10— CHAPTERS FROM THE Religious History of Spai CONNECTED WITH THE INQUISITION. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS — MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI— ENDEMONIADAS -EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARDIA— BRIANDA DE BARDAXI. BY HENRY CHARLES LEA, LL.D. PHILADELPHIA: LEA BROTHERS & CO. 1890. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1890, by LEA BROTHERS & CO., the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D.C. All rights reserved. BORNAN, PRINTER, 100 North Seventh Street, Philadelphia. PREFACE. In prosecuting researches for a history of the Spanish Inquisition, some phases of its activity have seemed to me worthy of more elaborate treatment than could be accorded to them in a general narrative. These are investigated in the following essays, and I trust that they may be found to throw light on some of the very curious problems connected with the remarkable vicissitudes, intellectual and material, through which the Spanish race has passed. The place occupied by Spain in the history of European civilization is unique in many respects, and the causes and consequences of its peculiar development suggest numerous questions full of interest and instruction to the enquirer. In the essay on Censorship I have departed somewhat from the sphere of purely religious history, but in Spain Church and State were so intimately connected that in some fields of activity it is impossible to treat them separately. In its origin Censorship was devised by the Church to preserve purity of faith ; then the papacy made use of it to strengthen the defences of the temporal power, and the State naturally took hold of the machinery thus created to serve its own purposes. No survey of the subject could be complete that did not consider it in both aspects. v j PREFACE. For the considerable amount of new and inedited material placed at my disposal I am indebted to the custodians of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, of the Royal Library of Copen- hagen and of the Royal Library of the University of Halle, as well as to General Don Vicente Riva Palacio of Mexico, to the late Senor Don Jose Amador de los Rios of Madrid, and especially to David Fergusson, Fsq., who has most liberally given me free access to the very interesting collec- tion of the records of the Mexican Inquisition made by him during a prolonged residence in the City of Mexico. Philadelphia, August, 1890. CONTENTS. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. TAGE The Middle Ages. Censorship in the Early Church 15 Prohibition of Vernacular Scripture in the Thirteenth Century . . . . . . . • .16 Supervision of Booksellers at the Universities . . 17 Censorship in Castile in the Fifteenth Century . . 18 in Aragon in the Fourteenth Century . 18 Vernacular Scriptures permitted 19 Rudimentary Censorship. Censorship at first not a function of the Inquisition . 20 Ferdinand and Isabella's Law of 1 502 ... 22 Gradual assumption of Censorship by the Inquisition . 24 The Reformation. Stimulus to Censorship caused by the Reformation . 26 Propagandist Efforts of the Reformers ... 27 Criticism suppressed — Case of Erasmus ... 29 The Spanish Erasmists. Opposition excited by the Translation of the En- chiridion ......... 36 Contest before the Inquisition ..... 40 Final condemnation of the works of Erasmus . . 42 The Scriptures. Vernacular Versions of the Bible current ... 44 Prohibited in 1 55 1 48 « viii CONTENTS. PAGE Heretical Bibles in the Ancient Tongues ... 50 Minuteness of Censorial Criticism . . . .51 Vernacular Versions — their complete Suppression . 53 Organization of Censorship. Enforcement of the Law of 1502— Licences to print . 56 Gradual increase of Rigor 58 Discovery of Heresy — Pragmatic Sanction of 1558 . 59 Double Censorship, by the State and by the Inquisi- tion — the Index Expurgatorius . . . .63 Enforcement of the Law entrusted to the Inquisition . 65 Cases of Jean Fesque and Hanz Brunsvique . . 68 Functions of the Inquisition. Exclusion of Episcopal Jurisdiction ■ 72 Perfection of Inquisitorial machinery . • 73 Process of Calificacion ...... • 74 Expurgation — The Indexes ..... • 77 Sensitiveness of Expurgation .... . 80 Political use of Censorship ..... • 83 Supervision of importations — Visitas dc Navios . • u Licences for Readers. Successively granted and withdrawn by the Popes . 92 Independent jurisdiction asserted by the Spanish Inquisition . ...... -93 Independence of Rome. The Spanish Inquisition asserts exclusive control . 97 Its Quarrels with the Roman Congregations . . 101 Case of Mateo Moya 102 of Juan Bautista Poza . . . . . -103 of the Plomos del Sacromonte . . . .108 of the Catechism of Mesengui . . . . 118 The Regalistas. Conflicts between the State and the Church . • . 124 Papal use of Censorship . . . . . .126 Resistance of Philip IV. . . . . . .127 CONTENTS. IX PAGE Case of Macanaz 13 1 of Manuel Santos, alias Berrocosa . . . 134 Carlos III. restricts inquisitorial Censorship . . 137 Censorship by the State. Examination for licence to print 139 The Tassa, or price H 1 Organization of machinery of Censorship . . 143 Responsibility entailed by Censorship . . • H4 Minuteness of supervision . . . . • H7 Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia 15 1 Navarre 1 5^ The Revolution. Reforms of Carlos III. 1 S7 Removal of Prohibition of Vernacular Scriptures . 160 Reaction caused by the French Revolution . . .163 Journalism . . . . . . • • .165 Rigorous law of 1805 168 Cortes of Cadiz proclaim freedom of the press . . 172 Reaction under the Restoration 17 5 Revolution of 1820 — Reaction under the French occupation . . . . • • • 1 77 Enforced liberalism of Cristina 180 Existing press laws 183 The Influence of Censorship. Brilliancy of the Sixteenth Century in Spain . .187 Views of Senor Menendez y Pelayo . . . .190 Obstacles caused by Censorship— Garibay— Illescas . 193 Dangers of authorship Abuse of power by the Inquisition .... 204 Burdens imposed on Literature 200 Effects of repression— Decadence of Literature . . 208 Its Resurrection 210 X CONTENTS. MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATL Development of Mysticism. Ancient and Medieval Mystics 213 Causes stimulating Spanish Mysticism . . . 216 The Beatas . . . . . . . _ .217 Growth of orthodox and heterodox Mysticism . .222 Practice of Recojimiento , or Mental Prayer . . . 223 Quietism 225 • Pathological effects of Mental Prayer 227 Visions and Revelations 229 Miraculous powers 231 Dangers of Mysticism. Doctrine of Impeccability 234 Illumination by the Holy Ghost 236 The Mediation of the Church unnecessary . . . 238 Pious Works superfluous 240 The Reformation renders suppression necessary . 244 The Ahimbrados become heretics . . . . 245 Persecution. The Ahimbrados of Pastrana 251 Case of Maria Cazalla 253 The Erasmists . .255 Francisca Hernandez and Francisco Ortiz . . -259 Archbishop Carranza 270 Gregorio Lopez 280 Santa Teresa de Avila ...... 282 San Juan de la Cruz — Jeronimo Gracian . . . 286 The Jesuits 290 The Alumbrados of Llerena 295 Growth of Mysticism— The Mystics of Seville . . 300 The Nuns of San Placido 309 Decline of Mysticism under Persecution . . -319 Madre Maria de Agreda 32 r Miguel de Molinos 327 CONTENTS. xi Impostors. Difficulty of distinguishing between Saints and Im- postors 328 Case of Magdalena de la Cruz 330 Multiplication of Mystics 336 Maria de la Visitacion 338 Increased Activity of the Inquisition .... 342 The Impostors of Seville ...... 344 Madre Luisa de Carrion 352 The Impostors increase . . . . . -358 Mexican cases— Joseph Bruhon de Vertiz . . . 362 Cases in Lima — Angela Carranza . . . -375 Madrid auto de fe of 1680 383 MOLINISTAS. Condemnation of Molinos 384 Persecution of the Molinists or Ouietists . . . 385 Cases in the latter half of the Eighteenth Century . 395 Mexican Cases — Eusebio de Villaroja . . . 400 Pedro Fernandez Ybarraran . . 407 Spanish cases in the Nineteenth Century . . . 413 Sor Patrocinio 416 Recent cases . . . . • . .421 ENDEMONIADAS. Belief in Diabolical Possession 4 2 3 Regulation of Exorcism . 425 Imposture ... . . . . . • • 4 2 7 The Endemoniadas of Queretaro 428 Fray Manuel Gorvea ■. . -435 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARDIA. Torquemada's Desire for the Expulsion of the Jews Belief in the Crucifixion of Christian Children by Jews 437 439 xii CONTENTS. PAGE Sacrilege and sorcery with the Host 444 Case of the Santo Nino ........ 448 Use made of it to procure the Expulsion of the Jews . . 460 Canonization of Children martyred by Jews . . . .461 Legend and cult of the Santo Nino 463 BRIANDA DE BARDAXL Hypersensitiveness of Orthodoxy 469 Trial and Punishment of Brianda de Bardaxi . . .471 APPENDIX OF DOCUMENTS. I. Visitas de Navios por el Santo Oficio . . . .481 II. Decree of Philip V., March 28, 17 1 5 .... 483 III. Retractation of the Maestre Juan de Villalpando . 484 IV. Auto de Fe of Fray Francisco Garcia Calderon . . 488 V. Application for the Arrest of Josepha de San Luis Beltran 490 VI. Act of Accusation against Joseph Brunon de Vertiz . 492 VII. Summary of Evidence against Francisco Fernandez . 494 VIII. Auto de Fe of Joseph Luis Navarro .... 501 IX. Auto de Fe of Maria de los Dolores .... 505 CHAPTERS FROM THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF SPAIN. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. THE MIDDLE AGES. Power, whether spiritual or temporal, necessarily seeks its own preservation. The same spirit which leads it to put down armed insurrection prompts it to suppress by force all expressions of dissidence and all mutterings of discontent. Nor is this merely the instinct of selfishness, for the ruler, whether king or pope, is easily persuaded that his rule is beneficent and his creed the sole hope of sinful humanity. The toleration of free speech and free thought is too essen- tially modern an idea, and is as yet too imperfectly reduced to practice, for us to waste surprise on its non-existence in past ages. The earliest censorship, and perhaps the most sweeping, is that contained in the Apostolical Constitutions, which purport to be written by St. Clement of Rome at the dictation of the Apostles. These prefigure the Index by forbidding the Christian to read any books of the Gentiles — the Scriptures should suffice for the believer. 1 As yet, Christianity had no power to enforce its commands, and was obliged to rely on persuasion ; but it soon afterward became dominant in the Roman world, and, through the development of its theology, was split into warring factions. The same proscriptive spirit 1 Constitutt. Apostt. Lib. I. c. vii. Abstine te ab omnibus gentilium libris. Quid enim tibi cum externis libris vel legibus vel falsis prophetis qui quidem leves a fide abducunt ? T 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. naturally led the party in possession of the ecclesiastical organization to urge the secular authority to destroy the books of its antagonists. Constantine responded with an edict which may be regarded as the prototype of a long series, not yet ended, of laws to fetter the expression of human opinion. Under threat of death all possessors of Arian writings were commanded to surrender them for burning in public. 1 His example was imitated by his successors in decrees too nume- rous to recapitulate, whenever an old heresy became peculiarly obnoxious or a new one emerged to invite repression. It is sufficient to allude to two expressions of intolerance which show how eagerly Church and State rivalled each other in furnishing unhappy precedents to be quoted and imitated by priest and king down to our own times. In 447 St. Leo I., in his epistle to Torribio of Asturias, lays down the rule that all Priscillianist books, the MSS. of Scripture which the here- tics had vitiated by interpolations, and • the apocryphal gos- pels, are not only to be forbidden but are to be collected and burnt. It is the duty, he says, of the bishops to attend to this ; if any of them neglect it they are to be regarded as heretics, for he who does not recall others from error proves that he errs himself. 2 If in this the popes of the sixteenth century saw a model to be adapted to the necessities of the times, the civil lawyers found justification for the punishment of those who printed heretical books in the authoritative pre- cedent of Justinian, who in 536 prescribed amputation of the hand for all who copied Nestorian writings. 3 When the dawn of modern civilization commenced to penetrate the obscurity of the Dark Ages recourse was natu- rally had to the same methods. In Aragon the earliest action was directed against vernacular versions of Scripture. The Church was satisfied with the Latin Vulgate ; it authorized no translations into modern tongues and preferred that popular 1 Sozomeni Hist. Eccles. Lib. I. cap. xxi. 2 Leonis PP. I. Epist. XV. c. xv. xvi. 3 Authent. Collat. IV. Tit. xxi. (Novell. 42) cap. 1. THE MIDDLE AGES. instruction should come from learned priests who could explain obscurities in orthodox fashion. The earnest sects of Cathari and Waldenses, whose growth was a real danger to the establishment, were ardent students of Scripture and found in it a potent instrument of propagandism. The Cathari, who rejected nearly the whole of the Old Testament, had translations of the New. The Waldenses had versions of the whole Bible. The suppression of these dangerous books was evidently one of the necessary measures for suppressing the heresies which found support in them, and the Cort of Tarragona in 1234 adopted a decree of King Jayme I. for- bidding the possession by any one of any portion of the Old or New Testament in Romance.' A censorship established soon after this over the booksellers in the universities shows how early the trade in books was regarded as requiring closer supervision than that in other merchandise. Alfonso X. in his code known as Las Siete Partidas, about 1265, directed that in all centres of learning there should be estacionarios keeping books to hire to the students for the purpose of copying. To keep an estacion required the licence of the rector of the university, who was instructed before granting it to cause the stock of books to be examined as to their legibility and correctness ; if lacking in these respects the bookseller was refused a licence until his books should be duly amended. 2 So, when Jayme II. founded the University of Lerida, in 1300, while he favored booksellers by granting them exemption from taxes and from secular jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, except in capital cases, 1 Constitutions de Cathalunya, Lib. I. Tit. i. cap. 2 (Barcelona, 1588, p. 7). Martene et Durand Ampl. Collect. VII. 123. In 1229 the Council of Toulouse, under the presidency of the Cardinal- Legate Romano, prohibited all laymen from possessing any portion of the Scriptures, even in Latin. Even the Breviary and Hours of the Virgin in the vernacular were strictly forbidden. — Concil. Tolosan. ann. 1229 c. 14 (Harduin. VII. 178). 2 Partidas, II. xxi. ir. 1 8 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. he required that the texts which they provided for students should be examined, and he decreed punishment for any lack of correctness. 1 These provisions were dictated by an en- lightened desire to foster science and letters, but they are ominous of a time when a paternal government should confine human thought within the narrowest bounds in its anxiety to limit the contamination of error. The energies of Castile were too largely absorbed by civil strife and the work of the Reconquest to permit an intellectual activity provocative of repression, and until the fifteenth century literature remained without interference. The first instance of censorship on record was exercised on the library of the Marquis of Villena, after his death in 1434. As a man of learning and science he had dabbled in occult arts and had earned the reputation of a skilful magician. At the command of King Juan II. his books were examined by the celebrated Lope de Barrientos, subsequently Bishop of Cuenca, who, by the royal order, publicly burnt such as were deemed objectionable, for books on magic were always under the ban of the Church. 2 A more significant case was that of Pedro de Osma, a respected professor of Salamanca, who in 1479 was condemned by the Council of Alcala for heresies respecting confession and the papal power to remit the pains of purga- tory; he was required to abjure in public, holding alighted candle, and the book in which his errors were set forth was ordered to be burnt by the secular authorities, who promptly obeyed. 8 Aragon had manifested a more active intellectual develop- ment and had been blest with an Inquisition watchful over aberrations from the faith. In 131 6 the inquisitor, Juan de Llotger, summoned an assembly of experts at Tarragona, 1 Villanueva, Viage Literario, T. XXI. pp. 29, 226. 2 La Puente, Epitome de la Cronica de Juan II,, Lib. III. cap. xxiv. (Madrid, 1678, p. 184). — Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, App. C. 3 D'Argentre, Collect. Judic. de novis Erroribus, I. II. 299. — Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, I. 788. THE MIDDLE AGES. >9 which condemned the tracts of Arnaldo de Vilanova on Spiritual Franciscanism, in a sentence prefiguring the methods by which the prohibition of books was subsequently enforced. All who possessed the heretical writings were commanded to surrender them within ten days under pain of excommunica- tion, a contumacious endurance of which for a year subjected them to prosecution for heresy. 1 Towards the close of the century that earnest inquisitor, Nicholas Eymerich, procured the condemnation of a number of books, including some twenty of Raymond Lully and several of Ramon de Tarraga. 2 Curiously enough, this vigilance did not extend to the Scriptures, which, as we have seen, were the earliest object of censorship. In 1269 Alfonso X. caused a translation in Cas- tilian to be made of the Bible, a copy of which, in five folio volumes, is preserved in the Escorial, together with portions of other versions of the fifteenth century. 3 In 1422 the Master of Calatrava, Don Luis Gonzalez de Guzman, ordered Rabbi Moyses aben Ragel to translate for him the Old Testa- ment, giving as a reason that the current Castilian versions were not to be depended on for fidelity and were antiquated in language. In a very quaint correspondence, Rabbi Moyses accepted the task, after a discreet show of disinclination; with the aid of some Franciscans and Dominicans he furnished it with Catholic glosses, and finished the work in 1430.* During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries a number of versions were executed in Catalan — one of them by the 1 Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, I. 777. 2 Eymerici Directorium Inquis., pp. 255, 313, 314 (Ed. Venet. 1607). It is, however, a disputed question to the present day whether or not the papal bull condemning Lully's books was a forgery of Eymerich's. 3 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, pp. 9, 12-13 (Valencia, 1791). * Villanueva, Append. III. pp. cxli. sqq. A splendid illuminated MS. of this version still exists, formerly belonging to the Conde Duque de Olivares. It is significant of the change which had occurred that the all-powerful minister of Philip IV. felt himself obliged to procure from the Inquisition, January 18, 1624, a licence to possess and read this MS. (lb. p. cxxxix.). 20 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Carthusian, Doctor Bonifacio Ferrer, brother of San Vicente Ferrer, who is supposed to have assisted him. Of this an edition was printed at Valencia, in 1478, at the expense of a German merchant named Philip Vizlant, carefully revised by the Inquisitor Jayme Borell. 1 This was on the eve of the proscription of the vernacular Scriptures, and the contrast is worth noting between medieval toleration and modern intolerance. RUDIMENTARY CENSORSHIP. At this period commenced the change which was to effect so profound a transformation in the Spanish character. In 1480, Isabella, after prolonged hesitation, assented to the establishment of the Inquisition in Castile, and persecution for opinion's sake gradually organized itself until it became in time one of the chief social forces. Yet how little it was her intention to stunt the intellectual development of her people is seen in a law of the same year which is an expression of her constant effort to diffuse culture throughout her dominions. By this law books were relieved of the oppressive alcavala, or tax of ten per cent, on sales ; in order to encourage the merchants who brought from abroad "many and good books every day " all duties, imposts, and tolls of every kind were removed from them, and the municipalities were for- bidden to levy any taxes upon them. 2 The coincidence of two such measures is a wholesome illustration of human blindness in the adoption of methods for the accomplishment of lofty ends. For awhile the Inquisition found ample occupation for its energies in the work for which it was created — that of pen- 1 Villanueva, p. 8; Append. II. pp. cxxxii. sqq. 2 Novisima Recopilacion, Lib. vni. Tit. xv. ley i. RUDIMENTARY CENSORSHIP. 2 I ancing and burning the multitude of conversos or Jewish Christians — nor was the censorship of the press considered to be one of its functions. In the Instrucciones of Seville, 1484, of Valladolid, 1488, of Avila, 1498, and of Seville, 1500, which formed the constitution and code of procedure of the Holy Office, there is no allusion to any duty incumbent upon it in watching and supervising the issues of the press. It is true that Torquemada is said to have burnt in 1490 a number of Hebrew Bibles by order of Ferdinand and Isabella, and subsequently in an auto de fe at Salamanca more than six thousand volumes described as books of magic or infected with Jewish errors, 1 but such exhibitions of zeal appear to have been within the province of any person of position and influence. Ximenes, while yet merely Archbishop of Toledo, and without authority over the metropolitan city of Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, when engaged, by per- mission of the latter, in 1499, m converting the Moors of Granada, collected five thousand Arabic books, many of them splendidly ornamented and illuminated, and in spite of the entreaty of friends who begged of him the priceless MSS., he burnt them all on the public square, except those on medi- cine, which he reserved and finally deposited in his University of Alcala. 2 The undefined condition of the questions con- cerning books is well reflected in an inquisitorial manual printed in Valencia in 1494. The author quotes some of the older authorities to the effect that a prohibited book found in a man's possession is a proof of heresy; but he adds his opinion that additional evidence is requisite, for it may be in his house without his knowledge, or he may have procured it for the purpose of controverting it, as the Jews do with the gospels and Catholic doctors. Still, anyone finding heresy or error in a book is bound to burn it or to deliver it within 1 Llorente, Hist, critique de 1' Inquisition, I. 281. 2 Gomez de Rebus gestis Francisci Ximenii, Lib. IT. fol. 30^. — Luis de M&rmol-Carvajal, Rebelion de los Moriscos, Lib. I. cap. xxiv. 2* 22 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. eight days to the bishop or inquisitor, but there is no penalty alleged for neglect to do this except that it creates "violent suspicion" against him — and violent suspicion rendered prosecution necessary. Again, we are told that to write a heretic book is to be a heretic, but not so to receive one from a heretic and keep it. 1 Although no heresy at this period threatened the Church, the increasing stream of books issuing from the press aroused a sense of the necessity of some supervision. The intellectual activity of Germany, in particular, and the mutterings of un- accustomed independence there, seemed to call for special watchfulness. In i486, Berthold, Archbishop of Mainz, endeavored to establish a crude censorship in Mainz and Frankfort over books translated into the vernacular from foreign tongues;' 2 and in 1501 Alexander VI. issued a bull instructing the German prelates to exercise a close supervision over printers. 3 So far as Germany was concerned this man- date seems to have been received with contemptuous indiffer- ence, but it aroused an echo in Spain, of all Christian lands the one in which it was least needed. In 1502 Ferdinand and Isabella responded with an elaborate law, the first which established a practical censorship of the press in Europe, and laid down the lines on which nearly all subsequent enact- ments were based. To Spain thus belongs the honor of organizing the system which was to exercise an influence so incomputable on the development of human intelligence. The uncompromising character of the Spanish temperament, which pursued its object regardless of consequences, saw at once, what was elsewhere only perceived by degrees, that any endeavor to set bounds to the multiplying products of the press could only be successful by a thorough system of minute surveillance. 1 Albert. Repertorium Inquisit. s. vv. Comburi, Detegitur, Probationer, Libri. 2 Gudeni Cod. Diplom. IV. 469. 3 Raynald. Anna), ann. 1501, No. 36. A' UDIMENTAR Y CENSORSHIP. 2 ^ It thus was ordered that no book should be printed or im- ported or exposed for sale without examination and licence. In Valladolid and Ciudad Real this duty was imposed upon the president judges of the royal courts ; in Toledo, Seville and Granada on their respective archbishops ; in Burgos on the bishop ; in Salamanca and Zamora on the Bishop of Salamanca. These were required to appoint examiners of good repute and learning, who should be sworn to discharge their duty and should receive a just but moderate salary, not oppressive to booksellers and printers, who apparently were expected to defray the expenses. After a MS. had been licensed for printing the printed sheets were to be carefully compared with the original to see that no alterations had been made on the press. Any book printed or imported and offered for sale without such licence was to be seized and publicly bur-nt ; the printer or vendor was declared incapable of longer carrying on the business ; if he had sold copies before discovery he forfeited twice the price received for them, which was divided between the informer, the judge, and the fisc. 1 Well adapted as was this to attain the object in view, it will be observed that there is no allusion to the Inquisition as 1 Nueva Recop. Lib. I. Tit. vii. ley 23 (Novis. Recop vni xvi. 1). As printed in both these collections Granada is represented as under the censor- ship of both the presiding judge and the archbishop. In an abstract of the law, however, in a Consulta del Concejo presented to Carlos III. in 1761, Ciudad Real (or Villareal) is substituted for the first reference to Granada, and this I think must be correct (MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 216 fol.). In this same year, 1502, Isabella gave to the unhappy Moors of her dominions the alternative of exile or conversion. The conversos were allowed to retain all Arabic books on medicine, philosophy and history, and were ordered to surrender everything else. This command was but partially obeyed, and in 1511 Ferdinand issued a decree requiring them within fifty days to present for examination all Arabic books in their possession, under pain of confiscation and arbitrary personal punishment; the books on the excepted subjects were to be returned to them and all the rest were to be burnt (Colleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. XXXIX. p. 447). 24 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. concerned either in the investigation of books tor heretical errors or in the punishment of delinquents. The Holy Office evidently was not considered as having any jurisdiction over the matter. Yet the growing authority of that institution as the special defender of the faith led it inevitably to enlarge its sphere of operations, and there seems to be no evidence that the judges and prelates made any special effort to dis- charge the duties imposed upon them by the law of 1502. Diego Deza acted as inquisitor general and not as Archbishop of Seville when he assailed Elio Antonio de Nebrija, the father of Spanish classical learning, and no question was raised as to his jurisdiction although the case practically in volved the powerful Ximenes, then Archbishop of Toledo. In 1504 Nebrija was one of the scholars employed by Ximenes to prepare the text of the Complutensian Polyglot. In the performance of this task he undertook to correct the errors of the Vulgate — an effort which half a century before had been declared permissible in Rome when Lorenzo Valla triumphed over his enemies. To a narrow-minded bigot like Deza it seemed almost a sacrilege for a layman to presume to meddle with Scripture, and Nebrija was accused of preferring the rules of grammar to the definitions of orthodoxy. It was probably to the influence of Ximenes that he owed his escape from condemnation and personal ill-treatment ; but even that powerful favor could not prevent his being forbidden to continue his work, rendering him the first of a long line of illustrious scholars whose genius was hampered by the ob- scurantism of theological pedants clothed with the tremendous and irresponsible power of the Inquisition. Fortunately for Nebrija, Deza was forced to resign in 1507 and was succeeded by Ximenes. Nebrija returned to Alcala, resumed his labors, and was honored with the special friendship of the great cardinal. 1 The Inquisition had not long to wait before its jurisdiction 1 Estudio del Maestre Elio Antonio de Nebrija, Madrid, 1879, pp. 53-7, 97. KUDIMENTAR Y CENSORSHIP. 25 over literature was established on an impregnable basis. While as yet there was no definite outbreak of heresy Rome was growing more alarmed at the increasing independence of thought everywhere manifesting itself through the press, as the human intellect was throwing off the shackles of medi- evalism and men were beginning to investigate where their fathers had been content to believe. Prudence demanded that some limit should be imposed on the spirit of inquiry which was daily becoming more recklessly audacious and was finding a rapidly growing audience through the medium of books. "The fifth council of Lateran, assembled in Rome under Leo X., therefore adopted with but one dissenting voice a papal constitution laid before it which recited the injury to faith and morals and public peace arising from the increasing number of books containing doctrines contrary to religion and libellous attacks on individuals. Therefore for- ever thereafter no book should be printed without a pre- liminary examination and licence, to be gratuitously given, in Rome by the papal vicar and the master of the sacred palace, and elsewhere by the bishop and inquisitor, the bishop being authorized to act through a deputy of adequate learn- ing. Violations of this provision were visited with excom- munication, suspension from business, a fine of a hundred ducats applicable to the fabric of St. Peter's and forfeiture of the unlicensed books, which were to be publicly burnt ; per- sistent offences were to be repressed by the bishops with all the severity of the canons. 1 The duties of censorship were thus shared between the bishops and the Inquisition ; the former, as a rule, engrossed in temporal cares, were negligent, and there is no trace, at least in Spain at this period, of their discharging the functions thus imposed on them ; the latter was active and aggressive, eager to extend its jurisdiction, 1 Concil. Lateran. V. Sess. ix. (Harduin. IX. 1779). In the acts of the Council the suspension threatened from business is for a year, but no duration is specified in the decree as embodied in the Corpus Juris (Septimi Decretal. Lib, v. Tit. iv. c. 3). 26 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. and it formed the appropriate instrumentality through which Church and State could best curb the licentiousness of the press. Still, as we shall see, the preliminary licence here pro- vided for eventually passed into the hands of the State, and the functions of the Inquisition became practically limited to passing judgment on errors which had escaped the vigilance of the official censors, and to enforcing the surrender of forbidden books, for which its effective organization gave it special fitness. Authors thus became subjected to a reduplicated censorship which guaranteed the faithful from contamination, at the expense, it must be allowed, of effectually checking the development of intellect. THE REFORMATION. The Church had taken its precautions none too soon. The ferment in men's minds was bound to lead to an explosion, though no one could foretell where it might burst forth or the character which it might assume. Luther came and Latin Christianity found itself involved in a death-struggle wherein the theocracy so patiently built up by the labor of centuries was threatened with destruction. Even distant Spain, where Church and State were more firmly united and more solidly organized than elsewhere, did not wholly escape the infection of the new ideas. Hitherto the heresy looked for in books had been almost wholly confined to hidden Judaism and Mahometanism or the superstitions of sorcery, and the efforts of the Inquisition had been directed to vindicating the faith from the errors of the New Christians — the unhappy Jews and Moriscos, forcibly converted by the thousand and secretly cherishing their ancestral religions. It soon had to confront this new danger. The German reformers, exuberant in the possession of unexpected liberty, confident in the belief that THE REFORMATION. 27 the whole sacerdotal system would be speedily overthrown, were by no means content to carry on a defensive war at home, but were seeking allies everywhere and were attacking the enemy in his strongholds. Rome soon became alive to the necessity of defending its territory at all points. A clause in the bull Exsurge D omine, in 1520, ordered the burning of all of Luther's books, even those not containing heresies, and the Universities of Louvain and Cologne had not waited for this, but had burned them in 15 19. 1 This was followed in 15 21, during the absence of Charles V. in Germany, by a brief of Leo X. addressed to the governors of Castile, calling upon them to prevent the introduction of Luther's books. Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, who then was inquisitor general, made haste to obey, and on April 7 ordered all inquisitors to seize such works wherever they might be found. In 1523 he repeated the command and instructed the governor of Guipuscoa, where the danger of contraband trade across the frontier was greatest, to lend official assistance. 2 The precaution was by no means needless. In the correspondence of Martin de Salinas, agent of the Infante Ferdinand at the court of Charles V., a letter of June 25, 1524, mentions that a ship from Holland bound for Valencia had been captured by the French and then recaptured and brought into San Sebastian. On discharging her there were found two casks of Lutheran books, which were taken to the plaza and burnt, save some that had been carried off by individuals, the tracing and recovery of which caused no little trouble. Eight months later, on February 8, 1525, he writes that three Venetian galeasses had arrived at a port in the kingdom of Granada, bringing large quantities of Lutheran books. On learning the fact the cor- regidor seized and burnt the books and arrested the captains 1 Mag. Bullar. Roman. I. 613. — D'Argentre, Collect. Judic. de novis Error, i. n. 358, 359. 2 Llorente, Hist, critique, I. 457. 28 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. and crews, for whose release the Venetian ambassador was then interceding. 1 These chance allusions justify the belief that such attempts were constant, and when these were baffled there was still the risk that heretic doctrines might be smuggled into the kingdom under orthodox disguise. The Supreme Council of the Inquisition, August n, 1530, urged the in- quisitors to increased vigilance ; it had been learned that Lutheran wiitings were introduced under false titles, or under the names of Catholic authors, or conveyed in notes to books of unquestioned orthodoxy ; the inquisitors were ordered to examine minutely all public libraries and to add to the Edict of Denunciations, published annually, a clause requiring the denunciation of all who possessed such books or had read them.'' These methods of propagandism continued for a long peiiod and even were extended to the New World. 3 In 1558, Peter Veller, a bookseller of Antwerp, testified before the Inquisition of Flanders as to the extent of the trade in heretical books with Spain ; money was sent thence to Ger- many to print such works and numerous expedients were devised for their transmission.* In 1568 the Inquisition of Barcelona reported that its commissioner at Perpignan had learned from a merchant that he had seen at Chartres a large quantity of* Lutheran books in Spanish packed for shipment to Spain. At the same time the Spanish ambassador at Paris wrote that heretic books were forwarded thence in Burgundy and Champagne wine-casks ; whereupon the Supreme Council ordered its officials in Guipuscoa, Navarre, Aragon and Catalonia to watch the frontier with the most vigilant care. 5 1 Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espanoles, II. 315-16. 2 Llorente, I. 457. In 1532 one of the charges against Maria Cazalla, then on trial before the tribunal of Toledo, was that she knew of persons who possessed suspected books and had not denounced them to the Inquisition, thus rendering herself suspect of heresy (Melgares Marin, Procedimientos de la Inquisition, II. 88). 3 Jacobi Simancas de Cathol. Institt. Tit. xxxvm. No. 12, 13. * Eduard Bohmer, Bibliotheca Wiffeniana, London, 1883, Vol. II. p. 64 5 Llorente, I. 477. THE REFORMATION. 2 g In spite of this we hear of the successful despatch of thirty thousand copies of a Spanish version of Calvin's Institutes. 