hist. eccles. de España, III, 228.--Boronat, I, 197; II, 307.
225. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 372. MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218b, p. 224.
227. Autos acordados, Lib. VIII, Tit. ii, Autos 4, 6. Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Lib. 552, fol. 22, 23.
229. E. N. Adler, in Jewish Quarterly Review, XIII, 417.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq., Leg. 1479, fol. 2.
In Mr. Adler's paper, by a printer's error, the auto of Oct. 10th is attributed to Córdova May 15th.
231. Danvila y Collado, p. 318.
232. Archivo hist. nacional, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 100. Guadalajara y Xavierr, Expulsión, fol. 163; Historia Pontifical, V, 161.-- Escolano, II, 1990.--Navarrete, Conservación de Monarquías, p. 50.--Dávila, Vida y Hechos del Rey Felipe III, p. 151.--Von der Hammer y León, Felipe el Prudente, fol. 33.--Alfonsi Sanctii de Rebus Hispan. Anacephaleosis, p. 390.
234. Llorente, Hist. crít., cap. XII, art. 1, n. 20.--Janer, p. 143.--V. de la Fuente III, 229.--Danvila y Collado, pp. 337-40.--Boronat, II, 307. Pellegrini, Relazioni di Ambasciatori Lucchesi, p. 32 (Lucca, 1903).
236. Fonseca, pp. 222-6. Ambassade de Salignac, II, 389, 434.--Mémoires de Richelieu, I, 89.
238. Decret. Sac. Congr. S. Officii, p. 435 (Bibl. del R. Archivio di Stato in Roma, Fondo Camerale, Congr. del S. Officio, Vol. 3).
239. Cabrera, Relaciones, pp. 391, 396.--Archivo de Simancas, Inq. de Valencia, Leg. 205, fol. 2.--Juan Ripol, Diálogo de Consuelo, fol. 20 (Pamplona, 1613)-- Bleda, Corónica, p. 1021.--Escolano, II, 1988. Boronat, II, 243-5.
242. Cabrera, Relaciones, p. 404.
243. Escolano (II, 2001) attributes the slow fever which ended Ribera's life, in January 1611, to the execration aroused by the misery of the kingdom resulting from the expulsion, for which he was held responsible, and to the vexations endured in his unsparing endeavors to root out the remnants,
245. Watson's Philip III, Appendix B.