1 In 1573 the Venetian agent at Madrid relates that the Huguenots had sent to the Spanish colonies men and books to corrupt not only the Indians but the half-breed Spaniards who were easily led astray, and on this account all commerce with the Indies had been prohibited to the Germans and even to the subjects of Philip II. in the Low Countries. 2 It was, moreover, not only these assaults from enemies that had to be met or parried. The Reformation had altered the whole situation, not only outside, but inside the Church. The laxity which had been permissible during the long period of unquestioned domination was no longer in place, and the utterances of the orthodox were to be judged by very differ- ent standards from those hitherto in use. What had been, prior to the fateful nailing of Luther's theses to the church door of Wittenburg, in 1517, merely allowable criticism, to be laughed at for its impotence or endured because it could do no harm, became aid and comfort to the enemy who was breaching the walls and sapping the ramparts. Freedom and even licence of speech had been allowed, since the heresies of the thirteenth century had ceased to be dangerous ; there had been plenty of reformers within the Church who had exhaled in safety their indignation at its corruptions in lan- guage as emphatic as that of Luther and Zwingli, and had been listened to by the hierarchy with the smile of amused contempt, but that time was past, never to return, and the Church, which was battling for existence with half of Europe threatening revolt, could only regard as treason what it had grown accustomed to tolerate with good-natured indif- ference. The change thus wrought is manifested with special clear- ness in the case of Erasmus and his disciples, which is one of 1 Bohmer, op. cit. II. 78. 2 Relazioni Venete, Serie I. T. VI. p. 462, 3Q CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. the most symptomatic phenomena of the epoch. Erasmus, the sickly scholar of Rotterdam, the flatterer of popes and princes, the vainglorious boaster, the querulous grumbler when his assaults were retaliated in kind, is, when rightly considered, one of the most heroic figures in an age of heroes. Nowhere else can we find an instance so marked of the power of pure intellect. His gift of ridicule was the most dreaded weapon in Europe and he had used it mercilessly upon the most profitable abuses of the Church — relics and pilgrimages and indulgences. The immoral lives of the clergy, the igno- rant fanaticism of the religious orders, and the sophistical subtleties of scholastic theology had been the subject of his most vigorous sarcasm ; he had aroused the implacable hostility of the most powerful organizations in Europe, and he never, in the hour of the greatest danger, withdrew or retracted what he had written, beyond admitting that in the rashness of youth he had spoken unadvisedly. 1 The favor of the people who suffered from the exactions and licence which he so ruthlessly assailed, of the princes who recognized in him an ally against the encroachments of the Church, and of the 1 See his letter to Cardinal Manrique, the inquisitor general, printed by Usoz y Rio ( Reform istas Antiguos Espanoles, Dos Informaziones, Append, p. 8). Writing to George Duke of Saxony in 1524 he says; " Mundus instupuerat ceremoniis, mali monachi regnabant impune qui laqueis inextri- cabilibus involverant hominum conscientias. Theologia ad quas tricas sophisticas reciderat ? Jam definiendi temeritas in immensum processerat. Ne quid hie commemorem de episcopis aut sacerdotibus aut his qui nomine Romani pontificis exercebant tyrannidem." — D. Erasmi Roterod. Epistt. Lib. XXI. Ep. 7 (Ed. Londini, 1642). In 1528, writing to a bishop, he alludes to two persons in France, threatened with death because, on account of illness, they had eaten flesh on two days in Lent, and he adds, " Vide quid faciunt ceremoniae, nimirum ut ob hominum constitutiones violemus precepta Dei, levius ducentes parricidium quam prseterire constitutiones Pontificum." — Lib. XXII. Ep. 30. We need hardly be surprised that Nicholas of Egmond, the leading theo- logian of the University of Louvain, used to call him Antichrist, and to say that there was no difference between Luther and Erasmus except that Erasmus was the greater heretic — Lib. XIX. Ep. 91. Cf. Lib, XXX, Ep. 13. 7 HE REFORMATION. popes who feared to provoke his bitter mood, sustained him, and he felt no fear so long as the old order remained un- touched. Then came Luther, who grappled with the dogmas lying at the roots of sacerdotalism, and Christendom was in- volved in a conflict where quarter was neither asked nor given. Erasmus clung to the old Church ; although his scholarship had led him to question the divine origin and authority claimed for many human observances, he maintained his orthodoxy and in due time he was involved in ardent con- troversy with the Reformers. Yet to him was attributed the impulsion that had rendered the Reformation possible and he was hated equally by both sides. 1 Everywhere the theolo- gians of the schools were engaged in drawing up lists of his errors, which were not difficult to find, and in proving him a Lutheran, 2 and he was incessantly busy in defending himself and in replying to their attacks. It was not merely his rep- utation that was at stake. His personal safety was involved, and he might well tremble at the thought of the thousands of doctors and priests and monks and friars who were more eager for his blood than for that of Luther. 3 Yet the solitary 1 In 1519 Erasmus wrote to Frederic of Saxony skilfully pleading for Luther without committing himself to Luther's justification. Frederic's reply shows that this was not without influence in confirming his protection of Luther (Lutheri Opp. Jenas, 1564, I. 211-12). Pallavicino in fact holds Erasmus responsible for the course of Frederic (Hist. Concil. Trident. Lib. I. c. xxiii. No. 7). 2 He would have been condemned at Louvain but for the strenuous inter- ference of Charles V. and Chancellor Gattinara (Caballero, Conquenses ilustres, IV. 321, 344). The Sorbonne, being under no such restraining influence, indulged itself, between 1525 and 1527, in repeated condemnations (D'Argentrg, II. 1. 41-47). Florimond de Remond (Synopsis Controversiarum, Lib. I. c. viii.) tells us that at the time there were sayings current in Germany: Erasmus innuit, Lutherus irruit. Erasmus parit ova, Lutherus excludit pullas. Erasmus dubitat, Lutherus asseverat. Aut Erasmus Lutherizat, aut Lutherus Erasmizat. Remond, however, asserts his own belief in the orthodoxy of Erasmus. 3 Maximilianus Transylvanus writes, Oct. 25, 1527, to Alonso de Valdes, secretary of Charles V., that in the Netherlands it is as dangerous to defend 32 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. scholar, his frail body racked with gout and stone and innu- merable other ailments, stoutly maintained himself to the last against his merciless foes in both camps. Perhaps the most effective tribute to his power is that successive popes, whose authority he had done so much to undermine, dreaded him to that point that they not only courted him and made light of his aberrations, but defended him against his ene- mies. In 15 15 and 15 16 Leo X. wrote to him in the most flattering terms and stimulated him to prosecute the labors which were to bring him so much objurgation. In 1521, after the Lutheran revolt had broken out, Leo urged him to assail the impious heretics and promised him a hearty welcome if he would visit Rome. 1 In that same year the learned Spaniard, Diego Lopez de Stuniga, assailed his translation of the New Testament and proved him to be an Arian, an Apol linarian, a Sabellian, and a Lutheran, who denied both the divinity and humanity of Christ and the sacramental quality of marriage. 2 Stuniga had shown his first work to Cardinal Ximenes, who told him not to print it until he should have submitted it to Erasmus, when if the latter could not answer it, or answered it petulantly, he could print it ; but as soon as Ximenes died Stuniga hastened to publish it. 3 Leo X. in- terfered and imposed silence on Stuniga, but the irrepressible Erasmus as to defend Luther. Erasmus, he says, wishes to come to Brabant if he can be protected from the monks and theologians, and Valdes is asked to procure for him an imperial safe-conduct, so that the inquisitor general and the pope shall be his sole judges (Caballero, Conquenses ilustres, IV. 344-5). The principal crime for which Louis de Berquier was burnt in Paris in 1529 was the translation of some of Erasmus's minor works (C. Schmidt, in Herzog's Real-Encyk. s. v.). 1 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. I. Epp. 4, 5, 28.— Lammer, Monumenta Vaticana, p. 3 (Friburgi, 1861 ). 2 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 50-2. Yet this New Testament was dedicated to Leo X. and when a new edition was about to appear Leo wrote a formal brief commending his labors as most profitable to the faith, urging him to continue them, and assuring him that God would reward him and man bestow on him eternal fame (Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XXIX. Ep. 80). 3 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XV. Ep. 4. THE REFORMATION. 33 Spaniard, who was in Rome, persisted in maintaining the controversy with tracts issued in the interregnums after the deaths of Leo and of Adrian VI., in spite of repeated prohi- bitions from the cardinals and from Adrian. Finally, if we may believe Erasmus, Clement VII. threatened him with in- carceration if he would not cease his attacks ; we know that Clement wrote twice to Erasmus saying that he had inter- posed to shield him from abuse, praising his Commentaries upon the Acts, and promising him a substantial gratification. Adrian, while yet inquisitor general of Spain, had dismissed as unworthy of attention a number of extracts from the works of Erasmus sent to him for condemnation by the theologians of Louvain. 1 This continued to the end. In the last year of Erasmus's life Paul III. wrote to him thanking him warmly for advice and asking his aid in guiding the Church through its troubles ; Paul also offered him the provostship of Dav- entry, free of the usual fees, and. when this was refused, pro- posed to create him a cardinal. 2 That this favor was unwillingly extorted by the dread of antagonizing a man of such unrivalled intellectual power was well known in the inner circles of the papal court, and was freely stated in 153 1 by Aleander, the papal nuncio in Brus- sels, and subsequently Cardinal of Brindisi, in a letter to Sanga, the secretary of Clement VII. — "it is well known that but for fear of irritating him to do worse the Holy See would have condemned many of his writings, notwithstand- ing the favors shown by some of our highest prelates and those who play the saint in order to be lauded by him in an epistle " — and the shrewd nuncio prophesied that eventually he would be condemned by the Church. 3 The prophecy was 1 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XVII. Ep. 13; Lib. xix. Epp. 1, 91 ; Lib. XX. Epp. 39, 40, 46; Lib. XXI. Epp. 9, 11 ; Lib. xxx. Epp. i, 36.— Balan, Monumenta Saeculi XVI. pp. 10, 12 (CEnoponte, 1885). 2 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XXVII. Epp. 25, 26, 28, 40, 54; Lib. xxx. Ep. 70. 3 Lammer, Monumenta Vaticana, p. 94. Cf. Pallavicini Hist. Cone. Trident. Lib. I. c. xxiii. No. 10. 34 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. fulfilled. When the lion was dead, Paul IV., in his Index Librorum Prohibitorum, of 1559, condemned him with a spiteful vigor vouchsafed to no other author; all his writings were forbidden whether they treated on religious subjects or not. 1 His very name was to be obliterated from human memory. Benito Arias Montano informs us that the commis- sion appointed by the Council of Trent for the framing of an Index held five or more meetings a week for two years, during which Erasmus furnished the largest subject of discussion.' 2 The result was that he was removed from the authors of the first class, of whom all the writings were prohibited ; some of his works were condemned and the rest were allowed when expurgated. Yet the question would not settle itself. In 1590 Sixtus V. replaced him in the first class. In 1596 Clement VIII. restored the Tridentine classification, and this has been preserved in subsequent Indexes with little altera- tion. 3 Notwithstanding this comparative lenity the abhor- 1 The entry reads " Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus cum universis com- mentariis, annotationibus, scholiis, dialogis, epistolis, censuris, versionibus, libris et scriptis suis, etiam si penitus nil contra religionem vel de religione contineant " (Reusch, Die Indices Librorum Prohibitorum, p. 183, Tubingen, 1886). Yet as late as 1549 the Colloquies, perhaps the most offensive of all his writings, were still largely used as a text-book in the Latin course of many orthodox schools. In the Council of Cologne, held in that year, Archbishop Adolf protested against the continuance of this (Hartzheim, Concil. German. ^"I- 537)- Already in 1538 the "Consilium de Emendanda Ecclesia" drawn up by order of Paul III. had pointed out that the use of the Colloquies in schools trained youth to impiety and that It should be prohibited (Le Plat, Monumentt. ad Hist. Concil. Trident. II. 602). 2 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, pp. 29-30. 3 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 257, 477. — Index Clement. VIII., Romas, 1596, pp. 43, 44, 46. — Elenchus Librorum Omnium, Romae, 1632, p. 157. — Index Benedicti XIV., Romae, 1758, p. 93. — Index Leonis XIII., Romae, 1887, p. 109. Yet in Brisighelli's Index Expurgatorius he is treated as a condemned author and references to him in other writers are expunged, " ob nomen et testimonium Erasmi auctoris damnati " (Index Libb. Expurgandd. Jo. Marias Brasichellensis, Bergomae, 1608, T. I. p. 463). THE SPANISH ERASMISTS. 35 rence which long continued to be felt for him in the Roman court is shown by the efforts of Raynaldus to prove him not only the worst of heretics, but an atheist. 1 THE SPANISH ERASMISTS. Among the cultured Spaniards assembled at the court of Charles V. Erasmus was the fashion. The young emperor ' himself was known to regard him with favor ; the chancellor, Mercurio Gattinara, was his correspondent and was ever ready to protect him, and the imperial secretary, Alfonso de Valdes was his enthusiastic admirer. He was equally strong with the highest dignitaries of the Church. The dreaded inquisitor general, Cardinal Alfonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville, declared Erasmus to be another Jerome and Augustin. The primate of Spain, Alfonso Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo, was also an Erasmist, and when trouble came wrote to him with assurances of his protection and of that of the emperor and of all good men. On the same side were the two Vergaras — Juan, secretary to Fonseca and one of the foremost Spanish men of letters, and his brother Francisco, for ten years pro- fessor of Greek at Alcala and the leading Hellenist of his time. The secretary of Manrique, Luis Nunez Coronel, was a zealous Erasmist, as also was the Dominican, Francisco de Vitoria, chief professor at Salamanca, and the whole faculty of Alcala with the exception of Pedro Ciruelo. Luis Vives, then already rising to eminence, was another earnest admirer, as also were Fray Alfonso de Virues, a Benedictine preacher of high repute and subsequently Bishop of the Canaries, and Juan de Maldonado vicar general of the Archbishop of Burgos. Such opposition as had manifested itself seemed to 1 Raynaldi Annal. ann. 1516, No. 89-100. 3 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. disappear. The unconquerable Diego Lopez de Stuniga died ; Sancho Carranza, brother of Bartolome the subsequent Archbishop of Toledo, who had joined in the attack, was reconciled to Erasmus and became his warm defender. All Spanish culture united in praising the Dutch scholar. His Colloquies were used as a school-book and his Praise of Folly was in the hands of all humanists. As late as March, 1527, Alfonso de Valdes wrote to him that his books were every- where in Spain and that no merchandise there was more saleable. 1 Trouble began with the translation into Castilian, in 1527, of his Enchiridion Militis Christian!, or Manual of the Chris- tian Soldier, a little work, written in 1502, and approved at the time by Adrian VI., then at the head of the University of Louvain. When the translation was proposed it was objected to by a Dominican friar who alleged against it passages in which the existence of purgatory seemed to be questioned and monachism was not considered as identical with piety, ' but Luis Nunez Coronel replied vigorously to the objector, and the work went on. 2 The translator was Alfonso Fer- nandez de Madrid, Archdeacon of Alcor; he softened some of the expressions that might give umbrage ; he added a prologue defending the translation into the vernacular of the New Testament, and dedicated the volume to Cardinal Manrique, the inquisitor general. '1 he latter had the book duly examined and authorized its publication. 3 Appearing under patronage so exalted it had an immense success and soon 1 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 47, 63-4, 73, 75, 727-8.— Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XVIII. Ep. 1; XXI. Ep. 24. — Caballero, Conquenses ilustres, IV. 324. Stuniga, when dying in Naples, asked his executors not to print the material which he had collected against the fourth edition of Erasmus's New Testa- ment, but to send it to Erasmus in order that he might profit by it. Stuiiiga's friend Sepulveda gives him the highest character, not only for learning but for courtesy and candor (Sepulvedae Opera, Colon. Agripp. 1602, p. 612). 2 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XIX. Ep. 91. 3 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 66. THE SPANISH ERAS MISTS. 37 was in the hands of everyone, but the patronage could not save it from attack. In fact, seeing how much there is in it destructive of the received observances of the Church one must wonder rather at the liberality which permitted than at the obscurantism which deprecated the circulation of such a work among the people in the vulgar tongue. The monks and friars who had suffered so severely from the caustic spirit of Erasmus saw the opportunity for revenge and were not tardy in taking advantage of it. As early as May 17, 1527, Erasmus writes to a correspondent about the tremendous tumult which it had excited among the monks ; and on Sep- tember 27 the translator appealed to Coronel, describing how at Palencia a Franciscan, Juan de San Vicente, had from the pulpit denounced the book as containing a thousand heresies, how he had vanquished the fraile in a public disputation thereon, and asking that Manrique punish or at least force to a recantation the audacious man who had dared to assail a work published with the archbishop's approbation. 1 When it was proposed to translate the Colloquies and the "Lingua" Erasmus might well deprecate the inopportune zeal of his disciples and suggest that it would be safer to undertake some of his devotional works.' 2 The opposition to him, in fact, was rapidly gathering head, and ammunition for it was furnished by the English ambassador in Spain, Dr. Edward Lee, subsequently Wolsey's successor in the see of York. He was a distinguished theologian and had previously without success endeavored to procure at Louvain the con- demnation of Erasmus. Now he saw his opportunity and drew up a treatise in which he accused Erasmus of numerous heresies, including disbelief in the Trinity, in the divinity of 1 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XIX. Ep. 13.— Menendez y Pelayo, II. 67-8. In the elaborate expurgation of the works of Erasmus in the 1640 Index of Sotomayor (Ed. Genevse, 1667, p. 284) the Enchiridion escapes with only four passages to be borrados or expunged. 2 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XIX. Ep. 53. 3 38 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Christ and in the existence of the Holy Ghost. 1 This was circulated among the friars and Erasmus was apprehensive that it would be printed, but Chancellor Gattinara reassured him with the information that nothing was permitted to be published in Spain without a careful previous examination. This censorship, he said, was rigidly exercised, so that every- body could not print his reveries, and he fervently wished that an equally salutary rule could be enforced in Germany 2 — had it been, the whole course of the Reformation might have been changed. Gattinara's remark is important as proving the existence of an organized preliminary censorship at the date of the letter, February 20, 1527, though we are ignorant as to its practical details. As yet the printing of a licence in front of a book was not required, and there is nothing to show whether this preliminary censorship was exercised by the bishops under the ordinance of 1502, or by the Inquisition under the Lateran decree. It was probably the former ; the translation of the Enchiridion seems to have been licensed by Manrique in his capacity as Archbishop of Seville ; and Juan de V aides, in his contemporary Didiogo de Mercurio y Caron represents his ideal bishop as making a strict examination of all the books in his diocese ; those which he found injurious through falsehood, immorality, or super- stition he confiscated, and he would allow nothing to be read save what he himself caused to be printed. 3 Even reformers could not comprehend as yet that freedom of thought and expression was possible in a well-ordered state. It was comforting to Erasmus to learn that he was to be thus protected, but the favor of the Inquisitor General Man- rique was even more important. The religious orders and especially the Mendicants rose in a concerted assault. 4 It 1 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. XIX. Ep. 71 ; Lib. xxn. Ep. 19. 9 Erasmi Epistt. Lib. xxvu. Ep. 33. 3 Dos Dialogos (Reformistas antiguos Espanoles, pp. 258-61). 4 Juan de Vergara tells us that the Orders which depended for subsistence on popular liberality, such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites and THE SPANISH ERA SMIS TS. 39 was in vain that the dreaded Inquisition repeatedly com- manded them to be silent. Denunciations of heresy poured in against him, the pulpits resounded with abuse of him, the confessional was used effectively to prevent the reading of his obnoxious books, and an unofficial but active censorship was established to prevent their sale. Monachism was a power in the Church which few could venture to resist ; in ordinary questions it was to a great extent neutralized by the bitter antagonism which raged between the Orders, but here they were united and their combined influence was a force with which the Inquisition was obliged to temporize. In March, 1527, Manrique held repeated sessions of the Supreme Council to consider the matter. Many prominent frailes were sum- moned before it and sharply reproved for exciting the people against Erasmus in defiance of successive edicts ; they were ordered to be silent and were told that judgment on his writings did not belong to them ; if they believed that there were errors they must submit them to the Inquisition. The frailes defended themselves by asserting that Erasmus was secretly cooperating with Luther ; his books should be all called in and examined for heresy as had already been done by the Sorbonne. The Council replied that the papal favor was evidence that the books were orthodox ; if the accusers desired to point out errors appropriate action would be taken, but meanwhile the attacks must cease. Thus challenged, the frailes parcelled out the work of systematically examining the books for errors, and with the assistance of Edward Lee a formidable list of twenty-one articles was framed by March 28. 1 Trinitarians, were especially bitter. Those which had foundations for their support, as the Benedictines, Bernardines, Cistercians and Jeronimites, were less unanimous (Menendez y Pelayo, II. 725). There were, however, honor- able exceptions in all the Orders. 1 This list of errors is interesting as showing how readily the real causes of provocation could be concealed under a show of zeal for the purity of the faith, though some of them were justified by the mocking tone in which 40 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. The Supreme Council of the Inquisition assembled to re- ceive the articles with Archbishop Manrique at its head, assisted by two imperial privy councillors. Erasmus was assailed by a Dominican, a Franciscan, and a Trinitarian, and was defended by a Benedictine and a Trinitarian. The dis- cussion was bitter until Manrique put an end to it and referred the whole matter to an assembly of twenty theologians and nine friars, with orders to report by May 30. These disputed for a month over the first two articles and then took up the third. The debate promised to be endless and Manrique suspended it, leaving the matter undecided. The decision Erasmus had derided popular superstitions before the Lutheran revolt. As printed by Menendez y Pelayo (II. 78) they are : 1. The Arian heresy of denying the consubstantiality of the Word. 2. The Arian heresy of denying the divinity of the Son. 3. Affirming that the Holy Ghost is not qualified as God in Scripture and the Fathers. 4. Thinking ill of the Inquisition and disapproving the temporal punishment of heretics. 5. Denying the efficacy of baptism. 6. Asserting the modern origin of the confessional. 7. Errors as to the Eucharist. 8. Attributing sacerdotal authority to the people and denying the primacy of the pope. 9. Defending divorce. 10. Attacking the authority of Scripture by accusing the apostles of ignorance and forgetfulness. 11. Ridiculing the points at issue between Catholics and Lutherans as mere scholastic questions. 12. Speaking disrespectfully of the Fathers and especially of St. Jerome. 13. Much irreverence as to the cult of the Virgin. 14. Diminishing the authority of the pope and of general councils. 15. Censuring as Judaism church ceremonies, fasts, etc. 16. Preferring matrimony to virginity. 17. Condemning absolutely scholastic theology. 18. Holding as useless indulgences, veneration of saints, pilgrimages, and relics. 19. Casting doubt over the right of the Church to temporal possessions. 20. Doubts as to free will. 21. Doubts as to the pains of hell. THE SPANISH ERASMIS TS. 41 had been awaited with the utmost interest by the learned throughout Europe, especially in the Netherlands, and Eras- mus was left in a condition of anxious suspense. 1 To relieve him Alfonso de Valdes persuaded Gattinara to procure from Charles V. a letter to Clement VII., then his prisoner, asking for a brief in favor of Erasmus. Juan Perez was sent to Rome with the imperial missive and obtained from Clement a brief of August 1, 1527, addressed to Manrique, imposing silence on all who should attack the writings of Erasmus in so far as they concerned Luther. Manrique went further than this and issued an absolute prohibition to write against Erasmus, and so long as he lived the opponents of the scholar were silenced. Only two Spaniards ventured to disobey the command ; one of these printed his book secretly, the other wrote in Italy. 2 1 We have various accounts of this controversy sent to Erasmus by his friends. One is from Luis Vives, July, 1527 (Auctar. Epistt. ex Ludov. Vive, Londini, 1642, p. 109). Another is from Alfonso de Valdes, Aug. 1 (Caballero, Conquenses ilustres, IV. 335). The m&st authoritative is from Juan de Ver- gara, whose position as secretary to the Inquisitor General Manrique renders his account almost official (Menendez y Pelayo, II. 720). See also Sandoval, Historia de Carlos V. Lib. XVI. # xiv. Vergara illustrates the terror inspired among the friars by the name of Erasmus, with a story that a prelate of high reputation was conducting divine service when the congregation was disturbed by an unseemly contest for pre- cedence between two bodies of monks. He exclaimed, " Be quiet! May that wicked Erasmus catch you! " and the tumult ceased at once (Menendez y Pelayo, II. 726). The good padres had no hesitation in circulating the most outrageous falsehoods about the whole affair. Vicente Navarro, in a letter from Barcelona, Oct. 25, 1528, relates that the friar of the Jeronimite convent of La Murta gravely told him that Erasmus had been condemned by a great council held at Burgos and that the wicked Lutheran would have been burnt by the holy fathers had he not managed to escape by flight (Caballero, IV. 396). 2 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 81-3. One of these was Luis de Carvajal, a man of eminent piety and culture, then in Paris. Curiously enough, one of his tracts in the controversy which ensued, the Dulcoratio amarulentiarum Erasmice responsionis, was put on the Spanish Index of 1559 (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 221) and on the Roman Index of 1596, "nisi prius repurgetur " (Index Clement. VIII. p. 73). The other was the learned Juan Gines de Sepiilveda, who took up the 42 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Charles V. left Spain in 1529, carrying with him Gattinara and Alfonso de Valdes. . The Inquisitor General Manrique fell into disgrace with the Empress-regent Isabella, and was relegated to his diocese of Seville in August 1529, where he remained until Charles's return in 1533. 1 ^ n r 534 Arch- bishop Fonseca of Toledo died, depriving the Erasmists of one of their most efficient protectors. The Erasmists were persecuted, though, curiously enough, as we s 1 all see hereafter, it was mostly under the convenient charge of Illuminism, the only link between which and Erasmism was the common dis- regard of external ceremonies. Fonseca's secretary, Juan de Vergara, was arrested and lay long a prisoner of the Inquisi- tion. Another of the Vergara brothers, Bernardino de Tovar, was likewise seized, as well as Alonso de Virues and other learned men. 2 Erasmus himself passed away in 1536, and Manrique followed him in 1538. The fear inspired by the pen of the great writer was removed as well as the men who had power to defend him. The struggle with the Reformers was growing bitterer and deadlier than ever, and there was no one to palliate the exuberance of him who had done so much to render the Reformation possible. That his works should be condemned was inevitable, but the process was gradual. In 1535 Charles V. made it a capital offence to use his Colloquies in schools, and in 1538 he prohibited the Moria, the Epistles, the Paraphrases of the Gospels, and even the Refutation of Luther. 3 Yet in the first Spanish Index (1551; only the Colloquia and its Epitome and the Ecclesi- cudgels in defence of his deceased friend, Alberto Pio, Prince of Carpi, who had assailed Erasmus in a folio volume published in Venice in 1531 (Sepiil- vedse Antapologia, Opp. Colon. Agripp. 1602, p. 596). Carpi's work was translated into Spanish and it too was placed on the Spanish Index of 1551 (Reusch, p. 74). 1 Zuniga, Annales de Sevilla. Lib. Xiv. ano 1529. 2 Auctar. Epistt. ex Ludov. Vive, Ep. 22, p. 114. — Memoires d'Enzinas, ch. CLXXIX. (Bruxelles, 1863, II. 155).— Llorente, III. 11. 3 Sandoval, Historia de la Vida de Carlos V., P. II. p. 808 (Barcelona, 1625;. Possibly these edicts may have been intended only for his Nether- land dominions. THE SPANISH ERAS MIS TS. 43 astes are included. 1 The success of the translation of the Enchiridion had led to numerous versions of others of his books. These were overlooked in the Index of 1551, but were included by name in that of 1559, while in that of 1583 a general prohibition was uttered against them all. 2 As for the Latin originals, a long list was given in the Index of 1559, and a still longer one in that of 1583, while all relating to religion were ordered to be expurgated. 3 With an author so voluminous and so independent this business of expurga- tion was no easy task. In the Expurgatorial Index of 1584 Erasmus occupies no less than fifty-five quarto pages, 4 and by 1640 the minute care exercised in scrutinizing his works had swelled the list of errors to fifty-nine double- columned folio pages. 5 By this time he had come to be classed with incor- rigible heretics. After his name on all title-pages the words " auctoris damnati " were ordered to be inserted ; and in the preliminary edict the Inquisitor General, Antonio de Soto- mayor, describes the garbling and corruption of texts prac- tised by the heretics, among whom " CEcolampadius, Luther, and Erasmus are the most audacious. . . . The latter denies to St. Cyprian many of his writings, to St. Jerome nearly the half of his works, to St. Augustin more than seventy books, condemning them all rashly and blasphe- mously." The Scriptures, he adds, are especially corrupted by those who declare that new translations are necessary, "such as have been put forth by those sacrilegious blas- phemers Pellican, Zwingli, Luther, Munster, Erasmus, Cas- talius, and others."" This was the final judgment of the 1 Reusch, Die Indices, p. 74. 2 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 232, 233, 236, 237, 238, 239, 240, 434. 3 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 221, 403. 4 Index Expurg. 1584, Ed. Saumuri, 161 1, fol. 67-93. Nearly a third of the Antwerp Index Expurgatorius compiled under Arias Montano in 1571 is occupied with Erasmus. 5 Index Expurg. 1640, pp. 256-315. 6 Ibid. p. ii. Yet Erasmus's version of the New Testament was permitted (Ibid. Regla IV,), and in the body of the Index, although the emendations 44 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Spanish Inquisition on Erasmus and it remained unaltered in the successive Indexes of 1707, 1747, and 1790. 1 THE SCRIPTURES. If Erasmus thus experienced the vicissitudes of fortune in the altered temper of the times caused by the Reformation, the treatment accorded to the Bible shows an equally instruc- tive change. We have seen how freely vernacular versions were permitted in Spain after the scare caused by the heresies of the thirteenth century passed away, and that up to the close of the fifteenth there was no obstacle to printing them. Whether Ferdinand and Isabella prohibited translations of the Bible has been a disputed question. At the Council of Trent Cardinal Pacheco stated that they had done so with the approval of Paul II., 2 but as Paul died in 1471 and Isa- bella did not succeed to the throne till 1474, the assertion was evidently a random one, deserving of no weight. Alfonso de Castro, writing in 1547, while arguing against the popular use of Scripture, says that Ferdinand and Isabella prohibited, under very heavy penalties, its translation or the possession of translations, but he gives no reason for such a law having fallen into desuetude. 3 The Repet torium Inquisitionis, printed at Valencia in 1494, says that it is forbidden to translate the Scriptures into the vulgar tongue/ but it bases this exclusively ordered for his Commentary are numerous, only seven are enumerated for the text. One of these is designed to neutralize the approving brief of Leo X. over which is to be inscribed " Dulcibus encomiis pius Pater nutantem ovem allicere conatur" (lb. p. 288). Inquisitorial censorship had grown so into the habit of treating the learned like children that it naturally adopted the most childish methods. 1 Indice Ultimo, Madrid, 1790, pp. iii.-iv. a Pallavicini Hist. C. Trident. Lib. VI. c. xii. No. 5. * Alphonsus a Castro adv. Hsereses Lib. I. c. xx. (Ed Paris, 1571, p. 80). 4 Repertorium Inquisitionis, s.v. Scripturj, THE SCRIPTURES. 45 on the prohibition of Innocent III. to the Waldenses of Metz in 1199, which had been carried into the Corpus Juris and was familiar in that shape to jurists ; l evidently the much more pertinent Aragonese law of 1234 had been completely forgotten. Had there been a recent edict with defined penal- ties the author could not have failed to refer to it, and this is strengthened by the fact that no such law is to be found in the compilations of legislation, such as Hugo de Celso's Reportorio (Alcala, 1540), and the Recopilaciones, in which it would infallibly have been preserved. The learned Bartolome Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, writing in 1557, says that for more than twenty years there had been in Spain an active debate on the subject. Before Luther's heresies emerged from hell he knew of no prohibition of the Bible in the vulgar tongue. In Spain he tells us there were versions current with the approbation of the sovereigns, but after the expulsion and forced conversion of the Jews it was found that the conversos secretly taught the Mosaic rites to their children by means of translations of the Bible which they subsequently printed at Ferrara, for which reason ver- nacular versions were forbidden to those who were not free from all suspicion. 2 This has an air of probability, especially in view of the hostility of Cardinal Ximenes to all versions of Scripture. His lofty contempt for the populace led him to anticipate for the Church unnumbered evils from the gen- eral dissemination of the Bible, and this he carried so far that when the good Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, at the request of his Morisco converts, authorized the translating into Arabic and the printing of the texts used at matins and in the mass, Ximenes interfered and stopped the work. 3 1 Lib. IV. Extra vii. 12. — Innocent. PP. III. Regest. II. 141, 142, 235. 2 Carranza, Comentarios sobre el Catechismo, Prdlogo al Lector. I owe the opportunity of consulting this rare volume to the courtesy of the custodians of the noble White Historical Library at Cornell University. 3 Gomez de Rebus Gestis Fran. Ximenii, Lib. II. fol. 32-33. 3* 4 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. As Lutheranism aroused the Church to a sense of impend- ing danger the Bible was rightly regarded as the source of the threatening heresies, and an effort was made to revive the ancient prohibitions which had everywhere grown obsolete. In December, 1527, the Sorbonne condemned as errors the expressions of Erasmus urging everyone to read the Scrip- tures in the vernacular, and it argued in favor of the papal condemnations. 1 Spain as yet wa; free from similar troubles and it is significant that this finds no place in the list of Erasmus's errors collected there almost simultaneously (p. 40), and that the Archdeacon of Alcor, in his prologue to the Enchiridion, argued warmly in favor of vernacular ver sions. Many such, indeed, must have been current. Maria Cazalla, when on trial by the Inquisition for Illuminism, in 1533, speaks of its being customary for Catholic women to read portions of Scripture in Castilian, 2 and Carranza in his Comentarios complains of the number of female expounders of Scripture who abounded everywhere as an evil to be sup- pressed. 3 In 1547 Alfonso de Castro shows that there cou'd as yet have been no authoritative measures taken to prevent the circulation of vernacular Bibles, for in justification of his argument against it he is reduced to alleging some decrees of the Sorbonne, adding that many people laugh at them with the remark that Paris articles do not cross the mountains. He shows, moreover, by his long and earnest reasoning that zealous Spaniards were becoming keenly alive to the neces- sity of excluding the Scriptures if heresy was to be excluded. From their misinterpretation, he says, spring all heresies; as the keenest intellect and widest learning are required for their 1 D'Argentre, II. I. 61. 3 Melgares Marin, Procedimientos de la Inquisicion, II. no. " Pero si por leer una epistola en romance se hubiese de imputar & delito 6 se hubiese de tomar como predicacion pocas mujeres habria devotas 6 que supieran leer, que no fuesen notadas de esto, que no es herejia ni delito de ninguna clase " (lb. p. 114). 3 Comentarios, Pr61ogo al Lector. THE SCRIPTURES. 47 interpretation they must be sedulously kept from the people, and reverence for them will be destroyed if they are allowed to become common. 1 Another theologian of the day treats the reading of Scripture as an evil in itself, and ascribes to Satan the eagerness of the people for vernacular versions. 2 These arguments met a speedy response. In 1546, prob- ably while Alfonso de Castro was engaged on his work, the Council of Trent adopted, after a prolonged and bitter dis- cussion, a decree in which the character of inspiration was virtually attributed to the Vulgate by pronouncing it authentic and not to be rejected or corrected under any pretence. The abuse made of Scripture was deplored as well as the habit of printers, without licence from the ecclesiastical authorities, of printing the books of Holy Writ, often with commentaries and annotations, without an imprint or author's name or with fictitious ones. In future no books on sacred subjects were to be printed, sold, or possessed until after episcopal examination and approval, under the penalties of the Lateran decree of 15 15. 3 Vernacular versions were not specifically forbidden, 1 Alphonsi de Castro aclv. Hsereses Lib. I. c. xiii. (p. 81) ; Ejusd. de Justa Htereticor. Punit. Lib. III. c. vi. vii. (pp. 1478 sqq.). 2 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, p. 59. 3 Concil. Trident. Sess. IV. — Sarpi, Istoria del Concil. Trident. Lib. II. (Ed. Helmstat, I. 144)- — Pallavicino, Lib. VI. cap. xvii — Theiner, Acta Genuina Cone. Trident., Zagrabiae, 1874, T. I. pp. 79, 88. Pallavicino argues that God of course provided his Church with a version free from all error, but he discreetly suppresses the fact that at the time of the Council this inspired and immaculate version was notoriously corrupt, as was subsequently admitted by the Clementine revision. The terror which the conciliar decree inspired among biblical scholars is shown in the proceedings of the inquisitorial trial of Luis de Leon. See Reusch, Luis de Leon und die Spanische Inquisition, Bonn, 1873, PP- 7 2 siQ-i io 4~ Rome was not strictly consistent in the prohibition of the vernacular Bible, but could encourage its circulation when that seemed to be the better policy. The Congregation de Propaganda Fide caused Arabic translations to be made for use in the East. When Socinianism spread in Poland through the versions of Nicholas Radzevil, Simon of Budni and Martin Ezechowski, the evil was met with the authoritative one of the Jesuit Jacob Vieki, printed in Cracow in 1599 with the approbation of Clement VIII. When the heresy spread to 4 8 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. but their production and use were effectually interfered with. It is true that Charles V. made light of this when, to meet the clamor for reform in Germany, he caused the adoption of the Interim and accompanied it with a Formula of Reforma- tion in which, after forbidding immoral and heretical works, he ordered that the people should read the holy bcoks, the fathers, the lives of the saints, and histories of brave and dis- tinguished men. 1 In Spain the conciliar decree met with better success. The business of condemning and seizing books was rapidly concentrating in the hands of the Inquisition. Under the imperial authority the University of Louvain in 1546 had issued a rudimentary index of forbidden books and had followed it with others. That of 155 1, by order of Charles V., was reissued in Spain the same year by the Inquisitor General Valdes, together with a " Catalogue of books already condemned by the holy office of the Inquisition," showing that it had been busy in the good work. Among these is the significant entry of " Bibles translated into Spanish or other vulgar tongue." 2 Yet Archbishop Carranza tells us, in 1557, that he frequently permitted the use of vernacular Scriptures to both men and women whom he deemed worthy and that they derived from the perusal the utmost benefit, both moral Hungary, Gregory Kaldius made a Majjar version, printed in Vienna, 1626, with the approbation of Urban VIII. (Villanueva, op. cit. pp. 50-1). 1 Formula Reformat, cap. xix. # 4 (Goldast. Constt. Impp. II. 337). Ten years later the University of Louvain, in writing to Philip III., said that if this formula of reform could be enforced it would remove innumerable scandals (Le Plat, Monument. C. Trident. IV. 609, 612). Sandoval, Historia de la Vida de Carlos V., P. II. (Ed. Barcelona 1625, p. 808), alludes to an edict of Charles, May 24, 1550, forbidding the transla- tion of the Bible or of any portion of it into the vernacular or into French, and the purchase or use of such versions, but this I presume applied only to his Flemish dominions, in which he was residing at the time. There is no trace in Spain of such legislation and Carranza could not have failed to allude to it. 2 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 27, 44, 73, 74. THE SCRIPTURES. 49 and spiritual.' This shows at least that such versions were still readily procurable, and the same is to be inferred from Luis de Granada who prescribes reading the Gospel as a proper preparation for mental prayer. 2 Even twenty years later a story told of Santa Teresa shows that the orders of the Inquisition had been slackly obeyed. After she had founded in Toledo a convent of her rigid Order of Barefooted Car- melites, a young lady of that city applied for admission. Teresa approved of her and all details were settled as to dower, etc., when, the evening before she was to enter, on parting with Teresa, she said, " Mother, shall I bring my Bible?" " Bible, daughter," exclaimed the saint, "don't come here. We are ignorant women who only seek to do as we are ordered and we want neither you nor your Bible ! ' ' Her wisdom was justified by the event, for the young woman joined some foolish beatas who, instigated by the devil, endeavored to found a religious order without permission, and they were all penanced by the Inquisition in the auto de fe of 1579. 8 But it was by no means only the vernacular versions which troubled the Church, nor had the Council of Trent acted without purpose in establishing the Vulgate as the standard of orthodoxy. The reformers had not restricted their energies to spreading the Scriptures before the people in their native dialects, but had been even more busy in preparing editions 1 Comentarios, Prologo al Lector. Melchor Cano did not fail to enumerate this among the errors of Carranza (Caballero, Vida de Melchor Cano, pp. 537, 539)- 2 Luis de Granada, Dell' Oratione et Meditatione, cap. iv. (Vinegia, 1561). 3 Carta de Fray Diego de Yepes (Escritos de Santa Teresa, Madrid, 1882, T. I. p. 568). Yet Santa Teresa's spiritual director, Jeronimo Gracian, in a work intended for the public, includes the Bible among the good books of which he urges the reading (Itinerario de la Perfection, cap. iii.). A Jesuit mystic, Luis de Puente, also urges in the strongest terms the habitual reading of Scripture and especially of the Gospels (Guida Spirituale, tradotta dal Abate Sperelli, Roma, 1628, P. 1. Trat. ii. Cap. 2). 5Q CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. for the learned, with new Latin versions and notes and com- mentaries adapted to their own systems of exegesis. This was introducing heresy in a more insidious form and it ren- dered necessary a more elaborate watchfulness. In September 155 1 Valdes issued an edict directed especially against imported heretical Bibles, which the inquisitors were ordered to seize and to use rigorous measures against all recalcitrants. 1 The copies thus condemned were numerous, and loud com- plaints arose from their owners, who objected to the sacrifice. To palliate the evil, in 1554, Valdes issued a special expurga- torial Index in which fifty-four editions were examined and lists of the objectionable passages were made out, the texts, being correct but the side-notes and comments heretical. All the owners of these Bibles were required to present them within sixty days to the inquisitors, when the objectionable passages would be obliterated, a notarial act be taken and a certificate be inserted in the copy. After the expiration of the term no further expurgation would be made and the possessor of an unexpurgated copy incurred the major excommunication, lata sententice, a fine of thirty ducats, and a prosecution for suspicion of heresy. The same penalties were threatened against booksellers thereafter importing copies, for all importation, even of expurgated Bibles, was prohibited. 2 The mere desire to read the Bible thus became a symptom of heresy. In 1564 Don Gaspar de Centellaswas on trial for Lutheranism in Valencia and Doctor Sigismundo Arques in Toledo. Among the papers of the former was found a long letter from the latter containing a passage advising him to read two chapters daily of the Old Testament and two of the New. This phrase is underscored as a proof of their guilt by the inquisitor, who points out in a side-note 1 Llorenle, I. 465. 2 Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Biicher, I. 200-1. — Menendez y Pelayo, II. 700. In the Index of Quiroga, 1583, the list of prohibited Bibles in Latin and Greek had grown to eighty-nine (Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 390-4). THE SCRIPTURES. 51 that this is Lutheran doctrine. 1 The sensitiveness thus devel- oped with regard to the Scriptures is appropriately illustrated by the vicissitudes endured by the Bible of Vatable, the notes of which were reported to have been hereticized by the printer, Robert Estienne. 2 Its expurgation was undertaken at Salamanca, the stronghold of orthodoxy, and the edition appeared in 1555, but notwithstanding the careful scrutiny bestowed upon it the susceptibilities of the Inquisition were aroused, and it was forbidden in the Index of 1559. Then in 1569 a further expurgation was undertaken under the auspices of the Inquisition itself, by the theologians of Salamanca, leading to squabbles between them which culminated in the incarceration by the Holy Office of three of them — Luis de Leon, Gaspar de Grajal and Martin Martinez. The royal licence to print the work is dated in 1573, but the printing was not completed till 1584, a delay arising from the inter- ference of the Inquisition, which ruined Portonares, the dis- tinguished printer. 3 Still it was not allowed to appear until 1 " Alude a los de los luteranos que se cieran con el nue.bo y viejo testa- mento sin azer caso de la expusicion y lo cerca de ellos recebido pot la yglesia" (MSS. of the Kcinigl. Universitlits Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, T. XL). In the same way an allusion to the purchase of a Greek Testament is noted as showing that he does not care for the version received by the Church. 2 Vatable himself was of undoubted orthodoxy. — " Erat autem Vatablus Catholicae religionis studiosissimus " (Florimundi Raemundi Synopsis Con- troversiarum Lib. vni. c. xvi. N<>. 3). 3 The establishment of Andres de Portonares was an old and renowned one. In his vainglorious address to the reader, prefixed to his edition of Melchor Cano's Lectures on the Sacrament of Penitence, Salamanca, 1550, he says : " quam aliquot jam annis per universam hanc Hispanise regionem a te celebrata, sparsa, ac disseminata fuerit nominis mei fama.'' No better work than his was issued by the presses of Paris or Antwerp. In 1570 several French printers who had been in his employ were burnt for Lutheranism by the Inquisition of Toledo. In fact many of the printers in Spain were Flemings and Frenchmen who, whether heretics or not, found it difficult to accommodate themselves to the rigidity of Spanish observance in religious matters. The records of the Inquisition of Toledo alone contain evidence of their arrest in Barcelona, Alcaic, Salamanca, Toledo, Valladolid and Granada 52 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. 1586, and then only with additional expurgations to be inserted with the pen. Even after this there were passages which offended the constantly increasing sensitiveness of the censors; further expurgations were ordered in 161 3 and again in 1632. 1 Even the great Biblia Regia, produced by Arias Montano with the liberal assistance of Philip II., could not escape. Though it had passed the censorship of Rome it excited the criticism of Leon de Castro, a professor of Salamanca, who filled all Spain, Flanders and Italy with his denunciations, rendering it necessary for Montano to appeal personally to the Inquisitor General Quiroga. 2 Sub- jected to such shackles and exposed to such discouragements it is easy to understand how impossible became in Spain the development of Biblical learning. Fray Luis de Leon in his defence before the Inquisition, declared that he knew many who called themselves theologians and were skilled in scho- lastics who had never read the Bible through and did not possess a copy of it. 3 Indeed, if we may believe Llorente, the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, in 1559, issued an order that theological professors should surrender all their Hebrew and Greek Bibles, and that all in the hands of book- sellers should be seized. 4 about this period (MSS. of the Kb'nigl. Universit'ats Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, T. III.). 1 Reusch, Der Index, I. 204. — Reusch, Luis de Leon und die spanische Inquisition, pp. 58-63. — Menendez y Pelayo, II. 695. The Vatable Bible gave Robert Estienne in Paris almost equal trouble. In fact he was almost always in hot water with the censorship. In his defence of his Bible he says: " C'est que toutes et quantes fois que ie reduy en memoire la guerre que i'ay eue avec la Sorbone par l'espace de vingt ans ou enuiron ie ne me puis assez esmerueiller comment une si petite et si caduque personne come ie suis a eu force pour la soustenir " (Robert Estienne, Les Censures des Theologiens de Paris, 1552, fol. 2, Geneve, 1866). For the censorship on his editions of the Bible see D'Argentr6, Collect. Judic. de novis Erroribus, II. 1. 143 sqq. 2 Colleccion He Documentos ineditos, T. XLI. p. 316. 3 Reusch, Luis de Leon, p. 2. 4 Llorente, I. 469. There is probably some mistake in this assertion. In the 1559 Index of Vald6s there is no general prohibition of Greek and Hebrew THE SCRIPTURES. 53 It was in the vernacular Bibles, however, that the greatest danger was felt to lie. The early Spanish reformers were not idle and translations either of the whole or of parts were prepared by Juan de Valdes, Cassiodoro de Reyna, Doctor Juan Perez, Cipriano de Valera, and Francisco de Enzinas which, though printed abroad, had considerable currency in Spain. A Basque translation by Juan de Lizarriga was issued in 1 5 7 1 at La Rochelle under the auspices of Jeanne d'Albret.' These of course were suppressed by all the means to which the perfected organization of the Inquisition lent such tremen- dous efficacy. Even works of devotion, books of hours and the like are forbidden in the Index of 1559 because they contain fragments and passages of Scripture.' 2 In the general rules prefixed to the Index of 1583 there is a sweeping prohi- bition of vernacular Bibles and all portions thereof ; and the strict interpretation designed for this is seen in the exceptions made of texts quoted in Catholic books and the fragments contained in the canon of the Mass, provided they do not stand alone but are embodied in sermons or explications. 3 Even this did not relieve the fears of the more ardent defenders of religion. Melchor Cano, the leading theologian of the day, deplores that books setting forth the mysteries of the faith should be accessible to the vulgar ; this he argues is most pestilent, for they are freely circulated, not only with the approbation of the civil authorities but of the Inquisition Ribles; There is a prohibition of all Hebrew and vernacular books on the Old Law, as well as of all Mahometan books, whether in Arabic or Romance. — -Reusch, Die Indices, p 239. This resulted in virtually suppressing the study of the original Bible. In 1555 Dr. Sigismundo Arques complains that in all Barcelona he cannot buy a Hebrew Bible or vocabulary (MSS. of the Konigl. Universitats Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, T. XL). 1 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, pp. 42, 44. 2 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 234-5, 240. — Not long after this St. Pius V. forbade the use of translations of the Hours of the Virgin (Azpilcueta> De Oratione, cap. xxii. No. 104, Ed. Romae, 1578, p. 642). 3 Index of Quiroga, 1583, Regla VI. (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 383). H CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. itself. 1 That he was not alone in this is seen by the remark of Azpilcueta that there were earnest men who sought to procure the prohibition of vernacular versions of the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ave Maria and Salve Regina." The Inquisition did not adopt this latter extreme measure for protecting the public conscience, but it effectually enforced its prohibitions by including in the annual Edict of Denun- ciations published everywhere, a summons to all the faithful, under pain of the major excommunication and of prosecu- tion for fautorship and suspicion of heresy, to give informa- tion as to any one possessing Lutheran books, or Alcorans or other Mahometan works, or Bibles in the vernacular, or other forbidden works/ The classing of the Bible with the Koran must have produced a profound impression on the popular mind, and of the two it was the most to be dreaded. This marks the settled policy of the Spanish censorship. The 1640 Index of Sotomayor, in its preliminary general rules, says that experience has shown that more injury than good arises from permitting the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue ; therefore not only the vernacular Bible and all its parts are prohibited, whether in print or in MS. but even summaries and compendiums of Holy Writ. 4 Apparently the desire was to make the people forget that such writings existed. If this was the object it was successful at the end, though the unbending firmness of the Spanish character resisted for a surprising length of time the tremendous pressure brought upon it. Villanueva has collected, with unwearied industry, extracts from a large number of religious writers who flour- ished between 1550 and 1620, in which, with the utmost boldness, the duty and benefit of studying the Scriptures are 1 Melchioris Cani de Locis Theologicis Lib. XI. cap. 6. 2 Azpilcueta, loc. cit. 3 Llorente, IV. 425. — Paramo de Orig. Offic. S. Inquist. p. 628. — In a MS. copy of the Edict used in Sardinia there is simply biblia in place of " biblias en romance" (MSS, Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 214 folio). 4 Index Librorum Prohibitorum 1640, Regla V. (p. viii.). THE SCRIPTURES. ss expatiated upon with an earnestness that could be exceeded by neither Calvinist nor Lutheran. Thus Padre Luis de la Puente, S. J., in 1609, declares that reading Scripture pro- vides us with remedies again -t vices, arms against temptation, counsel in doubts, consolation in sorrow, assistance in travail, and the means of attaining perfection in all virtues. The Augustinian, Andres Nunez de Andrada, in 1600, argues that as the Bible was originallv written in the vernacular of its day there is no reason to deprive Spaniards of it in their native tongue ; as Turks and heretics utter their falsehoods in their own languages, so much greater the necessity that the truth should be attainable in all tongues. The same emphatic utterances are quoted from Carmelites, Franciscan-, Domin- icans, Benedictines and members of other orders, professors of theology, royal chaplains, etc., showing how wide-spread was the desire, among even the most rigid churchmen, to give to the people free access to the sources of Christianity, and how much intellectual activity of the period was enlisted on the side of religion. 1 But with the first quarter of the sev- enteenth century Villanueva's authorities come to an end. The generation which had witnessed the prohibition of the Scriptures slowly died out ; its protests had been disregarded and its successors were trained in a different school. The Scriptures were forgotten in the intellectual gymnastics of casuistry and in the seductive ingenuity of Probabilism which called forth so many papal reproofs. The Inquisition accom- plished its work among both priests and people. Although the Inquisitor General Prado y Cuesta, in 1747, complains of the inordinate desire of many persons to have the Bible in the vernacular,' 2 yet Villanueva, himself a calificador of the Inquisition, writing in 1791, says that when the people are 1 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, Append. I. This remarkable collection occupies 113 double-columned folio pages and presents ■extracts from thirty-four authors. 3 Edicto de 13 de Hebrero de 1747 (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). 56 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. deprived of Scripture the clergy ought to saturate themselves with it, in place of which they utterly neglect its study ; as for the people who once sought it so eagerly, many now care nothing for it, most of them are ignorant of its existence, and those who think about it regard it with horror and detestation. 1 ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. Two functions were to be provided for in the creation of a system which should effectually preserve the faithful from the contamination of evil by keeping from them the knowledge of its existence. The first of these Was the examination of all books prior to publication, permitting only the innocent to be printed ; the second was a further scrutiny of the issues of the press, and the condemnation or expurgation of those containing errors which had esca_ ed the vigilance of the pre- liminary censorship. Of these duties the first was undertaken by the State, and the second was confided to the Inquisition as the conservator of orthodoxy. We have seen that the law of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502 forbade the printing or importation of any book with- out an examination and licence; and that in 1527 the chan- cellor, Gattinara, reassured Erasmus against a dreaded attack from Edward Lee by telling him that in Spain no book could 5;ee the light without a careful preliminary inspection, which was rigidly enforced. As the rule was not yet established of requiring a printed licence in front of all pub'ications we lack means of ascertaining the details of this censorship, but 1 Villanueva, pp. 56, 200. — " Notorio es el zelo con que el Santo Oficio ha procurado apartarlas de las manos del vulgar ; con lo qual el pueblo mismo que entonces las buscaba aora las mira con horror y las detesta ; muchos no se cuidan de ellas, los rnas ni saben si las hay." ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 57 as yet the law of Ferdinand and Isabella was in force as the only one on the subject in existence. In 1540 Hugo de Celso cites it in saying that no books can be printed or im- ported without previous examination by the royal deputies whom he enumerates, showing that some change had been made in the interval. The presidents of the royal courts, he tells us, perform the function of censors in Valladolid and Granada, the archbishops in Toledo and Seville, and the bishops in Burgos and Salamanca. Some little alteration had likewise taken place in the penalties which at that time were the burning of all unlicensed books, and a mulct of their value to be divided between the fisc, the judge, and the in- former. 1 Thus the Inquisition had no legal status in the matter of preliminary licensing, but its growing influence led it to be occasionally appealed to in advance as a judge. In 1532 Friar Matthias Wissen, the Commissioner of the Obser- vantines, in authorizing the printing of the sermons of Fray Francisco de Osuna, alludes to the permission of the Inquisi- tion having already been obtained, 2 and Ticknor mentions books of 1536, 1 5 41, and 1546 as bearing records of exam- ination by the Inquisition. 3 As late as 1552 the Traduction Castillana del Homiliario of Juan de Molina contains a cer- 1 Hugo de Celso, Reportorio de las Leyes de Castilla, s.v. Itnprimir, Alcala, 1540. Sandoval (Historia de la Vida de Carlos V, P. II. p. 808J cites various edicts of Charles from 1537 to 1538 establishing a censorship and punishing disobedience with death and confiscation, but as Celso makes no reference to them I presume they were confined to his paternal dominions. The account which Juan Gines de Sepulveda gives, about 1552, of his trouble in obtaining a licence for his defence of the Spanish conquerors of the New World, in reply to Bishop Las Casas, shows that special examiners were sometimes called upon in contravention of the regular routine. He also reproaches Las Casas for having published his book without a licence, showing that this was sometimes done (Colleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. LXXI. P- 335)- 2 Fran, ab Ossuna Pars Occidentalis, Venetiis, 1572. 3 Ticknor's Spanish Literature, I. 421 (Ed. 1864). 58 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. tificate of examination by the Inquisitors of Valencia, 1 but this was under the crown of Aragon, where, as we shall see, the law of Ferdinand and Isabella was not in force. As a rule, the books of the period, when bearing a licence, have it directly from the crown with no indication that the bishops were performing the functions confided to them by the law of 1502. 2 With the increasing flood of heretical literature and the growing sense of the necessity to exclude it, more precise regulations were felt to be requisite, and in 1554 the matter was definitely settled by an edict, in the names of Charles V. and Philip, confining to the Royal Council the function of issuing licences for the printing of books of all descrip- tions ; the Council was charged to be scrupulously careful in the preliminary examinations, for in consequence of the facility previously prevailing many useless and unprofitable books had been printed. In the case of all works of im- portance the original MS. was to be deposited with the Council, so as to detect any alterations made on press. 3 The Inquisition made no opposition to being thus excluded. So long as it retained the right to subsequent censorship it con- trolled the press effectually, and it consoled itself with the reflection that it thus escaped the " inconvenience " of licen- sing a book in which errors might subsequently be discovered, which would be a severe shock to the infallibility which it desired to preserve in the eyes of the public. At the same time it retained the right to put a stop to the printing of any work which might be denounced to it. 4 1 Villanueva, Append. 1. p. x. 2 Thus the works of Bishop Antonio de Guevara, Valladolid, 1545, bear a licence and privilege of Charles V. in which he states that he has had the work examined by members of the Royal Council. The De Ornatu Animce of Francisco Ortiz, Alcala, 1548, has licence and privilege from Prince Philip, in which he says he has had the work examined, without specifying by whom. Many works of the period bear no licence. 3 Nueva Recop. Lib. II. Tit. iv. ley 48 (Novfs. Rtcop. VIII. xvi. 2). * MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 2186 fol. pp. 331, 332. ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 59 Thus censorship was gradually becoming systematized. It was quite time, if the faithful were to be preserved from heresy, for Alfonso de Castro, writing in 1547, feels obliged to argue at much length to prove the danger arising from such books and the need of prohibitive legislation. There were no laws, he said, either papal or imperial, to punish the pos- session and reading of wicked books. In Spain the inquisi- tors had prohibited many works of heretics by name and had made diligent exertions to suppress them, to which was attrib- utable the freedom of Spain from heresy, but many people held that the condemnation of a book merely declared that it was not to be regarded as authoritative, and that there was neither sin nor crime in owning or studying it. To be sure, the bull In Ciena Domini of Paul III. (1536) had excommunicated all who read Lutheran books without a papal licence, but as it was limited to these all other heretical books were regarded as free. Soon after this the heart of de Castro was gladdened by the bull Cum meditatio of Julius III. (April 29, 1550), pro- hibiting the possession and reading of all heretic books under the full penalties of heresy, and he made haste to print it in a subsequent edition of his treatise. 1 De Castro's appeal for punitive legislation seems to have been neglected in a way only accountable by the absence of Charles and Philip and their preoccupation with the affairs of Germany, Flanders, and England. The discovery, in 1557, of Lutheran heresy, with its headquarters in Valladolid and extensive ramifications throughout the land, was due to the arre-t of Juliano Hernandez, who had brought to Seville from Geneva a stock of heretic books.' 2 The investigation which followed created an immense sensation and explains the en- actment by the Infanta Juana, in the name of Philip II., of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1558, issued September 7 at Val- ladolid. If there had been lukewarmness and negligence 1 Alphonsi de Castro de justa Haereticor. Punitione Lib. II. c. xv.-xvii. (pp. 1313-38J. — Septimi Decretal. Lib. v. Tit. iv. c. 2. 2 Llorente, II. 214. 6o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. hitherto they were now amply atoned for. The edict com- menced by reciting that in spite of the law of 1502 and of the inquisitors and episcopal provisjrs who every year publish the names of condemned books, prohibiting under heavy cen- sures and penalties their reading and possession, there are many heretical books in circulation, both printed at home and imported, and that the heretics from abroad are making in this manner great efforts to spread their damnable doctrines. There are besides many books, useless, immoral, and of evil example, so that the Cortes have petitioned for a remedy. It is there- fore ordered, under penalty of death and confiscation of all property, that no bookseller or other person shall sell or keep any book, printed or to be printed, in any language or on any subject, which has been condemned by the Inquisition, and all such books shall be publicly burnt. The catalogue of books prohibited by the Inquisition shall be printed ; every bookseller shall keep a copy and shall expose it where the public can read it. The same penalty of death and confisca- tion is provided for the importing of any books in Romance printed abroad — even in Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Navarre — which do not bear a printed licence issued by the Royal Council. As for books in Romance heretofore printed outside of Castile and not prohibited by the Inquisition, they shall all be presented to the alcalde mayor or corregidor of the place, who shall send lists of them to the Royal Council for decision, and until such decision is rendered no one shall keep them for sale under pain of confiscation and perpetual banishment. In addition to this a general inspection of all the books in the kingdom is ordered. Those in the hands of booksellers and in private libraries are to be examined under the direction of the bishops in conjunction with the royal judges and corregidores and the universities, and all books regarded as suspicious or immoral, even if licensed, are to be sequestrated until the decision of the Council is rendered upon them. The superiors of all the religious orders shall cause a similar visitation to be made of the libraries of all religious ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 6l houses. An investigation of the same kind is moreover di- rected to be made annually hereafter. Having thus provided for the past and present, regulations equally thorough are enacted for the future. Under penalty of death and confiscation no one is to give out for printing any book in any language without previously submitting it to the Royal Council, which shall cause it to be examined and is^ue a licence therefor. To prevent alterations in the print- ing the original MS. shall be signed on every leaf by a secre- tary of the royal chamber, who shall mark and rubricate every correction or alteration in it and shall state at the end the number of leaves and of alterations. This copy, after being used in printing, shall be returned to the Council with one or two copies of the printed book, when they shall be compared to see that they correspond, and the MS. shall be retained. Every book shall present at its front the licence, the tassa or price at which it is to be sold, the privilege, if there is one, the names of author and printer, and the place of printing. The same formalities are to be observed with new editions, and a record of all licences with full details is to be kept by the Council. New editions of ritual or choir books, school books, etc., are subjected only to episcopal licence, under penalty of confiscation and perpetual banish- ment, but all new works of the kind require the licence of the Council. Matters concerning the Inquisition can be licensed by the inquisitor general ; those connected with the Cruzada by the commissioner general, while legal papers and pleadings can be freely printed. It was not enough, how- ever, thus to regulate the press. Infection could be com- municated by MSS., and, therefore, the penalty of death and confiscation is decreed for all who own or show to others a MS. on any religious subject without first submitting it to the Council, which shall examine it and either license or destroy it — in the latter case keeping a record. 1 The excep- 1 Nueva Recop. Lib. I. Tit. vii. ley 24 (Novis. Recop. VIII. xvi. 3 ; xviii. 1). 4 62 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. tion, however, made in favor of reprints of ritual and choir books seems to have been regarded as dangerous, or the bishops were not trusted, and in 1569 even these books were subjected to the stringent regulations provided for other pub- lications. The judges also apparently were suspected of luke- warmness in the business, for they were threatened with deprivation of office and a fine of 50,000 maravedis for neglect to proceed against any delinquent. 1 I give this full abstract of the savage law of 1558 not only because of its significance as to the uncompromising character of Spanish legislation on these subjects, which hesitated at nothing to accomplish its ends, but because it remained in force until the nineteenth century. It was supplemented by numerous edicts, for the matter was one which awakened continual solicitude ; precautions were adopted to prevent its evasion as ingenuity devised means to elude it; the machinery through which it worked was altered from time to time to render it more effective, but the principles which it established and its provisions for enforcing those principles remained unaltered until the ancient monarchy was swept away in the Napoleonic revolution. I am not aware that a human being was actually put to death for violating its provisions, unless the offence was complicated with heresy express or implied, but such violation remained to the end a capital crime. The only modification of this ferocious penalty occurs in a revision of the press laws in 1752, in which death and confiscation are denounced against any one printing without licence a book or paper concerning religion, or reprinting, importing, selling or possessing one prohibited by the Inquisition, with the saving clause that the offence must have been committed with intent to favor heresy; in the absence of such malice the punishment is the milder one of a fine of two hundred ducats and six years of Presidio, or hard labor in the African garrisons, equivalent to the French 1 Nueva Recop. I. vii. 27 (Novfs. Recop. VIII. xvi. 4). Organization of censorship. 63 bagne} In 1804, moreover, the attention of all concerned in the censorship was especially called to the laws of 1558 and 1752 and their enforcement was strictly enjoined. 2 When the innocent possession of a condemned book was thus rigorously punished the importance of the functions of the Inquisition in compiling the Index can be estimated. The supreme power of the State had thus definitely laid down the principles to be observed in dealing with the press and had prescribed the several functions of the bodies to whom was confided the protection of the people from the infection of heresy. The Royal Council carefully sifted out the tares from the wheat before publication, and the Inquisi- tion scrutinized with a more minute and searching examination the errors which might escape the first inspection. The de- cisions of both were enforced with penal sanctions of the severest character, to be risked only by a zeal thirsting for martyrdom. To render this legislation effective the first work to be accomplished was the framing of a catalogue or index of con- demned books sufficiently complete to serve for the efficient sifting of libraries and booksellers' stocks. All efforts in this direction had hitherto been tentative and meagre, while heretic literature was daily multiplying, and even the works of the orthodox contained many passages offensive to thearoused sensitiveness of the censors of the faith. As a preliminary the Supreme Council of the Inquisition issued an edict enforcing 1 Novisima Recop. Lib. VIII. Tit. xvi. ley 22, cap. 5. 2 Alcubilla, C6digos Antiguos Espanoles, p. 1580. Even the enlightened Carlos III., after the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, freely threatened death and confiscation for the printing, selling, or possession of any print relative to that affair (Novfs. Recop. VIII. xviii. 5. See also leyes 6, 7, and 8). It must be admitted that at the time of its enactment the law of 1558 only embodied the current convictions of statesmanship on the matter. In 1550 at the Diet of Augsburg death and confiscation were threatened for reading or selling any of the works contained in the Index of Louvain. — J. G. Sepulvedae de rebus Gestis Caroli V., Lib. XXVI. (Opp. Ed. 1780, T. II. p. 403). 6 4 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. its previous ones with additional penalties and instructing inquisitors to seize all books contained in the earlier lists, the heretical ones to be publicly burnt and the others to be expurgated. 1 Then it forthwith addressed itself to the prepa- ration of an Index much more elaborate than its predecessors, which was ready for publication by August 17, 1559. It was issued under papal authority. The prefatory edict of Inquis- itor General Valdes introduces a brief of Paul IV., dated January 4, 1559, to the effect that Valdes had complained to him that many persons, both lay and clerical, persisted in reading and keeping heretical books, claiming that they had licences so to do, wherefore Valdes had applied to him for a remedy. All such licences had been revoked by the papal letters Quia in futurorum of December 21, 1558, which are incorporated herein. Except inquisitors general no one, even of the rank of kings and cardinals, shall possess or read such books, but shall surrender them within a term to be fixed by the inquisitors of each district, under pain of excommuni- cation and the other penalties provided for the offence, and Valdes is authorized and instructed to enforce this vigorously in Spain. Armed with this authority Valdes proceeds to say that many persons, pretending ignorance, keep and read such books, wherefore the Supreme Council had determined that all such books should be examined by learned and conscien- tious men and a catalogue be made of those heretical, suspect, or by a heretic author, or liable to cause scandal or inconve- nience, which catalogue would be printed and circulated, so that all should know what to avoid. It is therefore ordered that no one, of whatever rank, shall read or possess the books in this catalogue or any others by heretic writers, and no printer or merchant shall import or sell them, under pain of the major excommunication, latce sententice, a fine of two hundred ducats to the king and prosecution for disobedience and suspicion of heresy. Every inquisitor is ordered to pub- 1 Llorente, I. 468. ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 65 lish this in his district and cause it to be published by all preachers in their pulpits. In the annual Edicts of Denunci- ation, moreover, all persons are to be summoned, under penalties to be determined by the inquisitors, to give informa- tion as to persons reading or possessing such books. 1 In time also the confessional was called into play by requiring all confessors especially to examine their penitents as to the possession of prohibited books or the knowledge of their pos- session by others, and to refuse absolution until the books were surrendered 2 It is observable that in this the Inquisition carefully abstains from alluding to the savage threats of the royal edict of the previous year, but confines itself strictly to the punish- ments which came within its customary functions. The same reticence was not preserved by the commentators of the period, nor put in practice by the tribunals of the Holy Office. Bishop Simancas deplores the depraved curiosity of the sons of Eve, eager for the knowledge of good and evil, and per- sisting in reading the books of heretics. He deprecates the assertion of some legists that the possession of a heretic book is absolute proof of heresy, requiring no further evidence for conviction, and inclines to the milder opinion that it merely renders the owner suspect, but he concludes that the decision must be left to the judge, who should weigh the attending circumstances. Under papal licence, learned men may read the books of heretics, especially those on law, medicine, and the useful arts, so as to convey to good Catholics the useful things, to the possession of which the heretics have no right, but in so doing the names of the authors must be rigidly suppressed. As regards punishment for the unauthorized possession of heretic books, the Inquisition cannot render a sentence of blood, but the example of the Christian emperors who visited the crime with death is to be borne in mind in 1 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 210-15. 2 MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq. 66 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. leading us to increased severity. If those who do not sup- press libellous writings are capitally punished, how much more severe should be the penalty of those who preserve heretic books, especially Lutheran, which are nothing but impious libels on the popes, on the Church, and on religion ! 1 Thus, as in the matter of heresy, the Inquisition was held to escape the responsibility of the death sentence, while handing over the culprit to the secular authorities for execution. Pena, in his commentary on Eymerich's Directorium, gives us greater detail, which is instructive as to the working of the censorship in the hands of the Church. It is a mistake, he tells us, to suppose that the owner of a heretic book can burn it ; he should deliver it to an inquisitor, whose business it is then to trace the source whence it came. Confessors cannot grant absolution to the possessors of such books, for under the bull In Ccena Domini this is a sin reserved to the Holy See. Books inherited from the dead must be subjected to examination by the proper officials before the heirs can enjoy their possession, and it is the same with all books brought to a town which must be inspected before they can be read. Like Simancas, he treats the question of the penalty for the possession of heretic books as a troublesome one, and cites numerous authorities to show that it involves conviction for heresy, but he argues that the owner is only suspect of heresy, and that it is for the inquisitor to determine whether this suspicion is light, vehement, or violent, by weighing carefully the circumstances — the character of the accused and of the 1 Simancse de Cathol. Institutis Tit. xxxvm. No. 19-27. The non-heretic writings of heretics were a source of considerable debate. Alfonso de Castro (De justa Punit. Hasret. Lib. II. c. xvii. p. 1331) says that the books of a condemned heretic are not condemned so as to prevent the Catholic from reading them, but are condemned so far as citing them as authorities. The Tridentine Rules (Regula II.) allow the use of books written by heretics on other subjects than religion, after examination and approbation by bishops and inquisitors. In the Roman Indexes, however, the first class consisted of the simple names of authors all of whose works without exception were prohibited. ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 6 7 book, how he obtained it, whether he has read it once or oftener, or has communicated it to others, whether he surren- dered it willingly and applied for absolution— all of which may extenuate or aggravate the crime. He does not allude to the ingenious solution of Farinacci (De Hceresi, Qusest. 180 No. 6, 8) that he who keeps and reads a heretic book is not a heretic in the sight of God though he is so in the sight of man. As for the penalty, by the civil law it is death, but the Inquisition passes no sentences of blood, and Pefia has no doubt that in some cases purgation can be pre-xribed or abjuration and appropriate penance such as fasting, prayers, or pilgrimages. 1 As for printers, he quotes the Novel of Jus- tinian threatening amputation of the hand, and the Lateran canon of 15 15, and concludes that the copyists and secret printers of forbidden books can be punished at the discretion of the inquisitor. Then there are the carriers who bring so much heretical poison from infected lands to Catholic coun- tries. When this is done ignorantly they should be leniently treated, and ignorance is always to be presumed, but when there is guilty knowledge the inquisitor should visit it severely, with excommunication, confiscation, and scourging or exile. 2 So little did the Spanish Inquisition tolerate any 1 Pegnse Comment, ad Eymerici Direct. Inquis. pp. 92-4. Cf. Paramo de Orig. Officio S. Inquis. pp. 798, 824. Under the provisions of the canon law, as pointed out by Cardinal Francisco de Toledo (Instructio Sacerdotum, Lib. I. c. xix. g 9, Ed. Romse, 1618, p. 41), knowingly to read even a few lines of a heretic book incurs the excommunica- tion of the bull In Ccena Domini, but it is different when the book is only a prohibited one, such as the Bible in the vernacular, when simply the penalties provided by the Index are incurred. The subject, in fact, naturally lent itself to the laborious ingenuity of the casuists. A letter from a heretic containing heresy could be read without incurring excommunication, because it was not a book, but if it formed part of a book, such as a dedication or an epistle to the reader, it could not be read. If a forbidden book was in several volumes and one of them contained no heresy, that one could be read. Ignorance that a book was heretical served as a valid excuse, and so forth (Alberghini Manuale Qualificatorum, Csesaraugustae, 1671, pp. 130-1). 2 Pegnas Comment, ad Eymeric. p. 119. 68 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. interference with its jurisdiction that about 1565 it suppressed a papal Jubilee indulgence because it contained a clause per- mitting the absolution by confessors of those who possessed prohibited books. 1 An instructive case occurred in 15 61, when a French priest named Jean Fesque, who had been four years in Spain, break- fasting in a wineshop in Toledo, handed to Melchor Trechel, the son of the vintner, a little book and asked him if he ■ could tell where it was printed, as it bore neither imprint nor place of publication. Melchor was a bookseller's assistant, and showed the book to his employer, Miguel Rosas, who at once said that it was prohibited and must be taken to the Inquisition. Fesque vainly protested that he did not wish to be burnt for it, as his acquaintance, Antonio Marcel, had been not long before for a similar cause, but Melchor refused to return it. He carried it to the Inquisition, which promptly arrested Fesque the same day. On examination he declared himself to be an Auvergnat from Saint-Flour; he manifested the least possible desire for martyrdom, and with sobs and tears protested his devotion to the Church and begged for absolution and penance. His story was that two or three days before a boy in the street had sold the volume to him for eight maravedis as a book of chants, as it contained .the psalms with the musical notation; he was given to psalmody and had left in Madrid the book which he ordinarily carried. The book was in French; as an Auvergnat he could only read it with difficulty, and had not examined it. The volume turned out to be one of most compromising character— the Pseaulmes de David, translated by Clement Marot and Theodore de Beze, 2 followed by Le Cathecisme, c' est a dire le 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 21 8£ fol. p. 214. 2 Marot's translation of thirty of the Psalms enjoyed great favor at the court of Francis I., where the royal personages each selected one and adopted it as suitable to him or herself, but the Sorbonne speedily condemned it as well as the twenty more psalms added by Marot after his flight to Geneva. He soon after died, in 1544, in poverty and exile in Piedmont (Florimund. Raemundi Synopsis Controversiarum Lib. vm. cap. xvi.— D'Argentre, ORGANIZATION OF CENSORSHIP. 6 9 Formuleire — and a comparison of it with a copy of the Cate- chism of Doctor Juan Perez, produced from the records of the trial of Jacopo Sobalti, who had not long before been burnt by the Inquisition of Toledo, showed that the two were practically identical. 1 The serious character of the offence, in the eyes of the in- quisitors, is seen in the accusation of the promotor fiscal, or prosecuting officer, which charges Fesque as a propagator of Lutheranism, as an excommunicate perjurer, as a heretic and apostate engaged in disseminating the doctrines contained in the book, and demands that he be punished with confiscation and burning, and that the customary disabilities be inflicted on his posterity. 2 The case was certainly grave, for he had handed the book to another person which technically was Collect. Judic. de novis Erroribus, II. I. 134). Beza subsequently completed the translation. The book is absent from the Index of Valdes, 1559, but appears in the Antwerp Index of 1570 (p. 79), while in that of Quiroga, 1583,' all of Marot's works are prohibited (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 445). 1 Doctor Juan Perez translated the Psalms and wrote a Catechism, based on Calvin's, though not a mere translation. It was printed in Geneva by Crespin in 1556, though it bore the imprint of Pietro Daniel, Venice. In the Index of Valdes, 1559, it is prohibited under two titles, Catechismo and Summario, and the inquisitorial efforts for its destruction were so successful that Professor Bohmer has been able to find but a single copy, which is in the Hof-Bibliothek of Vienna (Bohmer, Bibliotheca Wiffeniana, II. 86.— Reusch. Die Indices, 232, 239). The contents of the two large casks of books brought to Seville in 1557 by the intrepid Julian Hernandez consisted of Perez's Testament and his Psalms and Catechism. A spy of the Holy Office obtained one of the books and denounced Hernandez to the Inquisition, which in a short time had eight hundred prisoners on its hands, not only crowding its prisons but obliging it to quarter them in private houses. For three years Hernandez heroically resisted torture and persuasion, perishing in the auto de fe of 1560, where also Juan Perez was burnt in effigy (Reg. Gons. Montani S. Inq. Hisp. Artes aliquot detectae, Heidelbergae, 1567, p. 219.— Llorente, II. 279). 2 <• A vuestras sefiorias pido manden declarar y declaren al dicho Mosen Juan frances por herege apostata de nuestra santa fe catholica, luterano, ensehador de la secta de Lutero, yncubridor y participante de hereges, excommunicado perjuro y en verdad caydo e yncurrido en confiscacion y pedimiento de todos sus bienes y hazienda . . . . aca relaxandole la persona a la justicia y tribunal seglar." _ 7o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. dissemination of heresy. The case dragged on in the dilatory fashion customary with the Inquisition. All possible incrim- inating evidence was hunted up, but, except the fatal book itself, this amounted to little. In defence, Fesque handed in the names of eight priests to testify to his character. Five of these, who were easily accessible in Toledo, were sum- moned and bore witness that they had known him for from one to three years, that he was regular in the celebration of mass and in his devotions, and that he bore a good reputation. Finally, after more than five months had passed, a consul- tation was held by the inquisitors with the episcopal ordinary and three theologians and jurists. There was really nothing before them save the one fact of his having handed the book to Trechel, but this was sufficient to create "suspicion of heresy," and "suspicion" implied conviction unless removed in some way. They therefore naturally had recourse to the universal solvent of all doubts in the criminal jurisprudence of the period— torture— which was unanimously voted. A month was allowed to elapse, however, before it was admin- istered. Fesque manifested unexpected powers of endurance, and although the torture was unusually severe and protracted it faded to elicit a confession, although he prayed to be put to death. At last he was carried back to his cell with the warning that his judges were not yet satisfied, and that the torture would be continued if h»did not confess. This was ineffective and five days later another consultation was held. It had before it absolutely no additional evidence, but, in the curious judicial logic of the time, suspicion of heresy un- supported by positive evidence was purged by endurance of torture, and now his acquittal and discharge were voted with the same unanimity as before. Two days later he was unce- remoniously dismissed without a word of commiseration for his six months' incarceration and the useless agony of body and mind inflicted upon him. 1 1 Proceso contra Mossen Juan Fesque (MSS. of the Konigl. Universitats Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, Tom. III.). THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. y { The readiness and effectiveness with which the accusation of meddling with prohibited books could be used are illus- trated in a case occurring in 1569. Hanz de Brunsvique, a German, formerly a clockmaker, but then serving in the royal Guarda Tudesca, was arrested on the charge that some years before, while in the service of Thomas Martin, clock- maker to the king, on the occasion of the prosecution of the latter by the Inquisition, he had carried off and secreted or destroyed some compromising Lutheran books. Although, in obedience to inquisitorial rules, the names of the witnesses were concealed, Hanz managed to divine them and disabled them by proving that they were personal enemies who had quarrelled with him from various causes. He was also for- tunately able to show that he could not read or write, and the prosecution fell to the ground. It was not even consid- ered necessary to torture him, and he escaped with only three months' incarceration and suspense. 1 THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. Thus inevitably the enforcement of the statutes against dangerous or suspicious books fell into the hands of the dreaded Holy Office. The State contented itself with the preliminary business of preventing the printing of such works, for which, as we shall see hereafter, a cumbrous machinery was devised, exceedingly oppressive to literature ; and during the later periods it exercised a watchful care over the custom houses ; but in the wide field of designating error, of inspect- ing booksellers' shops and libraries, and of seeing to the exe- cution of the laws, the Inquisition reigned supreme. In pursuance of this duty it issued successive Indexes of books prohibited or subject to expurgation, and it accompanied 1 Proceso contra Hanz Brunsvi (MSS. of the Konigl. Universitats Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, T. III.). ^ 2 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. these with elaborate rules, laying down general principles of prohibition and formulating instructions to booksellers and importers. The publication of these Indexes was a solemn ecclesiastical function in which the Inquisition made an im- pressive exhibition of its authority. 1 It is true that under the constitution of the Church the bishops enjoyed an equal share in this jurisdiction, and the earlier papal bulls and the Tridentine Rules are careful to reserve it to them. Pena tells us that bishops in their dioceses and inquisitors in their several districts can condemn through their own inherent jurisdiction and without special papal authority any books containing heretical propositions, even if their authors have not been condemned j also, books sus- ^pect of heresy by Catholic authors, or those not in conformity with good morals, or works on astrology and divination in- ferring erroneous notions as to free-will ; also poetry, classical and modern, which is mostly lascivious and provocative of licentiousness— all such books can be suppressed if printed, or their printing can be prohibited by either bishop or in- quisitor. Also useless books, treating of light and ridiculous matters which bishops ought not to allow to be printed or circulated within their dioceses; and finally, whatsoever cause; justify them in prosecuting men give them similar jurisdiction against books. 2 This provided for a minute and all-pervading interference with writers and readers which a meddling bishop could render excessively exacerbating, and doubtless the power was occasionally exercised to the in- tense annoyance of the cultured classes, but as a rule we hear little or nothing of episcopal censorship outside of the domin- ions of the crown of Aragon. The bishops for the most part were worldly and negligent, the Inquisition was active and 1 See the allusion to the publication of the Index of Sotomayor in 1640, in Josef Peilicer's Avisos historicos (Valladares, Semanario erudito, T. XXXI. P- 187). 2 Pegnae Comment, ad Eymeric. p. 315. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 73 ambitious ; it had the unqualified support of the State and its machinery was so perfect and all-pervading that it speedily appropriated the whole field to itself. It became a recog- nized rule that while the bishops might claim to share in the cognizance of immoral books and those on sorcery and magic, works suspect of heresy were reserved solely for the Holy Office. 1 How perfect became the machinery of the Holy Office can be understood by a single instance. In 1 794 there appeared' a book by Santiago Felipe Puglia entitled Disengano del Hombre, with the fictitious imprint of Philadelphia— probably one of the politico-philosophical works of which that period was so prolific. It was put on the Index by the Inquisition and the prohibition reached the city of Mexico October 24th of the same year. I have before me the cer- tificate, duly executed February 15, 1 795, by Padre Feliciano Meneses y Rejon, priest of Hopelcheen in Yucatan, that he had that day, from the pulpit, amid the solemnities of the mass, published the prohibition warning his little congrega- tion of Indians and half-breeds not to read the dangerous book and to surrender forthwith all copies in their possession. 2 In every corner of the dominions of the Spanish crown, on which the sun never set, the edicts of the Supreme Council, sitting in Madrid, were made known and enforced with the unsparing rigor of the dreaded tribunal. When an obnoxious book escaped the vigilance of the ex- aminers of the Royal Council and was printed with the due formalities, it was the duty of anyone who detected a doubtful expression in it to denounce it to the Inquisition, or the Supreme Council could take the initiative in ordering its ex- 1 Alberghini Manuale Qualificatorum, Csesaraugustas, 1671, pp. 132-33- 2 MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq. The Mexican Inquisition also exercised independent jurisdiction of censor- ship. I owe to the kindness of General Riva Palacio a copy of an edict of 1698 condemning an edition of the prophecies of Nostradamus issued at Bordeaux in 1689 and also a number of works, sermons, etc., printed in Mexico, all of which are ordered to be surrendered under the customary pain of excommunication and a fine of 200 ducats. 74 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. animation. The matters liable to condemnation were by no means confined to heresy, but covered a wide region of morals and of ecclesiastical and secular politics, for the Inquisition was too useful an instrument of statecraft not to be effectively employed in maintaining monarchical as well as clerical abso- lutism. The rules which it laid down required that not only the text of a book should be examined, but also the notes, summaries, preface, dedication, and index. The matters to be searched for included, besides heretical propositions, doubtful or equivocal expressions, new and profane words invented by heretics to deceive the faithful, erroneous trans- lations of sacred texts, or texts profanely applied, everything savoring of idolatry or paganism, of superstition, sorcery or divination, of subjecting human free-will to fate, all passages detracting from the reputation of others, especially of princes and ecclesiastics, or contrary to good morals or Christian discipline, or opposed to the liberties, immunities and juris- diction of the Church ; also those which, based upon the opinions and examples of the heathen, support political tyranny falsely called reason of state ; those which discredit the rites of religion and the religious orders and their mem- bers ; also all jests and utterances offensive and prejudicial to individuals ; and finally all images and portraits are to be suppressed which represent with nimbus or other symbols of sanctity persons not canonized or beatified by the Holy See. 1 The process of examining a book was known as calificacion and the examiners as calificadores. They were not to exceed eight in number, they were to be men eminent as theologians and of approved virtue, and not less than forty-five years of age. They received no salary and were required to act gratuitously, even when they had to make a journey in dis- charge of duty. 2 The customary course was to send the in- 1 Indice Expurgatorio, Regla xvi. (Index of 1640, p. xxviii. ; fndice Ultimo, 1 79°> p. xxv.). 2 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 213 fol. p. 136; No. 218,$ fol. p. 320. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. criminated book to one, who returned it with a written opinion of which an unsigned copy was sent with the book to a second ; if the two agreed, the inquisitors transmitted the papers to the Supreme Council for its action, and when the case originated in the provinces the Council usually had a second calificacion made in Madrid. 1 According to the report of the calific adores, if unfavorable, the book would either be prohibited entirely or ordered to be expurgated. The cen- sure thus passed was summary and final ; no appeal was enter- tained and it could not be altered. A copy of it was never given to the author, for this would have been a violation of the impenetrable secrecy of the Holy Office. The author was not heard in defence of his book ; if he was a Catholic, or had died as such, no prosecution was brought against him unless the propositions censured savored of heresy : but he could defend himself against any personal censure implied in the judgment, while not allowed to ask for an alteration of the decision. 2 In the celebrated case of Carranza, Arch- 1 Llorente, I. 483. 2 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 218^ fol. pp. 319-20, 322. -Yet in spite of the unalterable character of the inquisitorial decrees, changing conditions sometimes produced retractions, as in the quarrel between the Jesuits and the Carmelites over the absurd pretensions of the latter to date back to Enoch. In 1695 Carmelite influence procured the condemnation of those passages of Father Papenbroek in the Acta Sanctorum wherein he proved the modern origin of the Order. In 1715 the Jesuits succeeded in having this edict rescinded, though the Inquisition ordered stricken out a passage qualifying the library of the Escorial as a place " ubi codicum manu- scriptorum cadavera asservantur et putrescunt.'' Again, in the Index of 1747, wherein Jesuit influence reigned supreme, it was stated that the defence of the Bollandists had led the Supreme Council to recall the sentence of condemna- tion. — Reusch, Der Index der verbotenen Biicher, II. 275. In the MSS. of the Bodleian Library (Arch Seld. 130) there is an opinion of a calificador on the defence of the Historia Profetica, showing that the calific ad ores were sometimes assembled and had warm debates over disputed points. In this case the questions involved were those of the Carmelite quarrel — as to the existence of monachism under the Old Law ; whether Enoch and Elias will be apostles at the Day of Judgment and as such can give definitions of faith; whether John Bishop of Jerusalem can be called a 7 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. bishop of Toledo, who had himself long served as a calificador , when his Comentarios were condemned immediately upon their appearance in 1558, he vainly asked to be heard in explanation of the censured passages. 1 If a work was regarded as wholly injurious to Church or State in its tendency, it was prohibited, and this prohibition might, in special cases, be extended to those who held licences to read prohibited books in general. Unlike the Roman Congregations which generally contented themselves with the bald enumeration of the title and author's name, the Spanish edicts usually give the reasons, which frequently afforded an opportunity of branding book and writer in the most insult- ing manner. 2 If the book as a whole was innocent except in certain passages, it was prohibited donee corrigatur or donee expurgetur — until corrected or expurgated — and a list was made of the objectionable portions which all possessors of the work were required to blot out (borraf), or to bring their copies to the Inquisition for the purpose within six months of the date of the edict, under penalty of their confiscation and saint. The future apostolic authority of Enoch and Elias was the point which caused the chief discussion. The sanctity of John of Jerusalem seems to have been conceded, though St. Jerome had denounced him as a heretic on account of his share in the quarrel between Theodore of Alexandria arid St. John Chrysostom, and though the Spanish Index of 1707 (I. 45) deprived him even of the subordinate title of Beatus. 1 Llorente, III. 224. 2 Thus, in a decree of 1790 now before me, the Apologia delle Rizoluzioni Cesaree is forbidden, among other reasons, because it defends toleration and advocates liberty of conscience. Another Italian work, Delia intollerabilita de Frati, specialmente Domenicani, is condemned " porque sobre ser un folleto despreciable, esta lleno de falsedades y de injurias." Yet the Roman Congregations sometimes allowed themselves the same privilege of abusing an author. A decree in my possession, issued by the Roman Inquisition September 4, 1765, as one of the incidents in ihe desperate struggle preceding the fall of the Jesuits, condemns a pamphlet just printed against them in Naples as written " ab anonymo impudentissimo authore," who is described as " homo perditus, labiis veneno aspidum pollutis, et calamo felle draconis illito, per execrabile scelus carpere non est veritus, etc." THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 77 a fine of fifty ducats. 1 The passages thus expunged were rendered completely illegible, usually with printer's ink, apparently laid on with a brush, and where they happened to be frequent the appearance can easily be imagined. Nor is it difficult to appreciate the effect upon the mind of the author whose disgrace was thus perpetuated through the very labors which he had hoped would bring him reputation and perhaps immortality. Where the passage thus borrado could be stricken out without destroying the sen?e it was well, but where it could not the context was allowed to shift for itself. In this matter of expurgation the Spanish Inquisition took great credit to itself for its libera 1 ity, and it certainly spared no labor to preserve the faithful from contamination without absolutely prohibiting books. The Index Rxpurgatorius in its literal sense may be said to be a peculiar Spanish institu- tion. Rome, while issuing repeated revisions of the Index 1 Carta acordada de 21 de Henero de 1627 (MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 2i8<5 fol. p. 214). To what extent these commands were obeyed by those who had purchased copies previous to the edict it would be impossible to say without an extended examination of old editions for which I do not possess the requisite material. I have books with expurgated passages, and again others which have escaped the expurgation ordered. Thus in the Historic, Eclesiastica de Espana, by the Dominican Padre Juan de Marieta (Cuenca, 1596) my copy shows un- touched the cap. 63 of Lib. II. in which the unlucky author speaks of Priscillian and Latrocinianus as two saints, martyred by " Maximian," whose bodies are venerated at Treves. This attribution of sanctity to men put to death as Manichseans escaped the censors, but the whole chapter was ordered borrado by the Inquisition (Index of Sotomayor, 1640, p. 735). Curiously enough, in this Marieta would seem to have been more accurate than the Church universal. Although Priscillian's name has been in every list of heretics from the time of his death to the present day, the recent dis- covery of some of his works by Herr Schepss shows that he was the victim of personal enmity and not of misbelief. No one could assert more strongly than he does the dogma of the Trinity or anathematize more heartily Manes, Basilides, and the Ophites. In fact his use of the celebrated text I. John v. 7, perhaps establishes for it a greater antiquity than has been attributed to it through its absence from the Vatican, Alexandrian and Sinaitic codices (Priscilliani quas supersunt, Vindobonae, 1889, pp. 6, 22-3). 78 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Librorum Prohibitorum, only once attempted an Index Ex- purgatorius , which never was completed ; the portion issued was speedily suppressed and has become one of the rarest of books. 1 Thus the "suspension" of a book, as it was tech- 1 This is the Index of Gianmaria (Suanzelli da Brisighella, Master of the Sacred Palace, of which the first volume appeared in Rome in 1607, was reprinted at Bergamo in. 1609, and was quietly suppressed in 161 1. It was reprinted by the Protestants in 1723 at Regensburg, in 1745 at Altdorf, and in 1837 at Dublin with learned notes by Dr. Gibbings. My copy is the Bergamo edition, bearing on the title-page the inscription of the Congregation of the Oratory of Fossombrone, showing that the order to surrender copies was not strictly obeyed, even by religious bodies. It is no wonder that the attempt was abandoned, for the labor involved was endless and the result invited criticism. The volume is a i2mo of 599 double-columned pages and only embraces fifty-two authors. If completed it would have been a small library in itself. The second edition of Margarin de la Bigne's Bibliotheca Sanctorum Patrum, Paris, 1559, calls for 204 pages of emendations. The Problemata Francisci Georgii, Venice, 1536, and his Harmonia Mundi, Venice, 1535, occupy 92 pages. Jerome Cardan's Liber de Subtilitate Rerum and his Liber de Varietate Rerum fill 33 pages, and so on. Many of the emendations are absurdly trivial. It was setting a narrow- minded monk to criticize and cut at his pleasure every expression that offended him, and even to emendate the Fathers when they happened not to agree with the doctrines current at the period. Besides the unwieldiness of the task there was probably another deterrent reason in the difficulty of formulating expurgations without at times admitting variations of doctrine and affording ground for the sarcastic comments of heretics. See the very remarkable confession, confirmed by the great authority of Arias Montano, prefixed to the expurgation of Bertram's (Ratramnus) work De Corpore et Sanguine Domini in the Index Expurg. Antverp. 1571, p. 4. The Tridentine Index had found it more convenient to forbid the work altogether (Index Libb. Prohibb. Antverp. 1570, p. 17J. For the controversy which this excited see Gretser ( De Jure et More Prohibendi Libros, Ingoldstad. 1603, pp. 326-9), who abuses Ratramnus, suggests that his works have been adulterated by heretics and adduces the condemnation of Tertullian and Origen by Pope Gelasius. There was a further reason which doubtless was in many cases decisive. When the Sorbonne condemned the Commentary cf Charles Du Moulin on the Edit des petites duties and was summoned by the Parlement to point out the objectionable passages the Faculty replied "qu'ils n'ont accoustume de particulariser les passages des liures qui se tiouuent mauvais parceque les calomniateurs trouueront des responses et meschans argumens au contraire " THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 79 nically called, donee corrigatur, was usually equivalent to pro- hibition, for the passages to be corrected were not publicly made known, although the author could ascertain them by proper application. Spain did not shrink from the task of framing an Index Expurgatorius great as were the difficulties which it involved. The first one was that of Antwerp, in 15 71, superintended by Benito Arias Montano, and issued under the authority of the Duke of Alva for the Spanish Netherlands. The next was by the Inquisitor General Qui- roga, who followed his prohibitory Index of 1583 with an expurgatory one in 1584. Then the two were combined in the Indexes of Sandoval, 161 2, of Zapata, 1632, and of Soto- mayor, 1640, which were large folio volumes, increasing to two volumes in that of 1707 by Vidal Marin, and that of 1747 by Francisco Perez de Prado y Cuesta. That in per- forming this enormous labor the censors felt that they were treating authors with distinguished consideration is shown in a memorial presented about 1625 to Philip IV. by the Licen- ciado Francisco Murcia de la Liana, the royal corrector gen- eral de libros. He compares the liberality of Spanish censors, who permit the use of heretic works of value by merely expurgating offensive passages, with the harshness of the Roman Congregation of the Index which, in violation of the Tridentine rule prescribing this practice, brutally prohibits the whole work of an orthodox Spanish writer for a few objectionable passages, without specifying them or giving reasons. Thus the Spanish Inquisition permits the use of copies, expurgated according to its instructions, of the works of such heretics as Paul Fagiu--, Conrad Gesner, Erasmus, Bonaventura Cornelius Bertram, John Meursius, Isaac Casau- bon, Reinerus Reineccius, Theodore Zwinger, Filippo Came- rario and others. On the other hand, books which have (Brodeau, La Vie de Maistre Charles du Molin, Paris, 1654, p. 85). It was much safer to condemn in general terms which admitted of no discussion or defence. 8o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. passed the preliminary examination in Spain and circulate freely with the assent of the Inquisition are condemned and prohibited in Rome to the great dishonor of the Spanish name. Thus learned Spaniards are deterred from writing, and the booksellers are heavy losers, for the capital which they invest under the careful home censorship is destroyed : they are afraid longer to take such risks and the art of printing which has been brought to such perfection in Spain is threat- ened with extinction. The worthy licenciate therefore sup- plicates Philip to take such action as will lead to a change in the Roman practice. 1 This was not the only source of quarrel between the Spanish and Roman censorships, and we shall have occasion to see how Spain arrogated to herself vir- tual independence. It was fortunate for Spanish writers and readers that the Inquisition did not always wholly forbid books on account of objectionable passages, for its benighted calificadores were ex- ceedingly sensitive, and a careless phrase was as little likely to escape them as an assertion of justification by faith. In the prohibitory Index of 1583 there appears an Office of the Blessed Virgin, printed in Paris in 1556, which was suppressed 1 MSS. of the Bodleian Library, Arch Seld. Subt. 11.— This was probably a move in the debate over the Regalistas, of which more hereafter. Murcia, however, does injustice to the Roman censorship in his statement of its methods. Though it failed to issue a list of expurgations, when an author humbly supplicated for a statement of objectionable passages it would be kindly furnished to him and he would be allowed to correct them and to re- print his book, subject to the subsequent approbation of the Congregation.— Catalani de Secretario Congr. Indicis, Romae, 1751, p, 31. In the case of the works of Theodore Zwinger, referred to by Murcia, the prohibitory Index of Quiroga, 1583, alludes only to his Thcatrum Vitas Humana, with permittitur . . . si repurgetur ; a few expurgations are ordered in the expurgatory Index of 1584, which are vastly increased in Sotomayor, 1640, and his other works are added, occupying pp. 909-34. In the Index of Clement VIII., 1596, his name appears among authors of the first class, all of whose works are condemned ; but his Theatrum obtains a place in the second class with "nisi corrigatur," and in Brisighelli there is a long list of expurgations for it, extending from p. 573 to p. 593. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 8 1 and seized by the Supreme Council by a decree of May 15, 1570, because on the title page there was a cross and a swan with the legend "In hoc cygno vinces." 1 In the second part of the Monte Calvario of Antonio de Guevara, Bishop of Mondonedo, there is a single expurgation — ' ' Ishmael was a boy who was only three years old," of which the offen-ive sense would be hard to discover. 2 Even so orthodox and popular a writer as Cervantes could not wholly escape, although the permanent excision from chapter 36 of the Second Part of Don Quixote, of the words " works of charity negligently per- formed are of no worth " finds its explanation in the war which the Inquisition was waging against the mystics. 3 As for Dante, the only wonder is that having commenced to expurgate the Divina Commedia the censors should have contented them- selves with three passages, not more objectionable than many others. 4 The care with which unpalatable facts were kept 1 Llorente, I. 478. — Reusch, Die Indices, p. 423. 2 Monte Calvario, P. II. La segunda palabra, cap. xii. — Indice de Sotomayor, p. 67. 3 Indice de Sotomayor, p. 794.— Indice Ultimo, i79°> P- 5 1 - 4 Indice de Sotomayor, p. 324. Cf. Indice Ultimo, p. 7. The first expurgation is the inscription on the tomb of St. Anastasius I. in hell — Anastagio Papa guardo Lo qual trasse Fotin della via dritta. — Inferno, XI. The second is the burst of indignation over the avarice of Boniface VIII., but only that portion of the invective is stricken out which applies to popes in general — Di voi pastor s'accorde il Vangelisto .... •. . . Ahi Costantin di quanto mal fu matre, Non la tua conversion, ma quella dote Che da te prese il primo ricco patre ! — Inferno, XIX. And the third is the last seven lines of Paradiso IX. — A questo intende '1 Papa e i Cardinali : Non vanno i lor pensieri a Nazzaretti, etc. In all this the Spaniard was more sensitive than the popes themselves, for the Roman Indexes are silent as to the Commedia and only forbid the Monarchic., which has been in all of them since the Tridentine. 82 CENSORSHIP OF THE PPESS. from the knowledge of the faithful is seen in the expurgation of the Republic as del Mundo of the learned Fray Jeronimo Roman. In speaking of communion in both elements in the early Church he says " the blood was given to all," and the phrase was bo?'rado, while in the statement " Because then they communed sub utra pie specie ' ' the words ' ' some persons ' ' are ordered to be inserted in place of ' ' they. ' ' Again, in describ- ing a reformation of the.clergy he adds "Another one would do no harm" — an expression regarded as dangerous enough to be stricken out. 1 So tender were the inquisitors as to what might be construed as derogatory to the character of a monarch that a decree of 1790, expurgating the Historia del Real Monasterio de Sixena by Fray Marco Antonio Varon, orders a phrase stricken out in which the author, alluding to Philip II., says* "When this monarch was despoiling the world to enrich his monastery of the Escorial " as defamatory to the memory of that king, although the book . had been printed fourteen years before, with the approbation of the royal ex- aminers. 2 It can readily be imagined under what trammels authorship was pursued when subject to censorship so minute and malicious, yet capable of inflicting so much loss and disgrace. 1 Indice Expurgatorio de Quiroga, 1584 (Ed. Saumur. fol. 99-100). Garibay in his Memoirs tells us that he examined this work for its preliminary licence and approved it, but that in the press alterations were made which brought it into the Index (Memorial Historico Espanol, T. vil. p. 343). In this Garibay is evidently seeking to escape responsibility for his ill-timed liberality, for no author would have ventured to introduce such additions as those expurgated in a work of which the MS. pages had been numbered and the corrections rubricated. Whole chapters are ordered to be excised, together with numerous passages, sometimes extending over several pages. In addition, Llorente tells us (Hist. Critique II. 468) that the author was reprimanded by the Inquisition of Valladolid. 2 From a copy of the original decree in my possession. The above passage and others are condemned as " detractivos, injuriosos e infamatorios respec- tivamente de la buena memoria del Sehor Rey Don Felipe Segundo, y los reverendos Obispos de Lerida, Don Antonio Agustin y D. Francisco Virgilio, y estar llenos de proposiciones sediciosas, malsonantes y sospechosas de error." THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 33 The organization of the Inquisition was so complete, and the terror which it inspired so profound, that the State fre- quently used its censorship to suppress writings purely polit- ical, which one would have supposed the secular authorities amply able to deal with. The Inquisition assumed to itself this function from a passage in the instructions of Clement VIII. ordering the expurgation of matters derogatory to princes and ecclesiastics, and contrary to good morals and Christian discipline. 1 The works of Antonio Perez were thus put upon the Index of 161 2 because they were damaging to Philip II., and the essay on the coinage by the Jesuit historian Mariana was suppressed by the Inquisition ostensibly for political reasons.' 2 When in 1640 misgovernment provoked the revolt of Catalonia, the authorities of Barcelona addressed a long and temperate manifesto to Philip IV., which the In- quisition promptly seized and ordered to be suppressed, whereupon the Catalans sent a copy to the pope with a re- quest that he would point out in what it concerned the Inqui- sition. 3 Soon after this the Holy Office gave conclusive evi- dence of its agility in adapting itself to the mutations of court favor. In November, 1642, it prohibited and burnt a mani- festo in which the Catalans accused the royal favorite Olivares of causing all the misfortunes of Spain. Olivares was then tottering to his fall ; he was dismissed in January, 1643, and in the following June we find the Inquisition issuing an edict 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218b fol. p. 322.— Instruct. Clement. PP. VIII. Tit. De Correctione Librorum, Cf. Indice de Sotomayor, Regla. XVI. 2 Biblioteca Nacional de Maclrid.^Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 220.— Indice de Sotomayor, 1640, pp. 67, 718.— Indice Ultimo, 1790, pp. 171, 209. 3 Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial Historico Espaiiol, T. XVI. pp. 47, 5°)- The Jesuit who records the fact speaks of the manifesto with great admira- tion— " no parece obra de Catalanes sino de angeles del cielo ; es papel de grande erudicion y muy conforme a la necessidad del tiempo.'' It is still prohibited in the Indice Ultimo, p. 218. An abstract of it and of the answer attributed to Kioja may be found in the Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles, T. XXI. pp. xxx. xxxv. §4 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. to be read in all the churches ordering everyone to surrender copies of a pamphlet entitled Nicandro b Aniidoto, which had been issued in his defence. 1 The State found in the Inquisition an equally effective in- strument for executing the laws respecting prohibited books — executive business, secular in its nature and easy to be per- formed by secular officials. As early as 1566 it was made the duty of the inquisitors to visit regularly and inspect all book-shops in order to seize all prohibited books and to see that those ordered to be expurgated were duly corrected. Booksellers moreover were ordered to report to them, under a penalty of fifty ducats and excommunication, all books prohibited or liable to expurgation, which they might observe in private libraries. 2 The business of preventing the impor- tation of heretic books was more difficult, and divided itself into two branches — the supervision of regular importations and the prevention of smuggling. The former was at first confided to the Inquisition, though subsequently, as we shall see, it was undertaken by the State. Commissioners of the Inquisition were stationed at all the ports, who were instructed 1 Cartas de Jesivitas (T. XVI. p. 381; T. XVII. p. 133).— Pellicer, Avisos historicos (Valladares, Semanario eriidito, T. XXXIII. p. 29). The Nicandro remained forbidden till the end (Indice Ultimo, p. 191). 2 Cartas acordadas, 9 de Ottobre de 1566 ; 9 de Agosto de 1585 ; 15 de Henero de 1627 (MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218^ fol. p. 214). I have not met with any account of the process of purging the libraries and book-shops of Spain, but it was doubtless performed with thoroughness. When in 1570 Arias Montano framed an Index for the Netherlands, by com- mand of the Duke of Alva, investigation was made of all collections of books and the prohibited ones were removed. He describes this in a letter of May 10, 1570, to Philip II. " El duque dAlba por servicio de V. Md. me mando el ano pasado hacer un catalogo de los libros que entendiese ser reprobados para repurgar las librerias destos Estados. Yo lo hice, y conforme a el se repurgaron, e yo asisti a la repurgacion de las deste villa [Amberes], y fue Dios servido que se hizo por todas partes bien y sin perjuicio de persona." He also reports progress in the expurgation of the works of St. Augustin, St. Jerome, Tertullian " y otros autores graues " in which were contained " cosas no tan sanas como conviene '' (Colleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. XLI. pp. 173, 175)- THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 85 by a carta acordada of 1602 to seize all books by new authors and all new and enlarged editions of old books as soon as they arrived, and to allow no one to see them until they were reported to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, whose decision was to be awaited. Subsequent instructions of 1628 order the Commissioners to seal the joints of all packages of books ; when the duty was paid they were to be deposited with a person of confidence, taking security that he would deliver them to the Supreme Council and not to the owners. 1 It goes without saying that all prohibited books were detained and kept or burnt. Thus the introduction into Spain of even the most innocent literature was discouraged with regulations so cumbrous as to be well-nigh prohibitory. The surreptitious importation of books was sought to be prevented by an elaborate system of visitas de navios, which, when not corruptly evaded, must have been a serious burden on all commerce. This commenced in 1566, in consequence of advices from the Princess of Parma, Governess of Flanders, that the heretics were endeavoring to smuggle their writings into Spain. Accordingly the examination of all ships arriving in Spanish ports was ordered, in search of prohibited books, and fresh zeal was aroused in 1578 by the news that the heretics had printed a Spanish New Testament with the imprint of Venice, for circulation in Spain. Similar notices from the pope and other sources of the shipment of heretic and Jewish books were not infrequent, stimulating to the utmost the watchfulness of the Inquisition, and the numerous instructions issued show how difficult was the task and the importance attached to it. Ships of friendly nations, with which there were commercial treaties, were not exempted ; the packages of goods and the water casks, the chests and berths of the officers and crew were all to be sedulously exam- ined, and if any one was found endeavoring to bring in forbidden volumes he was arrested and handed over to the 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218^. fol., p. 305. 5 86 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. nearest Inquisition for trial. When heretics came to trade, bringing books for their own use, the commissioner was instructed to examine them and if found to be prohibited to mark them conspicuously and indelibly, so that Catholics could recognize them, warning the owners not to bring them on shore under heavy penalties. In 1597 English ships were directed to be treated with gentleness, so as not to cause offence, and this was repeated in 1631. 1 Although commerce with the New World was jealously limited to Spanish bottoms, the visiia de navios was conducted there with special vigilance to guard against the introduction not only of prohibited books but of heretics, and to punish any infractions of the faith committed by the crew or passen- gers during the voyage. The instructions for this examina- tion are worth transcribing as an illustration of the Spanish methods of preserving the purity of the faith. I. Firstly, the name of the vessel and of her owner ; from what part of Spain or other kingdom did she sail and with what register. II. Iten, How long is it since they left the said port and at what other ports or places have they touched or landed; what other vessels have they met, and with whom have they treated or traded during the voyage. III. Iten. Whether on the said vessel there are any persons, navigating officers, sailors, or passengers, who are foreigners, and come from outside the kingdoms of Spain, particularly from Eng- land, Flanders, Germany or France, or other parts suspicious as to the faith, and if such foreigners as left the kingdoms of Spain were put upon the ship's register, or were they picked up afterwards in ports touched at. IV. Iten. What Christian doctrine and prayers of the Church have they recited at sea, and what saints have they besought as advocates and invoked in their necessities and perils. V. Iten. What books have been brought in the vessel from which to recite prayers or for amusement ; those which they have must be examined to see whether they are prohibited ; if in a 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, i\U fol. pp. 199, 231, 304-5.— Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 48. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. 87 foreign tongue great care must be exercised to ascertain what they are. Here it must be observed that if the people are Lutherans they usually bring the Psalms of David which they sing at sea. VI. Iten. What images do they bring, solid, painted, stamped or engraved on paper or cloth. The inscriptions and letters are to be examined to see if they contain false doctrine ; if there are no inscriptions, to see whether the pictures are degrading to the saints, as when holy things are mingled with profane; whether they represent the male and female saints decently and reputably, or in the shape of cavaliers and ladies finely attired. To execute Nos. V. and VI. it is necessary to open and examine thoroughly the boxes and chests of the sailors and others. VII. Iten. Whether they know if anyone on board has done or said anything that is or seems to be contrary to our holy faith and the mother Church of Rome, or contrary to any of the seven sacra- ments, or in any other way contrary thereto. VIII. Iten. And if this question brings a reply, the matter must be examined into, as to time, place, and persons present, interro- gating the concurring witnesses according to the instructions issued for that purpose. 1 In pursuance of a royal cedula, the commissioners of the Inquisition were instructed in 1603 to see that no one, not even the royal officials, reached newly arrived ships before them ; all might go together, but the Inquisition must not be second. Only one guard was to be kept on board during the vessel's stay in port, to represent all three jurisdictions — local, royal, and inquisitorial— and each in turn was to have the privilege of his appointment. 2 In the incurable jealousy which prevailed between the secular officials and those of the Inquisition it was to be expected that these competing rights 1 MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.— From the allusion to Lutherans I pre- sume that this formula is adapted from one in use throughout the Spanish dominions. Among Mr. Fergusson's MS. is the examination at Vera Cruz, October 31, 1600, of Geronimo Nunez, master of the ship Maria de San Vicente, just arrived from Cadiz, showing that these instructions were strictly followed. 2 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, i\U fol. pp. 231, 305.— Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 48. 88 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. should cause frequent collisions. In 1628 a quarrel thus arising between the inquisitorial and royal representatives at the port of San Sebastian led to a withdrawal of the royal cedula of 1603 and the substitution of a rule that either might precede the other. 1 That this failed to bring peace is seen in a complaint addressed, August 16, 1647, t0 tne Inquisition of Granada by its commissioner at Malaga, Doctor Don Diego de Vargas y de la Zerda. The veedor of the port, Don Pedro de Funes, had proclaimed publicly that the king com- manded him to make the first visit and had forcibly prevented the commissioner from using the boat in which the visits were made. Then the commissioner bought a boat and adorned it with the standard of the Inquisition, which provoked fresh outrages — possibly owing to his paying the wages of his three boatmen by allowing them the use of the boat at night and permitting them to carry merchants to the ships for trade. Against this charge he alleges the evil deeds of another of his enemies, the chief of the custom house, who winked at the landing by night of heretic books and of merchandize without paying duty. One singularly barefaced complaint is that the royal officials notified the ship-captains that they need not give him the customary propina or entertainment, in conse- quence of which on recently visiting three Hamburg vessels he received from one only a fragment of rotten cheese and from the others nothing. The good doctor's appeal was promptly answered by the Inquisition of Granada on August 20. He could keep his boat, it told him, but it must be used for his official visits and not for any illegal purposes. The first visit could be made by the one who first reached the ship, and the others must not make trouble ; anyone inter- fering with him was liable to the fine of 200 ducats, which for inferior persons was to be reduced to twenty.' 2 It shows the incurable disorder and corruption of the whole 1 Biblioteca National de Madrid, Section de MSS. S. 294, fol. 48. 2 Ibid. fol. 132. THE FUNCTIONS OF THE INQUISITION. system that no notice was taken of the commissioner's com- plaint about his propinas. A carta acordada of 1604 posi- tively prohibits all officials employed in visiting ships from receiving collations or artillery salutes, or from placing guards on board, and one of 1670 alludes to thirteen silver reals as the fee which they are entitled to charge. Another order, issued in 1606, points to a further abuse in prohibiting them from taking with them notaries and familiars who are traders and from buying and selling during the visit. 1 How little these rules were observed and how the whole business was converted into a matter of illicit gain and extortion is shown by a memorial, without date, describing the ordinary routine in the port of Cadiz, and suggesting reforms. We are told that as soon as a ship comes to anchor in the Bay, the guard of the Holy Office notifies the interpreter, who makes preparation for the visit and notifies the commissioner. The visit may be made in either of two ways — on board the ship or in the commissioner's office. If the former, a boat is hired for sixteen reals, which the shipmaster has to pay, as well as fees of four reals for the commissioner, four for the alguacil, four for the notary, four for the guard, two for each familiar of whom there will be at least two, four for the inter- preter, and whatever can be extorted for the carpet which is placed in the boat — enough having been paid for this carpet to cover the whole Bay of Cadiz with an awning. The master is required to receive the visitors with a salute of three pieces of artillery and it is customary to accompany this with abun- dant libations of beer. The commissioner proceeds to the cabin, where a collation is served to him and his followers, who drink freely ; his officials are mostly merchants who thus learn what merchandize the vessel brings and have chances to purchase to advantage. Meanwhile the guard is sent to examine the chests of the sailors ; if he finds books he brings 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218^ fol. p. 305. — Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 48. go CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. them to the commissioner; the interpreter pronounces them books of devotion and they are returned ; there is no pretence of examining the cargo, which is a physical impossibility. When, as sometimes happens, there are twenty ships to be visited in an afternoon, there are orgies which it would be indecent to describe, though in such cases the collations are often commuted for money, giving rise to numberless extor- tions. When the so-called visit is made at the commissioner's office, the shipmaster comes there ; he is asked the customary questions, and whether he brings books or images prohibited by the Inquisition ; he is warned that he and his crew must not talk about religion, or they will be punished, and all this is duly entered on the register. Then he is required to pay all the fees enumerated above, including the boat and the carpet, and in addition a commutation for the powder which would have been used in the salute, and some provisions — hams, cheese, butter or other merchandize — which he is expected to bring in lieu of the collation. There is no check whatever upon the introduction of heretic books, and all that the Inquisition gains is that it is commonly known among mariners not as the Santo Oficio but as the Santo Ladronicio. The memorial winds up with the sensible suggestion — too sensible and economical to be adopted — that all these inde- cent excesses would be avoided and the real object would be obtained, if the Inquisition would station at the custom house a trustworthy official to be present when packages were opened and detain for submission to the tribunal anything that seemed suspicious. 1 The object of the Holy Office was not to reduce the exactions of its ministers, but to increase them. In 1641 the Inquisition of Logrono created at San Sebastian the office of alguacil mayor and sold it to Domingo de Orendayen, who had been its notary and familiar. The town at once appealed to Philip IV. against the creation of a 1 Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 50. (See Appendix.) LICENCES FOR READERS. 9' new office with its prospective fees as an additional burden upon the commerce of the port, but the Inquisition prevailed, and Orendayen was authorized to exact a fee of six reals for each visit to a ship. 1 I have not happened to meet with any special detailed instructions as to the routine observed at points of entry on the land frontier, but occasional allusions show that similar vigilance was prescribed there. In 1557, Carranza, the future Archbishop of Toledo, while in Flanders discovered the route by which heretics sent their books to Spain. The ports being closed to them they were carried over the mountains of Jaca, whereupon orders were at once sent to the Inquisitions of Saragossa and Calahorra to intercept them. 2 LICENCES FOR READERS. While some books were so obnoxious that theft - possession and perusal were absolutely forbidden to everyone, in general it was admitted that most of those entered on the Index could be read without danger by learned and discreet men. It is not to be supposed that the cultured classes submitted cheerfully to the deprivation of so large a portion of the current litera- ture of the day — the excluded portion being precisely that which most provoked curiosity and stimulated thought — and in the revolutionary period of the sixteenth century it was not expedient to arouse unnecessary discontent and insubor- dination. Besides, if the assaults of the heretics were to be repulsed and their dogmas overthrown it was requisite that controversialists should have access to their books to refute them. At an early period, therefore, in the organization of censorship, it became customary to issue licences to individ- uals authorizing them to hold and read prohibited books. 1 Bibliotheca National, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 48. 2 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 366, 9 2 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. The power to grant such a privilege was a valuable one ; it was liable to abuse, and in the existing condition of public morals, in both Church and State, abuses were sure to creep in wherever there was an opening for them. The prohibition to read condemned books embraced all classes, from emperors, kings, and cardinals down, and there was money or money's worth in the authority to grant exemptions from it. Bishops, indeed, assumed that their office conferred on them the privi- lege to read heretic books, but Pena assures us that in this they were mistaken. Inquisitors claimed the same right, and a-, in Spain at least, the business of prohibition was in their hands, they made good the claim, not only for themselves but for their commissioners, provided that in issuing the com- mission they included the power. 1 As early as 1550 Julius III. proclaimed that the licensing of learned men to read heretical books for the purpose of confuting them had not produced the benefits expected, but rather had occasioned certain inconveniences — inconveni- ences which Paul IV. did not scruple to admit were that the learned controversialists instead of silencing the heretics were apt to be themselves seduced into heresy. For this reason Julius withdrew all licences, no matter to whom granted, even if they had been issued by popes, and in future only inquisi- tors and their commissioners were to have the privilege of reading prohibited books. Having thus cleared the field of licences, there naturally sprang up a fresh market for them, which was met by a new issue, and by 1558 these had grown so numerous that Paul IV. was induced to abrogate them again, this time confining for the future to inquisitors general the right to read the forbidden literature. 2 1 Pegnae Comment, ad Eymeric. p. 91. 2 Septimi Decretal. Lib. V. Tit. iv. c. 2, 4. — -The gratulation with which Alfonso de Castro welcomed the bull of Julius III. shows the importance attached to it as a vigorous move in the war against heresy. - De justa Hasret. Punit. Lib. II. c. xvii. plorimond de Remond (Synopsis Controversiarum Lib. IV. cap. ii. # 6) LICENCES FOR READERS. 93 This process of issuing papal licences and then withdrawing them was frequently repeated, doubtless to the advantage of the officials concerned in supplying them, but we need not pursue further the eccentricities of the Roman curia. Spain was ever a law unto herself, and although the Inquisitor General Valdes based the authority of his Index of 1559 on the bull of Paul IV. of 1558, the Spanish Inquisition speedily arrogated to itself complete autonomy in the matter of licences. Those issued in Rome were treated as invalid in Spain, 1 and the authority of the Inquisition was too generally dreaded for any one to venture to test the question. The inquisitor general alone was recognized as possessing the right to grant them within his jurisdiction, and those which he granted were held not to be subject to cancellation by the papal authority. When Gregory XV. in 1622 withdrew and cancelled all licences, and when Urban VIII. in 1631 repeated the withdrawal, excepting those issued personally by himself, the Spanish Inquisition formally declared that it was not the intent of the pope to interfere with the powers of the inquisitor general, whose licences were therefore still regarded as valid. 2 gives us a transcript of one issued to him, March 11, 1619, by the Congrega- tion of the Inquisition. He had much trouble in obtaining it, though he was already known as a vigorous Catholic controversialist, and it was only granted through the intervention of Cardinal Gioioso, who personally vouched for him. From its terms there was evidently no settled form of printed blank, but it was made out to suit the special case. He was required to read the forbidden books secretly and not let them be seen by others ; he was to exhibit the licence and all books procured under it to the Ordinary of Bordeaux, where he lived; it ran only for three years, at the expiration of which he was to surrender it and the books to the Ordinary, or if he died meanwhile his heirs were to do so, in order that they might be burnt forthwith. 1 Llorente, I. 492. 2 Mag Bullar. Roman. III. 493 ; V. 220. — MSS. Royal Library of Copen- hagen, 218^ fol. p. 332. Towards the close of the sixteenth century Pena holds (Comment, ad Eymeric. p. 92) that the right claimed by inquisitors to issue licences had no foundation and that it was reserved for the pope alone. Cf. Farinacci de Hgeres. Qucest. 180, No. 36, 37. — Alberghini tells us that under a bull of 5* 94 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Lloren^e tells us that the Spanish Inquisition issued these licences very sparingly ; that the applicant's life and character were closely investigated, that he was obliged to specify the description of books wanted and his object, and that when granted the licence only covered a definite number of books on a designated subject. One class of literature was always excepted, and no licence carried permission to read it — books directly opposed to Catholicism, including such works as those of Rousseau, Montesquieu, Mirabeau, Diderot, d'Alem- bert, Voltaire and even Filangieri. 1 It evidently was no easy matter to procure licences in 1664, for a letter of that date from the Licentiate Juan Lucas Cortes to the bibliographer Nicolas Antonio reminds him of a previous request to obtain one for him and urges it as a matter of much importance to him. Cortes at that time was in confidential government employment in Madrid, and yet evidently felt it useless to make the attempt himself — but when he adds that it will quiet his conscience one is disposed to think that he had already yielded to temptation.* Probably the rigor with regard to the matter varied with the temper of the inquisitor general, and doubtless there were times in which they were more largely issued and more liberally construed. In 1720 the Inquisitor General Astorga y Cespedes withdrew all outstanding licences on the ground of the general disregard of the prohibitions of the Inquisition. 3 They must however have been speedily reis- sued with a liberal hand, for in the catalogue of publications of Pedro Joseph Alonzo y Padilla, Librero de Camara de su Magestad, issued in 1737, consisting of works of light litera- ture, " para divertir la ociosidad " various works appear with the cautionary notice " Esta prohibido." These are "Ar- restos de Amor por el Secretario Diego Gracian," " Carcel Paul V. this power was conferred on the Spanish inquisitor general (Manuale Qualificatorum, Csesaraugustce, 1671, p. 132). That this was so we shall see hereafter. 1 Llorente, I. 492. 2 Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, Madrid, 1870, T. II. p. ir3. 3 Recited in an edict of February 13, 1747 (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). LICENCES FOR READERS. 95 de Amor y Question de Amor," " Carnestolendas de Cas- tilla," " Entretenimientos de Damas y Galantes," and " Selvas de Aventuras. " Now some of these, at least, were not the fugitive literature of the day. The Carcel de Amor and the Question de Amor were classics, the former first printed in 1492 and the latter in 1512. 1 Alonzo y Padilla must have obtained a licence for printing them, although prohibited, and he would not have printed them or have kept all these prohibited books on his list had there not been a public enjoying licences large enough to warrant the invest- ment of capital. In fact, the cautionary notice affixed to the books was doubtless a good advertisement for them. This is partly confirmed by the Inquisitor General, Prado y Cuesta, who in 1747 tells us that there was a general clamor among thoughtful men against the abuse of licences and that on investigation he found that they were not sought by men of learning but by the frivolous of both sexes to gratify an idle or an evil curiosity. Many persons, he says, contented themselves with verbally asking leave to read a single book and pretended to mistake a polite refusal, or extended the permission to as many books as they wished. Others, seeing ignorant persons licensed, think the liberty general and do not even make application for it. He therefore revokes all that had been granted by himself or his predecessors and re- quires the delivery within fifteen days to the Inquisition of all prohibited and suspended books, under penalty of excom- munication latoz sententice and a fine of two hundred ducats. 2 To the end the Spanish Inquisition continued to assert its independence of Rome in the matter of licences and its claims were virtually acquiesced in. In 1770 the "Society 1 Ticknor's Spanish Literature, I. 384. Neither of these works appear in the Indexes of 1559 and 1583, but they are both in that of 1640 (pp. 323, 864 ). Menendez y Pelayo tells us (Heterodoxos Espanoles, II. 708) that the prin- cipal reason for prohibiting the Carcel was that the hero commits suicide, which illustrates the tragi-comic sensitiveness of the Spanish censorship. 2 Edicto de 13 de Henero de 1747 (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). 9 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. of the Friends of Spain" applied to Clement XIV. for per- mission to possess and read the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique. Clement did not venture to decide the question himself, but wrote to the Inquisitor General Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, referring the matter to him. He took the opportunity how- ever to assume supremacy, by expressing full confidence in the piety, zeal and wisdom of Bonifaz and empowering him to grant the request to such members of the Society as were free from suspicion of danger by reason of their age, morals, learning, and known zeal for the faith. What was the result of the affair does not appear, but the Society had probably no reason to congratulate itself on the result of the forbidden appeal from Madrid to Rome. 1 INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. If any definition of faith or morals by the Vicar of Christ was entitled to unquestioning obedience by all the faithful it would seem to be that embodied in the decision as to whether a book is orthodox and fitted for perusal ; and yet, outside of a portion of Italy, the papal decrees on the subject received 1 Bullar. Roman. Contin., Prati, 1847, T. V. p. 174. Diderot's Diction- naire Encyclopedique was condemned in Rome by decree of September 3, 1759 (Index Leonis XIII. p. 104), and in Madrid, October 9, 1759 (fndice Ultimo, p. 88). The latter states that at the time (1790) they were at work, by order of the Supreme Council, on the expurgation of the new edition then appearing in Paris. Of this a translation was projected, the list of subscribers to which was headed by the inquisitor general himself. When the Nouvelle Encyclopedie par ordre de matures appeared in Paris a translation was com- menced, but unluckily the article Espagne proved exceedingly distasteful. The Spanish Government made reclamations on the French Republic, which sharply reprimanded the author, the censor and the printer. In Spain the sale was suspended, and finally the Inquisition interposed and seized all the stock on hand. Panckouke's Madrid agent was ruined and Panckouke himself suffered severe losses.— Bourgoing, Tableau d' Espagne, I. 300 (Paris, 1803). INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 97 scant obedience, and least of all, we may say, in Spain, the most orthodox of lands. When in 1559 Paul IV. issued the first Roman Index, Benito Arias Montano informs us that it excited the indignation of all scholars ; that in France and in the greater part of Italy it was not obeyed and that in Spain it was not even suffered to be published. 1 Valdes, the inquisitor general, contented himself with announcing that catalogues of prohibited books had been issued in Rome, Louvain and Portugal and that the Inquisition would combine them and promulgate a new one. 2 The promised Index speedily appeared and showed that it was framed with little respect for papal decisions ; books prohibited in Rome were permitted in Spain. 3 After the death of Paul there was less rigidity in Rome, and then Valdes refused to respond to this liberality. The Roman inquisitor general, Michele Ghislerio (afterwards St. Pius V.), sent to Spain an edict announcing the striking off from the Index of certain books by order of Pius IV. and permitting the reading of works free from heresy — works on medicine, science, grammar and other indifferent matters, prohibited only because written by heretics, also anonymous books and vernacular Bibles. Valdes however 1 Villanueva, de la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, p. 29. 2 Llorente, I. 470. 3 In 1560 Lorenzo Palmireno, in a work on the Rhetoric of Cicero, alludes to the Commentaries on Cicero by Xistus Bethulius being prohibited by the pope, while the Spanish Inquisition only condemned his edition of the De Officiis, and he is warm in his gratitude for the greater liberality shown in Spain — " Dios le de mucha vida al inquisidor mayor que ha sido en esse y otros libros mas liberal con los estudiosos que no el Papa ; porque si los Adagios de Erasmo nos quitaran como el Papa queria en su catalogo bien teniamos que sudar " (Adolfo de Castro, Protestantes Espanoles, p. 56). Xistus Bethulius is ranked in the first class of the Index of Paul IV., all of his works being prohibited (Reusch, Der Index, I. 264) ; he is absent from the 1559 Index of Valdes, but all his works are prohibited in that of Quiroga, 1583 (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 431). As for the Adagia, Valdes only permits that work in the expurgated Aldine edition (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 259), which is more liberal than Paul IV. who forbade all the works of Erasmus (lb. p. 183) ; but this was relaxed in the Tridentine Index of 1564, which per- mitted the Aldine Adagia (lb. p. 259). 9 8 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. suspended the publication of this decree and remonstrated with Philip II. against permitting currency to this papal lib- erality. 1 When in 1562 the reassembled Council of Trent took up the whole subject to make laws binding on all Christendom, Philip II. wrote earnestly to the Count de Luna, his ambassa- dor at Trent, and to Vargas, his agent at Rome, to prevent the Tridentine Commission from attempting to include Spain in its regulations. Spain, he urged, had her own Index and her own laws of censorship ; no rules could be universal, for a book might be innocent in one place and dangerous in another. 2 He obtained no formal exemption of his domin- ions from the Tridentine rules, but this made no difference, and Spain continued to act with the utmost independence. a The Tridentine Rules and Index, in fact, were not adopted by the Council, but in the hurry of the final session were referred to the pope, under whose authority they were revised and published.* They had thus only the weight of papal decrees, and these in Spain were received or rejected as suited the policy of the monarch. In 15 14, at the suggestion of Cardinal Ximenes, Ferdinand had ordered that no papal bull or rescript should be published without preliminary examination and the royal approval. 5 In 1572 Philip II. went still further and decreed that all papal briefs procured for use in cases before ecclesiastical courts should be thrown aside, and that 1 Llorente, I. 471. 2 Reusch, Der Index, I. 318. 3 Mendham (Account of the Indexes, London, 1826, p. 94) assumes that with the Index of Sandoval in 1612 the Spanish inquisitors asserted the right of issuing Indexes under their own name and authority (Cf. Llorente, I. 479), but there is virtually no difference between the edict prefixed to the Index of Quiroga in 1583 and that of Sotomayor in 1640. That of Valdes in 1559 had been based on papal authority, and the change is significant. Concil. Trident Sess. xxv. Contin. — How slender was the respect paid to the prohibitions of the Tridentine Index may be seen by the remarks of the Antwerp Expurgatory Index of 1571 (p. 7) by Arias Montano on its con- demnation of Reuchlin's Speculum Oculare. 5 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 216 fol. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 99 no Spaniard should be cited to appear outside of Spain, thus at a single blow annihilating the time-honored and profitable jurisdiction of the Holy See in matters that for centuries had been within its competence. 1 In 1582 he prohibited the pub- lication of the bull In Ccena Domini and expelled the papal nuncio for attempting it. 2 It became the routine that all papal letters sent to Spain were referred, for inspection and consideration, to that department of state which they affected — those which seemed to threaten the regalias (royal prerog- atives) or the oppression of subjects to the Concejo de Cas- tilla or Royal Council ; those relating to the Colonies to the Council of the Indies; those bearing upon indulgences and dispensations to the Commissioner General of the Santa Cruzada, and those tribunals permitted the publication of none which prejudiced the rights of the sovereign or of his subjects. Condemnations of books were 'of two kinds : the ordinary ones emanated from the Congregation of the Index or from the Congregation of the Roman Inquisition, but in rare instances they were issued directly by the pope. The latter, as entitled to special respect, were submitted to the king, not for the purpose of examining the correctness of the prohibitions, but to see that they contained nothing preju- dicial to the commonwealth. 3 The former were sent to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, which treated them simply as advisory and not as commands. Although the decrees of the Congregations were formally submitted to the pope and approved by him, and derived all their authority from him, the Spanish Inquisition claimed that it owed obedi- ence solely to him and not to the Congregations. Therefore when such a condemnation of a book was laid before the Supreme Council, it quietly proceeded to a new calificacion or examination of the work, and if satisfied that it was inju- ' Autos Acordados, Lib. I. Tit. viii. Auto 3. 2 Cabrera, Historia de Felipe II. Lib. xill. cap. xii. 3 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 216 fol. IOO CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. rious condemned it of its own authority. The papal nuncio was strictly prohibited from distributing such briefs to the bishops, or from publishing them in any way. Occasionally the nuncio sought to evade this by causing the brief to be posted in the court-yard of his palace, but the Supreme Council promptly annulled the act, punished the subordinates who did it, and reported the matter to the king that he might warn the nuncio to observe the laws. Thus the condemna- tion of a book in Rome carried no weight in Spain, unless it was independently approved by the Inquisition, and many works were current in Spain which were prohibited in Italy, while others were prohibited in Spain and current in Italy. As an incident of this autonomy, when the Inquisition had undertaken fhe original examination of a book it forbade any appeal to Rome or any attempt to refer the matter there. 1 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 2i8£ fol. pp. 331, 332. Cf. Van Espen, Juris Ecclesiastici P. I. Tit. xxii. c. iv. 34, 35.— Sicily, as part of the Spanish dominions, was likewise independent of the Roman censorship. When Salgado's work on the Regalias was prohibited in Rome in 1628, Philip IV. asserted the independence of the Spanish Inquisition in the most absolute terms — " Ningun minist r o eclesiastico ni otro alguno puede publicar en mis regnos edicto alguno que toque a la fe y lo dependiente de ella, como lo es en parte la prohibition de libros hereticos y de danada doctrina, que la Inquisicion sola, por costumbre antiquisima, prohibe, a quien toca privativa- mente." — Menendez y Pelayo, III. 853. Philip II. had manifested the same spirit when he offered Charles Du Moulin the place of first professor of law at Louvain with a salary of 2000 livres, after Du Moulin had been condemned by the Holy See for his Commentary on the edict of Henry II. known as the Edit des petites dattcs, limiting the papal exactions in France. It was to this book that the Constable Montmorenci referred when in presenting the author to the king he said : " Sire, ce que vostre Majeste n'a peu faire et executer auec trente mille homines, de con- traindre le Pape Jules a. luy demander la paix, cc petit homme l'a acheve auec un petit livret."— Brodeau, Vie de Maistre Ch. du Molin, Paris, 1654, pp. 74, 78, 86, 120. The book itself (Commentarius ad Edictum Henrici II. contra parvas Datas et abusus Curias Romanae, Lugduni, 1552) is simply an assertion of the inde- pendent authority of the State, as deduced from the imperial and Carlovingian legislation— a commonplace now to all historical students, but at that time a revolt against the glossators, whose ingenious cobwebs it pitilessly swept aside. As such, it was in the highest degree damaging to the Holy See. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. IOI In this assertion of independence the Spanish Inquisition was fairly justified by the extraordinary grants of power made to it by successive popes. After Paul III. had in 1542 organ- ized the Roman Inquisition, he issued in 1544 letters declar- ing that this was in no way to interfere with the powers and jurisdiction of the Spanish Holy Office. In 155 1 Julius III. confirmed this and delegated to it all his powers in every- thing within its sphere of action, which was confirmed by Gregory XIII. in 1572, immediately after St. Pius V. had in 1 5 71 instituted the Congregation of the Index. When in 1587 Sixtus V. remodelled the fifteen congregations he was careful to state that he in no way proposed to infringe on the powers of the Spanish Inquisition and that if anyone should obtain letters from the curia interfering with it in the matter of the censure of books or anything else, they should be re- garded as surreptitious unless the derogation was expressly set forth. Clement VIII., in 1595, specially committed to the inquisitor general of Spain cognizance in the matter of prohibiting books, and in ^frand 1599 he further confirmed all the acts of his predecessors in the premises. 1 In spite of this array of papal briefs the independence of the Spanish Inquisition was by no means admitted in Rome. Catalani, the secretary of the Congregation of the Index, acknowledges the fact that books approved in Rome were sometimes condemned in Spain, as in the celebrated case of Cardinal Noris's Historia Pelagiana, but he protests his igno- rance of any right to do so. The further pretension to approve of books condemned in Rome was more serious ; Theophile Raynaud had alleged it in defence of his fellow Jesuits, Padres Poza and Manuel Sa, but Catalani pronounces 1 Salgado, Tractatus de Supplicatione ad Sanctissimum a Literis et Bullis Apostolicis , P. II. c xxxii. No. 87-93. Sometimes it appears that the decrees of the Congregation of the Index were disregarded on the plea that there was no evidence of their genuineness, as was done by Valenzuela Velasquez, Archbishop of Granada, with a decree of April 26, 1621. — Salgado, P. II. c. xxx. | 5, No. 6. 102 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. it ridiculous to suppose that anyone could confer on the Spanish Inquisition the power to rescind the judgments of Rome. In support of this he cites the reply made, December 4, 1674, by the Congregation of the Index to the Bishop of Malaga, who had asked whether the decrees of the Congrega- tion were binding in Spain, and whether bishops could pro- ceed against those who disregarded them. The Congregation assured him that its decrees were binding on all Christians and that bishops could, in virtue of their episcopal authority, punish all transgressors. 1 It is to be hoped that the good bishop did not attempt to exercise his jurisdiction on this basis, for the Inquisition had an awkward way of vindicating its supremacy. Of course these conflicting claims gave rise to occasional quarrels, some of which are among the curiosities of literary history. One of the most intricate of these concerns the Jesuit Mateo Moya, who, under the pseudonym of Amadaeus Guimenius, published at Palermo in 1657, a work in defence of the fashionable Jesuit casuistry, probably called forth by Pascal's Lettres Provinciales. Seven years later he enlarged and reissued it under the title of Opusculum singularia univer- se fere theologies moralis complectens, in which he endeavored to show that opinions condemned as those of Jesuits had been entertained by ancient theologians. He prefixed to it an approbation purporting to be issued by Padre Luisius, Provincial of the Capuchin province of the Blood of Christ, in Valencia, which stirred Frere Nicholas, Capuchin Pro- vincial of Paris, to publish, under authority of the General of the Order, a declaration that both Padre Luisius and the Province of the Blood of Christ were mythical creations. Promptly in 1665 the Sorbonne denounced the book as a horrible anti-gospel for the investigation of the filthiest matters with obscene curiosity, and its author as the de- fender, not so much of the casuists as of all nastiness and 1 Catalani de Secretario Congr. Indicis, pp. 30, 31, 52. — For the case of Cardinal Noris see Reusch, Der Index, II. 671. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. IO3 wickedness. The propositions extracted from the work to justify this condemnation show it to be casuistry run mad ; it argues away the rites of the Church and the prohibitions of crime and immorality, and virtually destroys the founda- tions of human society. Among these propositions however were some affirming papal infallibility in faith and morals and the condemnation of these by the Sorbonne brought to the rescue Alexander VII. who in a brief of April 6, 1665, addressed to Louis XIV., asked him to annul the censures. Louis referred the matter to his Parlement which rendered an arret denouncing infallibility and sustaining the Sor- bonne. Thereupon Alexander condemned the decree of the Sorbonne, June 25, 1665, and placed it on the Index where it still remains, but he was careful to explain that he did not wish to defend the scoundrel who had written the book ; and to justify himself he referred it to the Congregation of the Inquisition for condemnation. Jesuit influence however was strong in Rome and the Congregation after debate decided that it would be unjust to condemn an author who had only compiled the opinions of Diana, Caramuel and other theologians. Then Alexander had recourse to the Congregation of the Index which possessed independent con- current jurisdiction over literature, and from its Dominican preponderance was antagonistic to Jesuitism. The Jesuit General Oliva found his efforts baffled and the book was con- demned, April 10, 1666. Father Moya addressed to the Congregation a supplication in which he stated that the Spanish Inquisition had approved the book in 1658, and that in a revised edition he would correct and note the condemned propositions. In effect, he issued at Madrid, in [670, over his own name, a work under the title Quazstiones selectcz ex prcecipuis theologian moralis tractatibus, in which he reprinted part of the Opusculum. He enjoyed high favor at the Span- ish court, where he wa; confessor to the Queen-regent, and as such was a member of the royal council, until Carlos II. in 1677 emancipated himself from his mother's authority, 104 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. driving her and her confessor from Madrid and banishing her prime minister, Valenzuela, to the Philippines. Possibly this may have emboldened the Holy See to further action, for the Opusculum enjoyed the distinction of a second condem- nation of the most emphatic kind, when, in 1680, Innocent XL issued a special brief reciting that in spite of previous prohibitions there were persons who continued to keep and read the work, wherefore he again condemned both the edi- tions of 1657 and 1664, and ordered, under pain of excom- munication, removable only by the pope, all copies whether in print or MS. to be delivered to the bishops and to be promptly burnt. In spite of this, which was a formal papal bull and not merely a decree of the Congregations, the Spanish Inquisition held good, and Moya's works were never placed on its Index. 1 Another struggle, which attracted much attention in its day, occurred over the works of the Jesuit Juan Bautista Poza. In 1626 he published a book entitled Elucidarium Deiparce, of which the extravagance of Mariolatry was in advance of the age. It was promptly condemned by the Congregation of the Index in a decree of April 12, 1628. 2 So far from sub- mitting humbly as was his duty, Poza wrote two audacious letters to Urban VIII. arguing that, in violation of human and divine law, his book had been condemned without hearing the author or consulting the Spanish Inquisition ; he asked that the censors be required to state their reasons in writing, adding that if they objected it would show that they had no confidence in their own sentence; the cardinals were too 1 La Morale des Jesuistes justement condamnee dans le Livre du P. Moya, Liege, 1681.— Van Espen, Juris Ecclesiast. P. 1. Tit. xxii. c. 4, g 33.— D'Argentre, Coll. Judic. de novis Erroribus, III. I. 106-133; H. 353-— Reusch, Der Index, II. 499-501.— L e Tellier, Recueil des Bulles concernans les Erreurs, etc., Mons (Rouen), 1797, p. 286.— Index Innoc. XI. 1681, p. 42.— Index Benedict XIV. 1758, p. 51.— Index Leonis XIII., 1887, pp. 59, 143.— Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. LXVII. p. 93. 2 Elenchus Libb. Prohibb., Romae, 1632, p. 189.— Librorum post Indicem Clement. VIII. Decreta, Romse, 1624, p. 173. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 105 pressingly occupied in other business to give heed to censor- ship, which they abandoned to the consultors, some of whom were ignorant and all intriguing and venal, betraying men to their enemies and smirching the reputation of Catholic writers ; the books of a Spanish author should not be con- demned after they had been approved by the Spanish Inqui- sitions and the Roman Congregations had no jurisdiction in the Spanish dominions, where the Spanish Inquisition was independent and supreme. 1 These utterances, which manifest so boldly the separatist tendencies of the Spanish Church of the period, were not calculated to make his peace in Rome, and the Congregation, in 1632, retorted with a sweeping decree condemning not only all his works but everything written in defence of the Elucidarium? The Spanish Jesuits were thoroughly united in his support ; they did not hesitate to say that the books of their members were condemned in Rome through the enmity of the Dominicans who controlled the Index, to which the Dominicans retorted that the faith was in danger if the judgments of the Holy See were to be nullified by arguments precisely similar to those of the here- tics. 3 It suited the policy of Olivares to support the Jesuits, and although Sotomayor, the inquisitor general, was a Domi- nican he was obliged to submit to the all-powerful favorite. How completely the state espoused the Jesuit quarrel is seen in the incident that in Milan the Infante Fernando in 1634 imprisoned one of his servants whom he found copying a Latin attack on Poza and sent the paper to Madrid, where the Jesuits declared that all hell united could not say such shocking things. 4 The papal nuncio in Madrid in vain endeavored to have the Roman condemnation published. The Inquisition as 1 Catalani de Secretario Congr. Indicis, pp. 41, 52, 63. — Gibbings, Reprint of the Roman Index Expurgatorius, Dublin, 1837, p. lxiii. 2 Index Alexand. VII. Index Decretorum No. 36. 3 Catalani, p. 29. 4 Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial Historico Espanol, T. XIII. p. 14). io6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. usual undertook its own calificacion, and though the majority of its censors disapproved of the Elucidarium it was not con- demned and Poza's name does not appear in the Index of Zapata in 1632. 1 Yet the open defiance with which he had treated the Holy See could not be passed over in silence. The nuncio continued to press the matter on the Inquisition, and in this he was assisted by Doctor Juan de Espino, a hot- headed ex-Carmelite, who with marvellous constancy passed his time when out of prison in attacking the Jesuits and Poza in particular. At length, in August 1635, a decree was issued that the Inquisition should try him. The affair proceeded slowly, and in March, 1637, we hear of a sentence being agreed upon but not rendered, while Poza was at liberty and lecturing as usual. A year later, in April, 1638, he was in the easy prison of the Hospital of Santiago, in Toledo, where Espino chanced to meet him. The enemies did not know each other and conversed pleasantly till a remark of Poza's caused Espino to retort "That could only be said by a heretic like Poza ' ' whereupon Poza thrashed him soundly. In No- vember of the same year the Inquisition acquitted him, discharged him from all censures, restored him to all his offices and functions and even appointed him reviser general of books for the Holy Office, thus boldly challenging the indignation of the curia. 2 In his capacity of reviser Poza must have had a hand in the compilation of the Index of Sotomayor, which appeared in 1640, but his triumph was transitory. Probably his exultation led him to fresh extrava- gances which involved him in renewed trouble. His books are not in the Index of 1640, but they must have been under consideration, for, March 27 of that year, a Jesuit writes that he had inquired about them and had been told that in a month they would be in the Expurgatorio. This was verified, for soon afterward a Supplement appeared in which they 1 Reusch, Der Index, II. 436-8. 2 Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial, T. XIII. p. 231; T. XIV. pp. 74,397; T. XV. p. T12). INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. IO7 were included — prohibited until expurgated, and the expur- gations ordered in the Elucidarium indicate how crazily in- decent were the speculations in which Poza indulged. 1 Pala- fox, indeed, says that the Inquisition ordered his writings burnt, after a struggle of the severest kind, and he gives Espino the credit of having brought it about.' 2 Poza's impa- tient temper unfitted him to bear this sudden reverse with equanimity ; his pen was busy and he wrote much that he might more wisely have kept to himself. The Inquisition took hold of him again. In November 1640 we hear of the progress of his case, of his being in exile at Navalcarnero and forbidden to leave it or to correspond with anyone. At this Urban VIII. was so rejoiced that he wrote a special letter of thanks to Sotomayor. In December Poza was transferred to the Jesuit college at Cuenca, where we hear of him in 1643 ; in 1645 his case is still dragging on, but he is permit- ted to leave the house and resume his duties in the pulpit and confessional. Probably the prosecution was never concluded, for he lingered forgotten in his exile until his death in 1660. 3 In this case the final yielding of the Inquisition was due to local influences and not to any deference to the Roman cen- sorship. Spanish stubbornness was even more strongly mani- 1 Cartas cle Jesuitas (Memorial, XV. 437). — Indice de Sotomayor, Supplem. p. 989.— Indice Ultimo, p. 215. — The character of the expurgations against which all the Jesuits in Spain so bitterly fought may be judged from a single one — " Lib. III. fol. 741 et sequent, et ubicumque denegat Marice et Jesu consuetas membranas et umbilicales venas, et affirmat so/am nutritnentalem venam habuisse, ct quod Maria in ventre Matris nutriebatur ore et non more aliorum puerorum. Partum Deiparcs caruisse secundinis, dele.'' 2 Carta al R. P. Horacio Caroche, No. 214 (Obras de Palafox, 1762, XI. 213) ; Carta al R. P. Diego de la Presentacion (lb. XI. 560). Possibly the writings burnt may have been some of those produced in Poza's struggle with the Inquisition. They can hardly have been the Elucidarium and Apologies which are merely ordered in the Index to be expurgated. 3 Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial, T. XIII. p. 231 ; T. XVI. pp. 54, 80; T.' XVII. p. 83; T. XVIII. p. 100). Outside of Spain the Society of Jesus does not seem to have regarded Poza's performances with favor. His name is discreetly absent from Alegambe's " Bibliotheca Scriptorum Societatis Jesu," Antwerp, 1643. io8 CENSORSHIP OF 7 HE PRESS. fested in the celebrated question of the Lamince. Granatenses or Plomos del Sacromonie, although after a contest prolonged for a century, it was obliged apparently to give way. In 1 5 88 an ancient building in Granada, known as the Torre Torpiana, was torn down, and in the process there was discovered a leaden box, coated with bitumen, inside and out, containing a bone, a linen cloth, and a parchment writing in Arabic characters, with a Latin inscription, signed in Arabic by " Caecilius Bishop of Granada," reciting that the bone was a relic of St. Stephen the protomartyr, the cloth was half of that with which the Virgin dried her tears at the crucifixion, and the writing was a prophecy on the end of the world, by St. John the Evangelist, in which he foretold the advent of Mahomet and the rise of Lutheranism. The find was ac- cepted as genuine and excited general veneration, although the critical eye of Pedro of Valencia pointed out that parch- ment, ink, and writing were all modern, with only a color- able imitation of antiquity. 1 This led to a still more daring attempt. Early in February, 1595, some treasure seekers among the ruins on a mountain about half a league from Granada, subsequently known as the Sacromonte, found a sheet of lead with characters difficult of decipherment. After many fruitless attempts a Jesuit made the inscription read " Corpus ustum Divi Mesitonis : passus est sub Neronis Impera- toris potentatu." The Archbishop of Granada, Pedro de Castro, was overjoyed at the discovery; he caused further searches to be made and in other caverns during March and April three more plates of lead were found, covered with bitumen and inscribed with similar characters, to the effect that in the caves of the holy mountain, in the second year of Nero, were burnt alive disciples of St. James — St. Caecilius, 1 Jose Godoy Alcantara, Historia critica de los falsos Cronicones, Madrid, 1868, p. 6. — Copies and translations of these documents are given by Dr. Geddes in his "Account of the MSS. and Relicks found in the Ruins of the Turpian Tower . . . and in the Mountain called Valparayso." — Geddes's Miscellaneous Tracts, London, 1714, Vol. I. p. 383. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. St. Hesychius, St. Ctesiphon and their followers. 1 The dis- coveries continued for two years, during which no less than eighteen books were found, inscribed some in Latin and some in beautiful Arabic script, on small circular leaden plates strung together. They purported to be revelations and prophecies recorded by St. James and his disciples Csecilius and Ctesi- phon. The successive discoveries were hailed with public rejoicings and salvos of artillery, innumerable miracles were wrought by the relics, and men of the highest station testified that they had seen brilliant splendors and processions of spirits hovering over the hallowed spot. Pilgrims by the thousand poured in from all parts of Spain to visit the holy ground, and crosses without number were erected there by the piety of individuals. Various religious Orders promptly contended for the privilege of founding a monastery there, and the arch- bishop inclined to favor the Cistercians, but the Virgin ap- peared to him and ordered him to build a church and house of secular canons. He obeyed and the resulting establish- ment, which was approved by Paul V. in 1609, grew wealthy through the offerings of the crowds of pilgrims, thus render- ing the authenticity of the relics a matter of large pecuniary interest. Learned Moors were employed on the translation of the leaden books ; they were found to contain evidence in favor of the two matters dearest to Spanish religious zeal— the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and the Spanish Apos- tolate of St. James. But in addition there were theological speculations of the loftiest character and of surpassing inter- est in the development of Christianity, as giving the un- doubted inspiration of the apostles and of the Virgin on doctrines of the highest importance. To be sure, some of the teaching had a strange savor of Islam, such as the formula, 1 These names were shrewdly borrowed from the Mozarabic ritual. The old martyrologies describe Caecilius, Ctesiphon and Hesychius as sent to Spain to evangelize the land and as suffering martyrdom there.— Usuardi Martyrol. 15 Maii; Bedas Martyrol. 15 Maii. 6 I IO CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. ' ' Unity of. God ; there is no God but God, and Jesus the Spirit of God." Jesus, in fact, was repeatedly defined in the manner customary in the Koran, not as the Son of God, but as the Spirit of God, and many details were given of his life borrowed from the account in the Koran. St. James was made to record a revelation to the Virgin that the Arabs were to become the chosen people who in the latter days will be subject to a great king and will unite with the Christians in one religion and extend it throughout the world. The re- searches of Senor Godoy Alcantara would seem to leave no reason to doubt that the forgeries were the work of Moriscos — probably of the two translators employed, Miguel de Luna and Alonso del Castillo— who aimed at nothing less than the introduction of a new gospel which should bring about a compromise between the religions of Christ and Mahomet, and might eventually fuse the antagonistic races into one, thus saving the Moriscos from the destruction then impending over them. Care was also taken to enlist the weakness and greed of the Christians. It was stated that St. James and his disciples were divinely ordered to bring these books into Spain and to bury them on the Sacromonte, where in the fulness of time they would be discovered by a prelate of dis- tinguished merit, and that salvation was assured to everyone who should visit the spot and give alms there. 1 It shows the uncritical character of the learning of the period that in spite of the loathing entertained for Mahom- etanism and all connected with it, the forgeries gained accept- ance almost universal, though this did not prevent the expul- sion of the Moriscos a few years later. The Royal Council ordered Archbishop Pedro de Castro to proceed to a califica- cion. An assembly of eighteen learned theologians declared unanimously that the books seemed to be dictated by the Holy Ghost and that the providence of God had preserved them to the present time to confound all heresies. A pro- 1 Jose Godoy Alcantara, pp. 44-106— Lopez, EI Sacro- Monte de Granada, Madrid, 1883, pp. 59-64, 72. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. Ill vincial synod was called in 1600 to pronounce upon the authenticity of the relics, which after due investigation were decided to be veritable and were ordered to be venerated accordingly. It is true that there were a few doubters. Benito Arias Montano, the greatest living Spanish scholar, was incredulous, but such was the general enthusiasm that he feared to express his opinion and evaded it on the pretext of illness. Juan Bautista Perez, Bishop of Segorbe, wrote an exposure of the fraud, but discreetly had it presented to the Royal Council under the name of the Licenciate Val- carcel. A Morisco Jesuit, Padre Ca c as, to whom the books were submitted, pronounced them to be heretical ; he was at once obliged to leave Granada, when he went to Rome, where he propagated his opinions in safety. Gurmendi, a student of Arabic, is also mentioned as a doubter, and the shortness of the list shows how general was the credulity. The Dominicans, whose reverence for St. Thomas Aquinas prevented their acceptance of the Immaculate Conception, naturally were opposed to the new revelations, which pro- nounced all who disbelieved in the doctrine to be accursed and excommunicated and destined to damnation, but the only member of the Order who is recorded as daring to lift his voice against them was Fray Luis de Alliaga, the royal confessor. An opinion furnished in 1597 by Doctor Grego- rio Lopez Madera, in which he assumes that time will be required before the books can be incorporated into the canon of Scripture, shows that this was in contemplation and that if Spain had. possessed a national Church it would probably have been done, leading to a new form of Christianity. 1 Fortunately Rome was convinced of the fraud and fought the delusion with a persistence which in the end could not fail to triumph. The nuncio at Madrid did not share the general enthusiasm and vainly insisted that the matter should be referred to the Holy See, as the only competent tribunal. Clement VIII. wrote repeatedly to Archbishop Pedro de 1 Godoy Alcantara, pp. 107-18. — Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, II. 45. 112 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Castro, forbidding him to publish or divulge the books ; no man of whatever rank was to express an opinion for or against them under pain of arbitrary censure and punishment ; the plates and everything connected with them were to be sent forthwith to Rome where all questions concerning them would be decided. Absolute as were these commands they received no obedience. Succeeding popes made repeated efforts to obtain the plates with as little success. Finally Urban VIII. , after the failure of milder methods, caused the Congregation of the Inquisition to adopt a constitution, May 5, 1639, describ- ing the objects found in the Torre Torpiana and Sacromonte as affecting the faith ; they are everywhere cited in books and sermons to support certain dogmas, and are daily acquir- ing increased veneration as papers of divine and canonical authority, although men of the greatest experience and learn- ing adduce against them matters of the gravest moment and assert that they contain much that reeks with impiety, super- stition and error. Therefore, to prevent the invasion of the Church by false doctrines under cover of supposititious names of apostles and their disciples, after mature deliberation with the Cardinals of the Congregation, he orders the said books, writings and plates to be suspended and prohibits any faith, veneration, or cult to be rendered to them until the Holy See shall decide as to their truth and doctrine ; all glosses and writings upon them are to be surrendered to the inquisi- tors or episcopal ordinaries. Books or MSS. containing pass- ing allusions to them are prohibited until such allusions are expunged. The acts of all assemblies that have been held for the approbation and interpretation of the plates are de- clared void, and no more are to be convened. No one here- after is to write in defence of the plates, or translate them or cite them in speech or writing or quote others respecting them. All this is to be observed inviolably throughout the world. For any infraction the offender, of whatever rank he be, incurs ipso facto excommunication, removable only by the pope ; if an ecclesiastic he forfeits all offices and benefices INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 113 and incurs perpetual disability ; if a layman he is to be pun- ished corporally and pecuniarily, at the discretion of the inquisitor or episcopal ordinary, and the same penalty is to be inflicted on printers who print any of the matters prohib- ited or suspended. 1 The sweeping severity of these provisions shows how great was the long pent-up wrath which at la-^t burst forth. Yet though the constitution was enforced, at least in Rome, the extreme penalties were probably never meant to be inflicted. In 1652 Padre Carlo Salviati, preacher of the Jesuit house in Rome, alluded in a sermon to the Im- maculate Conception and cited in proof of it St. Ctesiphon in the Granadine plates. A Dominican who chanced to be present was prompt in reporting him to the Inquisition. Innocent X. thereupon sent for the Jesuit General, scolded him roundly and suspended the offender, who was obliged in the pulpit to make a public apology and retraction drawn up for him by the Inquisition, while two notaries with copies of it watched him from below. 2 In Spain, meanwhile the Dominicans had not been idle in undermining faith in the plomos. The Inquisition, in which their influence was preponderating, endeavored to assert juris- diction over the questions involved, but the friends of the new gospels were too strong to permit of this, and for two years they were able in Rome to keep back the publication of the constitution of 1639, but at length it was issued and was published in Madrid about April 1, 1641. Possibly the suc- cessful revolution of Portugal in 1640 and the menacing Catalan troubles may have weakened the influence of the Spanish court and emboldened Urban to the publication. At first Philip IV. refused to surrender the originals and de- manded that the examination should be made in Madrid, but finally the plates were surrendered to Innocent X., who ap- pointed as translators the learned Fathers Kircher and Ludo- vico Marracci. Still the matter was bitterly fought step by 1 Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, II. 49. — Index Alexand. VII. Index Decretorum, No. 43, p. 340. 2 Journal de M. de Saint-Amour, Paris, 1662, p. 203. 114 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. step, at an enormous expense which was a heavy drain on the resources of the partizans of the plomos. It was not till June 15, 1665, that Kircher's and Marracci's version was definitely completed, and seventeen years more were con- sumed before the final condemnation was issued, May 6, 1682, by Innocent XI. in a special brief, pronouncing the plates a pure fabrication designed to destroy the Catholic faith, pro- hibiting all books treating of the writings of the Torre Tor- piana and Sacromonte, and ordering the expurgation of all allusions to them in other books. 1 The Spanish Inquisition was sullen under this invasion of its jurisdiction, but the decision came from the pope in the form of a papal brief ; it was transmitted through King Carlos II. ; at the request of the fiscal of the Royal Council the Supreme Council of the Inquisition consented to receive it, and though the canons of the Sacromonte petitioned Carlos II. to intercede with the pope for another examination before other judges the decision held good and the papal brief was printed in the Index of 1707, with the careful reservation that the prohibi- tion did not include the relics or the veneration paid to them. 2 Yet Spanish tenacity would not admit defeat, and the world had not heard the last of these frauds. The interest as well as the pride of the canons of the Sacromonte was involved in maintaining the genuineness of the forgeries, and they had well-nigh impoverished themselves in the costly struggle in Rome. In 1678, when defeat was apparent, their agent there, 1 Josef Pellicer y Tobar, Avisos historicos (Valladares, Semanario erudito, T. XXXII. pp. 2i, 47).— Godoy Alcantara, pp. 119-28. — Index Innocent. XI. 168 1. p. 172. The Lamince Granatenses have since then retained their place in the Roman Indexes (Benedicti XIV. 1758, p. 148 ; Leonis XIII. 1887, p. 178). Still the ardor of the supporters of the Immaculate Conception was un- conquerable, and in spite of the papal prohibition Cardinal Sfondrati in 1698 dared to quote St. Ctesiphon in the Lamince Granatenses as a witness to the apostolic origin of the dogma (Sfondrati Innocentia Vindicata, S. Galli, 1698, p. 44), nor was his work ordered to be expurgated in consequence. 2 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 218^ fol. p. 331.— Mufioz y Romero, Diccionario de los Reinos, etc., de Espana, p. 133. — Index Expurg. Hispanus, 1707, T. II. p. 26. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 115 the great bibliographer Nicolas Antonio, had advised them to devote themselves to upholding the sacred character of the relics; these had been authoritatively pronounced genuine by the provincial synod of 1600; they were not included in the papal condemnation, and if they were admitted to be authentic it would gradually follow that the plates could not be discredited. When the brief was published in the Index of 1707 the canons bestirred themselves, and simultaneously there appeared a work in three folio volumes in support of the relics and of the virtues of Archbishop de Castro. This was followed in 1741 with another folio in the same seme. The miracles which accompanied the discovery were espe- cially dwelt upon and no one could fail to draw the conclu- sion that the plomos, which were inseparably connected with the relics, were divine revelation. Among the canons of the Sacromonte the belief in the authenticity of the libros Arabes, as well as of the relics, remained unshaken in spite of the pontifical decree. Several of them amused themselves by writing books in their defence, and they had in this the sym- pathy of the highest authorities, for we are told that these labors earned for two of them, Pastor de los Cobos and Fran- cisco de Viana y Bustos, membership in the Real Accidentia de la Historia. Ferdinand VI. even commissioned Viana and Jose de Laboraria to write a history of the finds of the Sacromonte. This intrepid and persistent advocacy might in time have accomplished its object had not the supporters of the plomos grown impatient and boldly endeavored to es- tablish the authenticity of the old forgeries by new ones. In Granada a certain Don Juan de Flores, of antiquarian tastes, bought a property in which some Roman remains had been found and commenced to make excavations about the year 1753. He speedily produced innumerable articles in which Christian antiquity came to be represented as well as pagan. The canons of Sacromonte soon took a hand ; the Canon Viana, Padre Juan de Echeverria and Don Cristobal Conde distinguished themselves by the ardor with which they pros- n6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. ecuted the researches and defended the results. Leaden plates were exhumed bearing directly upon those of the Sa- cromonte, fragments of a council of the apostles, tables of the articles and mysteries of the faith, writings of St. James, lost canons of the Council of Illiberis, and many other matters of the greatest importance in the development of Christianity. A laborer in the excavations, who intimated that articles were buried over night to be dug up in the morning, was legally prosecuted until he was driven insane, which inspired discre- tion in the rest, and fresh stories were circulated of splendors seen over the Sacromonte and aerial processions of spirits. Encouraged by success and immunity the forgers fabricated all manner of documents, titles of nobility, wills, royal letters, etc., which they slipped into the archives. It became known throughout Spain that such a factory existed in Granada and whoever needed a fraudulent paper came there for it. At last complaints were made to the government, which ordered an investigation. There was little difficulty in proving the forgeries ; the criminals confessed and were condemned, Juan de Flores and Juan de Echeverria to eight years and Cristo- bal Conde to four years' seclusion in designated convents, while all the manufactured articles were burnt in one of the public places of the city. By a decree of 1777 all writings in defence of these frauds were placed upon the Index. 1 Yet the Sacromonte is still a place of pilgrimage ; in the Plaza del Triunfo of Granada there still stands a pillar erected in its honor and bearing in its inscriptions the names and martyr- doms of the saints as recorded in the plomos ; and Don Jose de Ramos Lopez, President of the canons, has recently printed a volume on the subject in which he passes over the 1 Godoy Alcantara, pp. 314-25. — Lopez, El Sacro-Monte de Granada, Madrid. 1883, pp. 138, 142-46. — Munoz y Romero, Diccionario, p. 134. — Indice Ultimo, p. 153. For a partial bibliography of these frauds the reader can consult Struvii et Meuselii Biblioth. Histor. Lipsioe, 1793, VI I 194-6; and Munoz y Romero, Diccionario, pp. 131 -4. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 117 papal condemnation as lightly as possible and assures us that Arias Montano and Bautista Perez affirmed the authenticity of the finds Loth of the Torre Torpiana and the Sacromonte. 1 1 Lopez, El Sacro-Monte de Granada, pp. 29, 82-6, 121. The vitality of these forgeries was largely owing to their ministering to popular wishes in establishing the Immaculate Conception and the Christian- ization of Spain by St. James. Of the latter there was no historical evidence, and the former was as yet too recent in origin to be authoritatively accepted as an article of faith. The success of the find in the Torre Torpiana led to another series of forgeries with the same object, which form a remarkable feature in Spanish literary history and of which a detailed account will be found in Senor Godoy Alcantara's work. In 1595 a learned Jesuit, Father Ramon de la Higuera, produced certain ancient chronicles which he described as having been found in the Abbey of Fulda. He submitted them to Juan Bautista Perez, Bishop of Segorbe, who curtly told him that they were fictions. For a while he remained silent, but the success of the still bolder forgeries of the Sacromonte encouraged him to publish them and add to them. He enlisted in his favor another Spanish weakness by aiding the ambitions of certain episcopal seats with proofs of their antiquity and of their possessing ample lists of saints and martyrs. His Cronicones were accepted as genuine and his success provoked a number of imitators, producing a vast mass of fictitious annals which incurably infected all the historical writing of the period. Even in Italy Cardinal Sfondrati in 1698 freely cites the chronicles of Dexter and Liutprand in support of the Immaculate Conception (Sfondrati, Innocentia Vindicata, p. 43). It was not until the advent of Philip V. had diminished monachal influence and had introduced a more critical spirit, with less dread of fanatic clamor, that the reasoning of the Marquis de Mondejar and of Nicolas Antonio was pushed to its legitimate conclusions, and finally the Espana Sagrada of Florez dispelled the remnants of the illusion. Yet Nicolas Antonio printed the Cronicones of Dexter, Maximus, and Eutrandus (Biblioth. Vetera, II. 411), and all these, with that of Liutprand, are included in the Patrologia of the Abbe Migne, T. XXXI., LXXX. and CXXXVI. As recently as 1843 Antonio Maria Sanchez Cid, " examinador sinodal del arzobispado de Sevilla/' in his " Epitome historico de la gran villa de Fregenal," quotes from the Martirologia of Padre Ramon and the Cronicones of Maximus and Haubertus, as if their authenticity had never been questioned (Barrantes, Aparato para la Historia de Extremadura, II. 193). The most important of these forgeries was the earliest in date, the so-called Chronicle of Flavius Lucius Dexter, Bishop of Barcelona, extending from the death of Christ to his own time, A. D. 430. It represents the Virgin as the head of the infant Church, around whom the apostles are grouped and without whose advice and assent no step is taken. Forty-eight days after the Pentecost the apostles cast lots as to the provinces in which they are to labor, and Spain 6* ii8 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. There was an equally instructive struggle between Spain and Rome over the Catechism of Mesengui in 1761, but this time the Spanish and Roman censorships were in accord, and the significance of the affair lies in its being part of the struggle of the enlightened Carlos III. to emancipate the throne from the overgrown power of the Inquisition. Fran- cois-Philippe Mesengui, a professor in the College of Beauvais, was an upholder of the Gallican Church — Sainte-Beuve al- ludes to him as a belated Port-Royalist. He made the acquaintance of the Roman censorship through his " Lettres falls to St. James. It has been the first land outside of Judaea to be Chris- tianized, and when he visits it in the year 37 he organizes it into bishoprics and builds the church of Nuestra Senora deb Pilar at Saragossa, on the spot where the Virgin appears to him standing on a pillar. Ever since the coming of St. James the feast of the Immaculate Conception has been celebrated in Spain. When he was martyred after his return to Jerusalem it was by com- mand of the Virgin that his disciples brought his body to Galicia in the year 42. In 50, St. Peter, bringing images from Antioch, comes to Spain, and since that time images have been venerated there. In 64 St. Paul visits Spain with Philemon, Timothy and other disciples, and it is thence that he writes the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Christianity of L. Annaeus Seneca, so long vainly asserted, is proved beyond question, as is also the genuineness of the Epistles of the Virgin to St. Ignatius and to the Messenians (Chron. Dextri, Ed. Migne, pp.87, 91, 98, 105, no, in, 131, 147, 162, 170, 190,206, 211,359, 463, 570). It would be difficult to concentrate more falsehoods in the same space, but these were pious frauds, and the Inquisition accepted them without investigation. In fact, about 1650 the Inquisitor General Arce y Reynoso ordered the fictitious saints and martyrs to be included in the litany as objects of veneration and intercession (Barrantes, op. cit. II. 392). Even Padre Feyjoo, while assuming that the falsity of the Cronicones needs no argument, asserts that there can be no doubt as to the Spanish apostolate of St. James, and that that of St. Paul is nearly as certain (Theatro Critico, T. IV. Discurso VIII. No. 44; Discurso XIII. No. 12). The curious as to the evidence on which rest the Spanish missions of St. James, St. Peter and St. Paul can find it in Natalis Alexander, Hist. Eccles. Sasc. I. Dissert. 15. In a papal brief of November 1, 1884, Leo XIII., after a careful investigation, pronounced in favor of the authenticity of the relics of Santiago at Compostella and of the legend that after his martyrdom his disciples, Athanasius and Theo- dorus, carried his body to Galicia, but Leo was careful to allude to St. James's mission to Spain as only an ancient and pious tradition (Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, VI, 143). INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. HQ a un ami sur la Constitution Unigenitus," published in 1752, which was condemned in 1753. In 1744 he had issued anony- mously a catechism in six volumes entitled "Exposition de la Doctrine Chretienne," of which an enlarged edition ap- peared in 1754 and was placed on the Index by decree of November 21, 1 75 7. 1 In spite of this two Italian versions appeared — one in Rome with the omission of the obnoxious passages on the infallibility of the popes and on their claim of supremacy over sovereigns, and the other in Naples, with the approval of the government, in successive volumes between 1758 and 1761. The Jesuits, regarding Mesengui as a Jan- senist, made special efforts to have this condemned. Their general, Lorenzo Ricci, alarmed Clement XIII. as to the tendencies of the book, affirming that it contained more than a thousand errors, and he was seconded by Ricchini, the sec- retary of the Congregation of the Index, who had offended the Jesuits and desired to mollify them. The book was again submitted to the Congregation of the Inquisition ; in spite of an earnest supplication from its aged author, it was again condemned, after a warm debate, by a vote of six to five — Cardinals Rezzonico, Torrigiani, Castelli, Ferroni, Erva and Ganganelli voting aye, and Corsini, Spinelli, Passionei, Galli and Orsi, nay. Tamburini was sick and sent his negative vote in writing, but it was ruled out ; Cavalchini declined to vote, being unable to make up his mind. Clement was not content with the usual simple decree of the Congrega- tion, but gave the work the special honor of a formal bull of condemnation, Ad perpetuam rei memoriam. Passionei was secretary of papal briefs ; to avoid signing this one he left Rome, but Clement sent it after him with word that he must sign or resign. In a tempest of wrath he affixed his name to it ; an hour later he had an apoplectic stroke and the next day he was dead. The anti-Jesuit Cardinals, Orsi, 1 Index Benedict'! XIV. pp. 97, 156. 120 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Tamburini and Spinelli, soon followed him to the grave. 1 The bull under date of June 14, 1761, denounced the book as containing propositions respectively false, captious, ill- sounding, scandalous, perilous, suspect, audacious, contrary to the Apostolic Decrees and practice of the Church and in agreement with propositions already condemned and pro- scribed, and it forbade all editions and translations, even if expurgated and corrected by private persons. 2 By this time the affair had attracted general attention. The condemnation of the book was virtually a challenge to all the monarchs of Europe. In Naples the bishops were for- bidden to publish the bull until it should receive the royal exequatur. 3 In Spain, Carlos III. had been watching the progress of the case with much interest. His experience while on the Neapolitan throne had not led him to look upon the papal pretensions with favor, and he had a personal feel- ing involved in the matter as Mesengui's Catechism was used in the instruction of his son. He even seems to have antici- pated that Clement would overrule the decision of the Con- gregation. In due time the brief was received by the Arch- bishop of Lepanto, papal nuncio at Madrid, who communi- cated it to Sir Richard Wall, the minister of state, telling him that it would take the usual course. Wall reported this to the king, who was] about starting for San Ildefonso, and who clearly expressed his intention of not permitting its pub- 1 Ferrer del Rio, Historia de Carlos III., I. 384-6. — Reusch, Der Index, II. 763-4- Reusch quotes a popular rhyme, current in the streets of Rome — E morto Passionei Piange Speranza [his secretary] E morto d'accidente Baldriotti [his confessor] fa instanza, Amazzato da Clemente Bottari [a friend] fa tempesta, Per quel breve benedetto, E al Gesu si fa festa. Che soscrisse a suo dispetto. 2 Bullar. Roman. Contin., Prati, 1842, T. IV. p. 521.— Index Leonis XII. p. 160. — Index Leonis XIII. p. 165. 3 Reusch, II. 765. INDEPENDENCE OF ROME. 121 lication, but Wall neglected to inform the nuncio. The bull was laid before the Supreme Council of the Inquisition and was duly approved ; a condemnatory edict was hastily drawn up, without subjecting the book to the ordinary califi- cacion ; this was ordered to be published in two days, and copies were delivered to the royal confessor, Fray Joaquin Eleta, on the night of August 7. It was not until the morn- ing of the 8th that the confessor could convey it to the king, who at once ordered his minister to send a messenger to the inquisitor general, Manuel Quintano Bonifaz, instructing him to suspend the edict and to recall such copies as had been sent out. Between 7 and 8 in the evening Bonifaz received this command, and at once replied that the routine of the Inquisition had been observed ; that already that morning the edict had been distributed to the churches and convents of the city and had been forwarded to most of the tribunals throughout Spain. To recall it would cause grave scandal, injurious to the honor of the Inquisition and to the obedience due to the Holy See, and if known to be by royal order would embarrass the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. It was therefore with the deepest grief that he found himself unable to have the satisfaction of obeying the king. 1 This overt resistance provoked the royal wrath. Carlos regarded it as an effort on the part of the Inquisition to throw off all subjection to his authority and believed that it had been secretly arranged between the nuncio and the inquisitor general. He therefore ordered Bonifaz to absent himself to a distance of twelve leagues from the court and bade him consider how best to reconcile in the matter the royal supre- macy with the respect due to the pope. Bonifaz promptly obeyed, and on the 12th betook himself to the Benedictine monastery of Nuestra Senora de Sopetran, about three leagues from Madrid. Twenty days' retirement brought repentance. He addressed to Wall an humble apology, protesting that he 1 Ferrer del Rio, I. 386-9. 122 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. had intended no disobedience and that he would forfeit his life rather than fail in the respect due to the king. Carlos accepted this and ordered the Royal Council to announce to him that his exile was at an end and that he could resume the exercise of his functions. The Supreme Council of the Inqui- sition thereupon expressed its gratification to the king, who replied with a laconic warning to remember the lesson. The frightened nuncio had already placed himself under cover and in a written explanation had thrown all the blame on Bonifaz. 1 Yet in spite of all this the edict was never withdrawn and the condemnation of the Catechism held good. 2 Nevertheless Carlos was resolved to reap the full benefit of his victory. The Royal Council was ordered to report on the matter, and on August 27 presented a consulta proving that the king could suspend the publication of a papal brief, could banish the inquisitor general, and could ask satisfaction of the pope. This was insufficient, and the Council was required to con- sider the most efficacious means of preventing the repetition of such invasions of the royal power. 3 On October 31 it therefore presented a second consulta in which it declared that any intrusion by the pope on the rights of the crown or of the subject is to be resisted ; any papal letters prejudicial to either are to be seized by the Council and returned to the pope with the prayer that he inform himself better and act accordingly, and a routine was prescribed by which this should be carried out. 4 This resulted in the Pragmatica del Exequatur of January 18, 1762, which ordered that no bull, brief, rescript or papal letter, addressed from Rome to any tribunal, junta, judge or prelate, should be published without having been first presented to the king by the nuncio ; that bulls or briefs for individuals should be submitted to the Royal Council to see if they affected the Concordat or preju- 1 Ferrer del Rio, L 389-93. 2 fndice Ultimo, p. 99. 3 Ferrer del Rio, I. 393. 4 This consulta is in MS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 216 fol. INDEPENDENCE OE ROME. 123 diced the regalias and the good customs and uses of the realm. The only exceptions were briefs and dispensations from the papal penitentiary relative to the for interieur of the conscience. It is true that this Ptagmdtica was withdrawn by decree of July 5, 1763, through the influence of the con- fessor, Fray Eleta, who worked on the king's superstition by pointing out that the disastrous capitulation of Havana occurred nearly on the anniversary of the banishment of Bonifaz ; but it was reissued in even more rigorous form, June 15, 1768, the dispensations of the penitentiary being sub- jected to the episcopal ordinaries, for the humiliating pre- caution of seeing that they involved no infraction of discipline, and that they were in accordance with the Council of Trent. 1 A royal cedula, bearing date the next day (June 16) provided that no brief or order of the Roman curia con- cerning the Inquisition, even if it were a prohibition of books, should be executed without notice to the king and without having obtained the permission of the Royal Council as an indispensable preliminary requisite. 2 To guard against any surreptitious evasion of this regulation, in 1769 the local superintendents of the press throughout the kingdom were straitly charged not to permit the printing, reprinting or importation of any papal bull or rescript, or any letters of generals or superiors of religious orders, without the licence of the Royal Council. 3 The result of the condemnation of Mesengui's Catechism was thus to strengthen greatly the position of the regalistas or defenders of the royal prerogative. Over this there had been a long struggle which has a bearing on our subject demanding consideration. 1 Ferrer del Rio, I. 394-5, 398.— Novisima Recop. II. iii. 9. 2 Nueva Recop. I. vii. 38 cap. 5. 3 Ibid. VIII. xvi. 27. 124 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. THE REG AL ISTAS . The Spanish Church and State have thus far presented themselves to us as in alliance to maintain constituted authority, spiritual and temporal, at the expense of popular liberties. The case of Mesengui's Catechism however shows that the allies were not always in accord over the division of the spoils, and that the Inquisition, which at times was so convenient an instrument in subjecting the people to the crown, could not always be relied upon when the question was between the crown and the tiara. Still less was dependence to be placed upon it when its own interests were at stake as the executive body of spiritual authority. The medieval Church had asserted its supremacy over kings and its jurisdiction within their dominions in many ways sub- mitted to with more or less impatience by feudal rulers embar- rassed by the doubtful allegiance of their nobles. With the growth of the modern monarchy these pretensions became still more irksome as incompatible with the autonomy of the State, and the Reformation, by dividing Europe into two camps, enabled the sovereigns who remained faithful to Rome to assert their independence as the price of their support. Of all mon- archs the King of Spain was the most absolute and the most resolute to preserve his prerogative against papal encroach- ment. Spain had always asserted the right to regulate the internal affairs of her Church in many points which conflicted with the claims of the Holy See and with ecclesiastical privi- lege as defined in the canon law. How bitter were the debates thence arising may be seen in the celebrated parecer, or opinion, which the learned Dominican Melchor Cano, after- wards Bishop of the Canaries, drew up in 1555 at the request of Charles V. respecting his differences with Paul IV. Cano does not hesitate to argue that to yield to the pretensions of the Roman curia would be to enable it to destroy the Church THE REGALISTAS. 125 with its avarice, and he even suggests that Satan is laboring to prevent the emperor from settling the points in dispute in hopes that the matter may be postponed for a less religious successor to handle. 1 In practice the Spanish kings usually vindicated with success the regalias or rights which they held to be inherent in the crown, but in the field of specu'ation there were innumerable questions to be debated by publicists and canon lawyers. The advocates of the royal prerogative were known as regalislas and were naturally the objects of special animadversion in Rome, where the Index was a powerful instrumentality in securing the triumph of Ultra- montanism and was used unreservedly for that purpose. On the other hand, self-preservation required the support of the regalistas by the kings whose cause they defended. Thus Roman censorship and Spanish censorship, which could unite their energies against Lutheran and Calvinist, were here irre- concilably at issue, and the quarrel was complicated by the determination of the Inquisition to maintain at any cost the supremacy of its jurisdiction over that of all secular tribunals. The Inquisition, in fact, had no hesitation in using its powers of censorship in the most arbitrary manner to sustain its aggressions upon the other departments of government. Competencias, or conflicts of jurisdiction between it and other spiritual and secular courts, were of constant occurrence and were conducted with a ferocity which filled the land with confusion. In one of these, where the royal criminal tribunal of Granada had arrested four employees of the Inquisition, in 1623, and the matter was brought before the Royal Council as an invasion of the immunity of the Holy Office, Don Luis de Gubiel, judge of the Chancelleria, or royal court of 1 Llorente, Coleccion Diplomatica, p. 10.— It is no wonder that Melchor Cano, who had already in 1548 been denounced in Rome, was cited before the Apostolic Chamber in 1556 as " Ferdilionis films Melchior Canus, diabolicis motus suasionibus, etc." (Reusch, Der Index, I. 303). Yet he has always been regarded as one of the glories of Spanish theology, at a time when Spanish theologians were supreme. See Menendez y Pelayo, II. 712. 126 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Granada, presented to the Council a legal argument justifying the royal jurisdiction, whereupon the Inquisitor General Pacheco ordered a calificacion of it, and in accordance with the report of his calificadores condemned it as containing "suspicious" propositions, caused it to be suppressed and commenced a prosecution for heresy against its author. The Royal Council, outraged by this violent interference with a matter pending before it, could only advise the king that there was nothing in Gubiel's report deserving of such treat- ment, and that the inquisitor general should be prohibited from carrying the matter further. The consuita del consejo ot October 30, 1761, alludes to the numerous writings in defence of the regalias which had thus been censured by the Inquisi- tion and to the terror which it inspired in all who sought to defend against it the royal prerogative. 1 Thus the Inquisition was an uncertain ally of the crown in its quarrels with the Roman censorship over the questions relating to the royal prerogative. It could generally be relied upon, however, when the strife was simply between the monarch and the Holy See. This gave rise to an antagonism of censorship in which Rome at first had the best of it. The earliest encounter was over the Apologia de juribus principal- ibus, by a Spanish Jesuit, Juan de Roa of Avila, printed in 1 59 1 with the approbation of the Inquisition and dedicated to Philip II. This was promptly put on the Index of Clement VIII. in 1596, and Spain seems to have submitted. 2 It was possibly owing to this case that Clement, in the Instructions prefixed to his Index — which have since then always been printed in the successive Indexes — ordered the expurgation of all propositions contrary to ecclesiastical liberty, immunity and jurisdiction. Some ten years later another Jesuit, Henrique Henriquez, one of the most profound theologians of 1 MSS. Royal Library of Copenhagen, 216 fol.— Gubiel's argument however is not in the 1640 Index of Sotomayor. 2 Index Clement. VIII. fol. 30. — Reusch, Der Index, II. 378. THE REGALISTAS. 12 y his day, wrote his De Clavibus Romani Pontificis, in which he defended the recurso de fuerza by which, like the appel comme (Tabus in France, there was an appeal from the spiritual courts to the Royal Council. By order of the papal nuncio this was called in and burnt so successfully that only three or four copies survived, one of which is in the Escorial. 1 It was impossible that an absolute monarch could permit a foreign power thus to publish to his subjects that the daily legal practice in his kingdom was illegal and heretical. When, therefore, another book on the same subject by Jeronimo de Cevallos came under discussion in Rome, Philip III. felt it necessary to interfere. In 1619 he wrote to his ambassador, Cardinal Borja, that the Congregation of the Index had the work under consideration, that some of the cardinals were understood to incline towards its prohibition, and he charged his envoy to intervene with the pope and to prevent the con- demnation of a book which maintained the right of protection over his subjects inherent in the sovereign. The effort was vain and the work was prohibited by decree of December 12, 1624. 2 Then at last the Spanish censorship exercised its independence arid refused to ratify the condemnation. A quarrel such as this could only grow more bitter with time. It was difficult for a Spaniard to write a legal work on many branches of jurisprudence without offending the papal susceptibilities, even if he only treated the law as he found it in daily practice, and Rome, on the other side, having once taken position could not recede. The next writer to feel its wrath was Francisco Salgado de Somoza, president of the Royal Council and subsequently Abbot of Alcala la Real. His work on the recurso de fuerza appeared in 1626 and was prohibited in Rome by decree of April 12, 1628. The brief 1 Vic. de la Fuente, Hist. Ecles. de Espana, Ed. 1855, T. III. p. 269. 2 Alcubilla, C6digos antiguos de Espana, p. 1591. — Llorente, Coleccion Diplomatica, p. 22. — Librorum post Indicem dementis VIII. prohibitorum Decreta, Romae, 1624, pp. 165-66. — Elenchus Librorum Omnium, etc. Romse, 1632, p. 283. 128 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. was delivered to the inquisitor general, but Philip IV. forbade its publication, and in 1634 he wrote to Cardinal Borja to represent to the pope that on juridical questions every man should be allowed to retain his opinions, but that if the pope forbade works favorable to the king, he would forbid those which upheld the claims of the pope. 1 If Philip desired to placate the Holy See he adopted an injudicious method in sending thither Domingo Pimentel, Bishop of Cordoba, and Juan de Chumacero with a memorial in which the abuses of the papal jurisdiction in Spain, its greed, its venality and the misery which it caused, were described in the most uncompromising fashion. His envoys remained in Rome for ten years, exchanging missives of. this kind which only aggra- vated the mutual ill-feeling. In 1639 and 1640 relations became still more embroiled by the quarrel with the nuncios Campeggio and Facchinetti, the latter of whom was only recognized after a year's delay under humiliating conditions. Matters became worse when Salgado's Traciatus de Supplica- tione was condemned in 1640 and Solorzano's Dispittationes de Tndiarum Jure were forbidden in 1642, and Rome brought the quarrel to a head in December, 1646, by' condemning six or eight similar works in mass and demanding through the nuncio at Madrid that they should likewise be prohibited in Spain.'' 2 1 Philip commenced to execute his threat by ordering the expurgation, from the Annals of Cardinal Baronius, of the Traciatus on the crown of Sicily (Menendez y Pelayo, III. 42). For the controversy over Baronius see Reusch, Der Index, II. 377 sqq. 2 Reusch, Der Index, II. 373-5- — Llorente, Coleccion Diplomatica, p. 23. — MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch Seld. A. Subt. 16. — Elenchus Librorum Omnium, Ronnie, 1632, p. 232. — Index Innocent. XI. 1681, pp. 105, 155. — Index Alexand. VII. Decretorum Index No. 51. Salgado's Tractaius de Supplicatione ad Smctissimum a Uteris et But/is Apostolicis is a learned defence of the royal right to suspend papal bulls — a practice in which he declared that there was nothing which could offend the pope or detract from the pious obedience which the Catholic kings and nation were wont to pay willingly to the Holy See (P. I. c. iii. No. 15). He has no hesitation in quoting his previously condemned Traciatus de regia potestate THE REGALISTAS. 129 It was impossible not to take up the challenge so boldly made. The Spanish monarchy was fearfully weakened ; to the loss of Portugal had succeeded the revolt of Catalonia, but it was not so abased as to sink into a dependency of the Patrimony of St. Peter. The insult was rendered the more galling because the nuncio, doubtless acting under instruc- tions, had caused the decree of condemnation, against all precedent, to be published without transmitting it through the Inquisition for its action, thus exercising an act of sov- ereignty in a matter most nearly affecting the dignity of the crown. Consultations were held in the different Councils, and in November, 1647, Philip issued an auto in which he ordered the papal decree to be suppressed ; the nuncio was rebuked and was told that if the offence were repeated the royal indignation would manifest itself in a more decisive way ; the ambassador at Rome was instructed to represent the high resentment which was felt, so that the Holy See should be taught that this was not a mere matter of opinion in which it could interfere and give laws to the government about rights coeval with the crown and always uninterruptedly enjoyed. Opportunity was taken to reassert in the most emphatic manner the independence of the Spanish Inquisition as to censorship, and the nullity, without its approval, of the acts of the Roman Congregations. The books which had been censured were by authors so pious, Catholic, and learned that they had merited, before printing, the approbation of the Council and the licence of the bishops, and they had been current in full view of the Inquisition which watched so closely over everything within its jurisdiction. "All this is matter of the highest prejudice, for it offends the royal pre- eminence and the authors who defend it and the ministers who exercise it. The government is disturbed, its vassals are as irrefragable, and in citing as an authority the forbidden De Clavibus Pontificis of Henriquez. It would almost seem to be in a spirit of mockery that he prefixed to the work a declaration in which he submitted it and himself in the most absolute manner to the censure and correction of the Church. 130 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. rendered unquiet and doubtful in fidelity, and rival kingdoms are given opportunity to talk as they are wont." 1 It is not likely that Rome was much troubled by this expression of indignation ; the books condemned remained on the papal Index, but Spain had asserted its independence in the most formal manner, and its monarchs continued to exercise their prerogatives regardless of the implied heresy attributed to them. In a case such as this the Inquisition and the crown had interests in common — if the latter had failed to vindicate its independence the former would speedily have been reduced to subjection under the Roman Congregations. In such a struggle its loyalty could therefore be counted on, but there were other cases in which its interests or the ambition of its chiefs led it to side with Rome. It was, in fact, officially accused of taking especial pleasure in condemning books which upheld the regalias in matters pertaining to ecclesias- tical privileges and immunities, to the great injury of the rights of the crown and of its vassals. 2 When, therefore, books appeared which assailed the royal prerogative, the State was sometimes obliged to rely upon its own resources and to em- ploy against the Church the weapons with which the Church had armed it for use against the common enemy, the heretics. The State, while providing for the strict preliminary exam- ination of books before publication, had trusted to the Inqui- sition for the suppression of those which should be found dangerous, but when the Inquisition failed in this duty it had no hesitation in assuming the. functions of condemnation and suppression. In 1694 a work entitled Casos reservados a $u Santidad, attributed to Doctor Francisco Barambio, appeared which impugned the royal prerogatives. Perhaps the matters 1 Autos Acordados, Lib. I. Tit. vii. Auto 14. — Novisima Recop. VIII. xviii. 2. — The Consulta del Consejo on which this auto was framed is in the Biblioteca Nacional, Seccion de MSS. S. 294, fol. 66. 2 Consulta del Consejo de 30 Ott., 1761 (MSS. Royal Library of Copen- hagen, 216 fol.). THE REGALISTAS. discussed touched too nearly the papal power for the Inquisi- tion willingly to condemn it ; perhaps the disinclination to do so was an incident in the struggle then deepening between the royal and inquisitorial jurisdictions. From whatever cause the book was never placed upon the Index, but a royal auto denounced it as containing many propositions contrary to the regalias and jurisdiction of the crown, wherefore all copies and the original MS. were ordered to be surrendered to the Royal Council ; the book was not to be reprinted in Spain or imported from abroad, or sold, used, or quoted, or cited in writing or in speech, and printers and booksellers disobey- ing these commands were threatened with the confiscation of one-half of their property, besides arbitrary penalties at the discretion of the Council. 1 This was simple self-preservation. A consulta of the Councils of State and of the Indies in 1727 pointed out that if the nations submitted to the Roman con- demnation of books defending the royal prerogative, while those presenting the papal views were allowed free currency, it would not be long before the Holy See would be the uni- versal temporal monarch exercising the power of deposing kings at pleasure.' 2 This assertion was not uncalled for, as the independence of the Spanish monarchy had not long before been seriously compromised in the affair of Macanaz, which was a warning to defenders of the royal prerogative not to put their trust in princes. Clement XI. had taken part in the arrangements by which Louis XIV. placed his grandson Philip V. on the throne of Spain, and had recognized him as king. In the war which followed, the pope, to preserve his own dominions, was forced to change sides and to acknowledge the Archduke Charles. Philip, naturally indignant, dismissed the nuncio from Madrid and forbade all intercourse with Rome, espe- cially the export of money thither, and justified this in a man- 1 Autos Acordados, Lib. I. Tit. vii. Auto 21. 2 La Espana bajo el poder arbitrario desde 1820 a 1832, Paris, 1833, p. 191. l j )2 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. ifesto. Clement rejoined in a brief, October 2, 1709, ad- dressed to the Spanish clergy, in which he condemned the manifesto and ordered them to withhold the payment of the tercio and escusado — taxes on the clergy which formed a large portion of the royal revenues. The quarrel dragged wearily on, and in 1713 the Royal Council was ordered to prepare a consulta as to the relations of the monarchy with the papal court, and the action to be taken under the circumstances. Melchor Rafael de Macanaz, formerly a professor of Sala- manca, was fiscal general, and in this capacity he drew up two reports, December 19, 1713, and January 2, 1714. These celebrated papers discuss the same abuses as the memo- rial of Philip IV. in 1634, but they are not, like that docu- ment, a fervid exposition of the evils caused by the greed ot the Roman curia, but a lawyerlike argument to prove that the king has the power to protect his subjects from them. They were not published, but Don Luis Curiel violated his oath of secrecy and betrayed them to the Inquisition, which pronounced them heretical and schismatic. Clement not only confirmed this judgment, but ordered the Spanish Inqui- sitor General, Cardinal Giudice, to proceed against them. Giudice at the time was Spanish ambassador at Paris. Al- though he was thus the representative of his king and entrusted with the defence of his interests, his fealty to Rome overcame all other considerations; on July 30, 1714, he affixed on the door of his residence an edict prohibiting the reports of Macanaz as audacious, calumnious and contrary to the true doctrine of the Church, and on August 15 this edict was posted on all the church doors of Madrid. With incredible audacity, Giudice had included in the edict various French works in favor of the royal prerogative including one by President Talon. Such an act by a stranger, the ambassador of a friendly power, was too serious an invasion of the royal jurisdiction, and Louis XIV. promptly banished the officious cardinal from France. Philip V., who had thus been betrayed by his agent, could do no less. He dismissed Giudice from THE REGALISTAS. 133 his position as inquisitor general and relegated him to his Sicilian diocese, a disgrace for which he was compensated by the praises of the pope. The Inquisition moreover was con- tumacious and refused to withdraw the condemnation of the reports of Macanaz and even threatened to proceed against him as a heretic ; Gil de Taboada, selected by Philip as Giudice's successor, declined to act ; a Dominican, brother of Macanaz, who was appointed, was rejected by the Inquisi- tion, and Clement declared that he would confirm no one in Giudice's place. Philip had serious thoughts of completely remodelling the Inquisition, and dismissed from his council the members of the clerical party, but the reaction soon came. Through Philip's second marriage with Elizabeth Farnese, Alberoni, a firm friend of Giudice, triumphed over the Prin- cesse des Ursins and secured her banishment. This court revolution changed the aspect of affairs and Philip's weakness yielded. By a decree of March 28, 1715, drawn up for him by Giudice, and addressed to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition, he made his peace with that dreaded body. In the most humiliating terms he announced that he had been evilly counselled in the matter of the reports of Macanaz ; it had never been his intention to lay his hand on the sanctuary nor to claim other rights than those consistent with religion ; being now fully informed he had dismissed the ministers who had deceived him, and had annulled all the decrees issued at their suggestion. He ordered Cardinal Giudice to resume without delay the duties of his office, as his dismissal had been null, and he restored to their places the councillors whom he had discharged, with the assurance that their honor had suf- fered no prejudice. Don Luis Curiel in fact received Ma- canaz's office as the reward of his treachery. Although Giu- dice resigned in 17 16, Philip's submission and the triumph of the Inquisition were complete. In the safe refuge of France Macanaz defied the repeated summons of the Inqui- sition to appear fof trial and its excommunication for his con- tumacy. For thirty years he continued to enjoy the confi- 7 134 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS, dence of Philip and of his son Fernando VI. in many diplomatic capacities, but he displeased the latter in 1747 when plenipo- tentiary at the Congress of Breda, by agreeing with England that Spain should abandon the Family Compact in return for the restitution of Gibraltar and Minorca ; he was recalled to Spain and thrown into prison at Coruna, where he lay for twelve years, till the death of Ferdinand VI., dying soon after his release in 1760 at the age of 91. His writings in defence of the regalias remained to the end in the Spanish Index, though Rome contemptuously omitted his name from hers. 1 A still more unfortunate upholder of the royal prerogative was the Augustinian friar, Manuel Santos de San Juan alias Berrocosa, who wrote a work entitled Ensaya de el Theatro de Roma in which, like Marsilio of Padua, he argued in favor of the secular supremacy as exercised by the emperors over the early Church, and did not spare the vices and failings of the Holy See. The work never was printed, but copies were 1 Reusch, Der Index, II. 780. — V. de la Fuente, Hist. Ecles. de Espana, III. 347. — Menendez y Pelayo, III. 45. — Llorente, Coleccion Diplomatica, p. 27. — Macanaz, Regalias de los Reyes de Aragon, Introduccion, Madrid, 1879. — Bacallar y Sanna, Memoires pour servir a. l'histoire d'Espagne sous le regne de Philippe V., Amsterdam (Paris), 1756, T. III. pp. 120 sqq. — Indice Ultimo, pp. 104, 166. For Philip's apologetic decree see Appendix. Yet when Giudice went to Rome in 1717 he was ordered to remove the arms of Spain from above his door. — Histoire publique et secrete de la Cour de Madrid (par J. Rousset), Cologne, 1719, p. 270. Macanaz was a zealous Catholic and wrote several works in defence of the Inquisition, of which one was published in two volumes, Madrid, 1788. The design of suppressing the Holy Office has been attributed to him, but nothing was further from his thoughts, though as an ardent regalista he desired to subject it completely to the crown. A consulta which he drew up in con- junction with Don Martin de Mirabal shows that he wished to make its officials removable at pleasure by the king ; that it should have no jurisdiction over royal officials whose conduct had the king's approbation, and that it should be deprived of the power of confiscation. — Macanaz, Regalias de los Reyes de Aragon, Madrid, 1879, P- xxxvi. THE REGALISTAS. j-^ circulated in MS. He was seized by the Inquisition of Toledo, September 10, 1756, and sentenced October 14, 1758. His book was strictly prohibited — even persons holding licences were ordered to surrender all copies. The author was re- quired to abjure his heresies and was shut up for ten years in the convent of Risco, near Avila, an Augustinian house of the strictest observance. For the first four of these years he was imprisoned in a cell, and only allowed to see the episco- pal director appointed to confirm his return to the true faith. Notwithstanding his abjuration, his convictions remained un- altered, and his temper was not improved by discipline. He employed the^ later years of his confinement in writing a Memorial de Descargos addressed to the king to show that he had been unjustly persecuted for maintaining the royal power, and also sixteen works of a more comprehensive character. Rome is Babylon, the habitation of demons and unclean spirits of all vices ; the pope is a man who endeavors to be greater than his Creator, and the adoration paid to him is idolatry ; the constitution of the Church is as different from that of the apostles as black from white ; the clergy are bloodsuckers who exhaust the people, and their undue num- bers are the destruction of the land ; there should be no orders higher than that of priests, who should live by the labor of their hands, and the possessions of the Church should be distributed among the poor ; the Inquisition is the chief instrument for undermining the power rightfully inherent in the crown, and has caused the death of a million of human beings ; it is heresy to deprive anyone of life for heresy and contrary to the law of Christ to enforce the faith with stripes, the stake, sanbenitos, and the disabilities of descendants to the fourth generation ; all this the king should rectify and bring back the Church to its proper state of apostolic sim- plicity. It is significant of the state of public opinion in Spain that the audacious friar found assistants, both lay and clerical, to copy these voluminous and incendiary writings, CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. to circulate them and to convey them to the ministers of Carlos III. Word was brought to the Inquisition and in November, 1767, when the term of Fray Berrocosa's captivity was drawing to an end, orders were sent to the prior of the convent to shut him up again strictly in his cell, to allow him to communicate with no one but himself, and to deprive him of all books save his Breviary and of the use of pen and ink. Ten months later, on August 28, 1768, the feast of St. Augustin, the neighboring magnates and clergy were invited to the convent and were enjoying a banquet in the refectory when suddenly Fray Berrocosa appeared among them. He had wrenched off the staples and locks of the two doors of his prison ; despite his solitary confinement he must have learned what was going on, for he went directly to the Alcalde of Villatoro saying "As minister of our lord the king I place in your hands this memorial and these twenty-four tracts, drawn up for his service and the public good." Before the friars could recover from their stupor he had disappeared, although the convent door was fastened, and for seventeen months he eluded pursuit, but he was finally captured and thrown into the inquisitorial prison of Toledo, January 25, 1770. He was now in every way a relapsed heretic, both as a fugitive from the penance imposed on him and as maintain- ing the errors which he had abjured. As such under the canon law he could have been burnt without trial, but this would have been impolitic. He was regularly tried again and on April 16, 1 771, he was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the convent of Sarria in Galicia in a cell which he was never to leave except to hear mass ; he was to have no writing materials and no books save such spiritual ones as might be selected by his spiritual director, who was to be responsible for his safe-keeping and for his being cut off from communication with everyone, and who was required to make monthly reports concerning him to the Inquisition of Compostella. He was evidently regarded as a most danger- THE REGALISTAS. I 37 ous prisoner, and it is to be presumed that he rotted to death in his prison. 1 Fray Manuel Santos was evidently too revolutionary a champion of the royal prerogative for Carlos III. to feel safe in protecting him, though we have seen how the crown reas- serted itself at this time in the affair of the Catechism of Mesengui. In this the king did not content himself with merely prescribing the rules respecting papal briefs, but laid down regulations designed to keep the censorial functions of the Inquisition under subordination to the State, and to correct some of the more flagrant abuses inseparable from its methods. This reform was developed in a cedula of January 18, 1762, but like the other it was recalled in July, 1763, to be reissued June 16, 1768. In this he appealed to the spirit of the constitution Sollicita ac provida of Benedict XIV. in 1753 which reformed the proceedings of the Roman Congre- gations ; he decreed that the Inquisition should not prohibit the work of a Catholic known to be of good fame and learn- ing without giving him a hearing, or, if he were a foreigner or dead, without appointing for him an advocate of good repute and knowledge. The circulation of books was not to be suspended under the plea that they were undergoing examination ; in those to be expurgated the objectionable passages were to be speedily designated so that the current reading of them should not be interrupted, and any particular propositions condemned were to be clearly specified, so that they could be expurgated by the owners. Prohibition was to be employed only for the eradication of errors and supersti- 1 Sentencia de Fray Manuel Santos de San Juan, alias Berrocosa (MSS. of the Konigl. Universitats-Bibliothek of Halle, Yc. 20, T. XI.). Llorente gives an imperfect account of this case (II. 429), saying that the records of it were withdrawn from the Inquisition of Toledo and submitted by Carlos III. in 1768 to the bishops assembled to deliberate on the affairs of the Jesuits. It is observable that the Ensayo de el Theatro de Roma, though so strictly prohibited, does not appear in the Indice Ultimo, 1790. 138 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. tions prejudicial to religion, and lax opinions subversive of Christian morality. Finally, no edict was to be published until it had been submitted to the king and returned with his approval. 1 This placed the Inquisition under wholesome restrictions and subjected its censorship wholly to the king. Llorente tells us that it complained loudly of these rules as an invasion of its rights, and that although it could not openly resist, in practice it nullified them by continuing to condemn books in secret, without hearing the authors, and rendering the sub- mission to the king a mere formality after the edict of prohi- bition had been printed. 2 Perpetual vigilance, in fact, was necessary to keep in check so arbitrary a tribunal, and under the reactionary Carlos IV., who succeeded to the throne in 1 788 such vigilance was not to be expected. Still, an occur- rence in 1792 shows that in spite of Llorente's assertion authors were at least sometimes given the opportunity of defence. A communication from the inquisitor general rep- resented to Carlos IV. that the obra Filosbfica y Matemdtica of Fray Francisco Villalpando had been denounced to the Inquisition; the censures upon it had been delivered to him to reply to and return but he had refused to do so and had presented the papers to the Royal Council ; whereupon the king ordered him to return them to the Inquisition which should have full scope for its jurisdiction. 3 Carlos III. seems not to have relied upon the Inquisition to defend the royal prerogative. When the Dominican Mamachi wrote a work impugning the Regalia de Amorti- zation, or control over mainmorte, royal orders of 1769 and 1 781 direct its examination by the Royal Council ; if found to deserve condemnation it is to be prohibited, all copies are 1 Novisima Recop. II. iv. 11 ; via. xviii. 3. Cf. Benedicti XIV. Bull. Sohicita ac provida, 9, 10 (Bullar. Benedicti XIV. Ed. 1762. T. IV. p. 51). 2 Llorente, Hist. Critique, I. 283-4. 3 Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos de Espana, p. 1591. CENSORSHIP BY THE STATE, 139 to be surrendered, and meanwhile any importations are to be detained at the custom houses. When the prerogative was threatened, the king had no hesitation in suspending the circulation of a work during examination. 1 Thus the Inquisition, though frequently an instrument in the hands of the monarch, at times asserted its independence and refused to be controlled. In the struggles thus provoked the State gradually obtained the upper hand, and the sove- reign power, for its own protection, did not hesitate to exercise the functions which at first it had relegated exclu- sively to the Holy Office. CENSORSHIP BY THE STATE. We have seen that when censorship was systematized by the edict of 1558 the State reserved to itself the function of licensing the publication of books and the preliminary exami- nation requisite for that purpose, while confiding to the Inquisition the task of purifying printed literature and pre- serving the faithful from the contamination of lurking heresy. The duty thus assumed by the State was one of no little magnitude and complexity. In the latter half-of the sixteenth century, before the benumbing influence of the censorship had made itself felt, the intellectual activity of Spain was great. Under Charles V. and Philip it was the wealthiest land in Europe and was the centre of the political movements which governed the civilized world. There was everything to stimulate the development of a national literature which should guide the thoughts of mankind, even as the arms of Spain dominated both hemispheres. The ability of the race was unquestionable, the standard of culture was high, the language had been developed into a copious and flexible 1 Alcubilla, p. 1591. j 4 o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. vehicle for the expression of thought, and the distinction conferred by successful authorship was a stimulus felt by probably a larger class than in any other country. It was the golden age of Spanish literature and the censorship of its busy presses was a task by no means light. It will be remembered that the law of 1558, which con- tinued in force until the Constitution of Cadiz in 181 2, rendered the supervision of the press a process as cumbrous as it was thorough. Every MS. for which a licence was desired was submitted to the Royal Council ; it M as then entrusted to an examiner whose duty it was to peruse it care- fully and, if found unobjectionable, to give a written appro- bation which was printed over his signature in front of the work. As the examiner was usually a man of distinction, who served without pay, and who was thus held publicly and morally responsible for any errors which the sharpened eyes of the Inquisition might subsequently discover, it can readily be imagined that his tendency would lean to the side of severity of judgment, even when no private jealousy might lead him to discredit a rival's labors, and the world can never know what valuable contributions to human thought may have thus been suppressed, to the permanent silencing of the discouraged authors. After the MS. had passed this ordeal it was delivered to the corrector general, whose duty it was to number every page and to note and rubricate every correction and alteration that might exist in it. When it was through the press this rubricated MS. was returned to the corrector general with a printed copy, and the two were carefully com- pared to see that no changes had been introduced on the press. Any typographical error was scrupulously noted, and the certificate of its correctness was accompanied by a Fe de erratas, all of which was duly printed with the approbation and licence. If the author happened, as generally was the case, to be a member of a religious order a preliminary examination and approbation by his superior was an indis- CENS OR SHIP B Y THE S TATE. T + j pensable prerequisite. 1 Thus the number of official certifi- cates inserted in front of a book is sometimes positively bewildering, especially as the same process had to be repeated in the event of successive editions, whether they were revised or not. All this necessarily required a considerable body of paid officials, whose fees were defrayed by the author or printer, creating a burden which could not but be severely felt by literary men, inadequately rewarded at the best. As the system grew more complex, fees and fines were multiplied, and the censors or examiners who at first served gratuitously were paid salaries which of course were defrayed by the authors, directly or indirectly. 2 As if all this was not suffi- cient hindrance to authorship, the interests of readers were guarded by accompanying the licence with a tassa, or price fixed for the book, arbitrarily determined by the Royal Council, notice of which was to be printed with the other official certificates, and which could not be exceeded. In the earlier times this was generally designated by the rate per sheet in maravedis ; in 1598 the scriveners of the Camara were ordered to add to the ft de la tassa a computation of the total amount for the volume, but this was generally disregarded and the command was repeated as a novelty in 175 2. 3 It was 1 Autos Acordados, I. vii. 13 (Philip IV. in 1626). Repeated in 1804 by Carlos IV. (Novisima Recop. vill. xvi. 8). 2 Autos y Acuerdos del Consejo, Madrid, 1649, fol. 8, Auto xliv. In 1756 a board of censors was formed consisting of forty men of letters, duly qualified in accordance with the law of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1502, to whom was entrusted the examination of all books presented for licence to print or reprint, and foreign books for licence to sell. For this duty they were to be paid two reals for every sheet of clean, regular MS. ; if closely written or illegible the Jues de Imprentas decided the extra allowance of sheets to be estimated. For reprints or foreign books the pay was one real per sheet, with allowance for small type or large pages. — Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos de Espana, p. 1582. 3 Autos Acordados, 1. vii. 6. — Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 22, cap. 8. The earliest books which I have observed with a tassa are the De Ornatu Animce of Francisco Ortiz, Alcala de Henares, 1549, and Part Second of Guevara's Monte Calvario, Valladolid, the same year. These bear on the 7* 142 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. not until 1762 that the tassa was abandoned, for the reason as stated that foreign books are not thus limited in price and it is not just that native ones should be. This happens to offer a curious illustration of Spanish administration, for as early as 1598 it had been ordered that no foreign books should be sold unless they had been tassados by the Royal Council, for which purpose a copy was required to be sent to it under pain of forfeiture of the books and a fine of 100,000 maravedis, and moreover in a codification of the press laws made as late as 1752 this provision was retained and the Juez de Imprentas was ordered to be zealous in its enforcement. By the law of 1762, however "to check the avarice of booksellers " the tassa was retained on books of necessity, which were defined to be books of primary instruction, secular and religious, and books of popular devotion. To insure their sale at the price fixed its notification printed in the book was to be accompa- nied with a warning that if a bookseller asks more for it or refuses to sell it he shall give it gratuitously to the applicant title-pages the announcement that the Royal Council had priced them, the former at a real and a half for the volume, the latter at two maravedis- the sheet. The rule cannot as yet have been universally established, for the Armilla Aurea of Bartolome Fumo, printed at Medina del Campo in 1552, has no tassa. Gomez's Life of Ximenes, a handsome folio, Alcala, 1569, is taxed at 9 reals for the volume in paper. Cabrera's Historia de Felipe II., folio, Madrid, 1619, is taxed at five maravedis the pliego or sheet, and Solor- zano's De Jure Indiarum, folio, Madrid, 1629, at the same. Gongora's Historia Apologetica de Navarra, folio, Pamplona, 1627, at three maravedis the pliego. Santos's El no importe, a small i2tno, Madrid, 1668, at five maravedis the pliego or 2 reals 22 maravedis the volume. Gavilan Vela's translation of Mattos's Breve Discurso contra a Perfidia do Jzedaismo, a small 8vo, Madrid, 1680, at seven maravedis the pliego. Torrejoncillo's Centinela contra Judios, small i8mo, Barcelona, 1731, at 6 maravedis the pliego, and the same price for a i2mo novel, Historia tragica de Leonora y Rosaura, Madrid, 1736. About the middle of the century the small quartos of the Espana Sagrada are taxed at 8 or 10 maravedis the pliego and after 1752 the total for each volume is stated. Even the Indexes themselves are taxed — that of 1559 at one real, that of 1583 at 5 maravedis the pliego, that of 1640 at the same. CENSORSHIP B Y THE STA TE. 143 and shall moreover pay six ducats to the informer and the costs of prosecution. 1 To attend to the details of this complicated business re- quired an organization extending over the whole land. A member of the Royal Council was delegated as the chief of the censorship, with the title of Superintendente or Ministro or Juez de las Imprentas, with a force of secretaries and subordi- nates under him. There was a corrector general whose duty it was to collate the printed book with the MS. which had passed the censorship. In the capitals of the various prov- inces there "were local subdelegates with the necessary machin- ery for the same purpose. These latter were suppressed in 1769 and the duty of administering the press laws was im- posed on the presidents of the Chancellerias, the regents of the Audiencias and the corregidores ; 2 but they seem to have been shortly afterwards restored, for in 1775, in consequence of the appearance in Murcia of a book entitled Geogrizfica Descripcion del Africa, without the necessary licence, we find all the Subdelegados de Imprentas of the provincial capitals ordered, after making their examination of any book or doc- ument, to report the facts to the Royal Council before issuing a licence for the printing — a regulation highly suggestive of the shackles imposed on the book trade and the friction under which authorship was followed. 3 In the revised system adopted by Carlos IV. in 1804 the Juez de Imprentas was authorized to appoint subdelegates in all the provincial cap- 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 5, 23, 24; 22 cap. 14. It was not always easy to enforce the observance of the tassa. The printing of cartillas for teaching children to read was a monopoly granted by Philip II. to the cathedral church of Valladolid. They were tassadas at four maravedfs apiece. In 1594 the Cortes of Madrid complained to Philip that in many places they were sold at 12 or 16 maravedis, and as children destroyed them rapidly this was oppressive on the poor. The king therefore ordered the justicias everywhere to see that the lawful price was not exceeded, and to enforce the penalties for infraction. 2 Novisima Recop. viii. xvi. 27. 3 Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos, p. 1580. ^4. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. itals, with salaries to be defrayed from the duties on foreign books and the fines imposed on printers. 1 The difficulty which attends all censorship made itself ap- parent — that the authorities became responsible, directly or indirectly, for everything that appeared in print with the official approbation after passing the official examination. Sometimes they endeavored to escape this responsibility by devices which recognize its existence. In 1625 the Nobiliario Genealbgico de los Reyes y Titulos de Castillo,, by Alonzo Lopez de Haro, after being duly licensed and published in 1622, was ordered to be seized and suppressed; ,then it was restored to the author with permission to sell it provided that every copy bore at the beginning an auto of the Council de- claring that the matters contained in it had 110 authority as proof. 2 Somewhat similar is a cautionary licence prefixed to the Proceso criminal fulminado contra el Rm. P. M. Fray Froilan Diaz, published in Madrid in 1788, which permits the issue of the book with a note prefixed in which the Coun- cil warns the public not to accord to it more credit than its contents shall be found to deserve. When Valladares under- took the publication of historical documents in his Semanario Erudito the same precaution was deemed necessary, and vari- ous volumes of that collection are adorned with notices to that effect. Thus it was not merely religion and the regalias which be- came the objects of solicitude, but everything which could be construed, directly or indirectly, as affecting the interests of the public or of the State. In the complex responsibility thus established, the Royal Council was incapable of deter- mining all the questions that might be involved in books treating of the most varied subjects. A law of 1682 recites that many and grave inconveniences have arisen from the printing of books, memorials and papers on history, govern- 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 41 cap. 29. 2 Autos Acordados, I. vii. 12. CENSORSHIP BY THE STATE. H5 ment and the constitution of the State without proper exam- ination ; therefore such printing is prohibited for the future until they shall have been submitted to the special Council or Department to whose affairs they relate and whose appro- bation must be secured before the licence can be issued. 1 All books relating to the Colonies thus underwent the scrutiny of the Concejo de las Indias without whose special licence no such work was to be printed, under a fine of 200,000 mara- vedis and the forfeiture of the printing plant of the offender, which was a most effectual way of preventing the exposure of any abuses in the colonial administration. 2 In 1735, in re- sponse to a suggestion from the Junta de Comercio y Motieda, every writing on commerce, manufactures, the precious metals and coinage was required to be submitted to that body, whose special licence had to be printed in front of it. 3 This multi- plication of authority led occasionally to trouble, as might be 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 10. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 16.— This regulation was of old standing, and the strictness with which it was enforced is manifested by the licences in front of Solorzano's great work, De Jure Indiarutn, Madrid, 1629. It was virtually written by royal command, for Philip III. in 1619 approved the plan submitted to him, ordered Solorzano to complete it and granted him leave of absence with salary for two years from his post of judge at Lima— a furlough which in 1621 was extended for six months. When the book was finished Solorzano was himself a member of the Council of the Indies, but his work had to be subjected to the regular formalities. First it has the approval of the Council— "Senatus iccirco noster typis mandari permittit," dated February 9, 1628. Then it is examined by the vicar-general of Madrid and receives his licence, March 30, 1628. Then comes the approbation of Josef Gonzalez, who examined the MS. by order of the Royal Council, June 5, 1628. The book could now be printed, and finally on March 18, 1629, the corrector general issued his certificate that he had compared theprint with the MS. and found the errors, of which he gives the usual list. Very similar are the approbations and licences prefixed to Solis's Historia de la Conquista de Mexico. Solis was royal chronicler for the Indies, but his book was examined first for the episcopal vicar of Madrid and licensed by him ; then for the Council of the Indies and licensed by it ; then for the Royal Council which issued the licence to print ; after which follow the fe de erratas and the tassa — the dates extending from May 24, 1683, to December 5, 1684. 3 Novisima Recop, vin, xvi. 15. I4 6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. expected. In 1786 the subdelegate of Valencia, by order of the Intendente, endeavored to prevent the printing of a dis- course on a new method of growing rice which had been approved by the Junta de Comercio, whereupon Carlos III. issued an order prohibiting the Royal Council from interfer- ing, directly or indirectly, with publications approved by the Junta on matters within its competence. 1 The subjects of human interest are too various and too closely interlaced to be readily subjected to a rude classification such as was at- tempted, and the different departments were constantly liable to doubts as to their powers, which must have exposed author- ship to innumerable delays and perils. In 1 744 Philip V. forbade the Royal Council from granting licences for works on affairs of state, treaties of peace and the like, applications for which he ordered to be made directly to himself. The definition of the prohibited subjects was a trifle vague, and two years afterwards there appeared, with the Council's li- cence, a treatise on maritime captures, which the king con- strued to come within the purview of his order, whereupon he commanded its more rigid observance and warned the Ministro de Imprentas? In 1 762 the precaution was extended to second editions of books on matters affecting the State, which were not to be permitted without an express royal licence issued through the first Secretary of State. Even the reprinting of the supplements of the official Gazette contain- ing state documents was prohibited in 1775, and some which had appeared .were seized and suppressed. The treaty of peace with France in 1795 was reprinted in Barcelona, Pam- peluna, Saragossa, and Malaga, whereupon Carlos IV. ordered that only those issued by the royal printing office should be circulated. Nothing printed by royal order was to be re- 1 Alcubilla, C6digos Antiguos, p. 1579. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 17.— Alcubilla, p. 1579. — The work which excited the royal wrath was doubtless the Tratado juridico-polttico sobre pressas de mar, by Felipe Joseph Abreu y Bertodano, Cadiz, 1746. CENSORSHIP BY THE STATE. ^ printed under pain of 500 ducats for the first offence, 1000 for the second and deprivation of office for the third. 1 It is no wonder that Spain fell hopelessly behind in the development of literature, science, commerce and industry when human thought seeking expression was surrounded and rendered inarticulate by so many impediments. It was re- pressed with a perverse minuteness of ingenuity that now seems incredible. Paternalism in government with its per- petual and benumbing intermeddling could scarce be carried further. In 1757 Fernando VI. issued a law, repeated in 1778 by Carlos III., which recited the evils arising from med- ical works not properly scrutinized, wherefore in future the Juez de Imprentas was ordered to see that all such books, besides the examination of the official censors, should have the approbation of a physician selected by the President of the Protomedicato, or body which examined and licensed stu- dents. 2 It would have been difficult to devise a more effective means of throttling the progress of medical science. So keen was the responsibility felt for everything appearing in print with the official licence that no maps containing any portion of the Spanish boundaries could be printed without a special report by the Real Academia de la Historia, which was to be transmitted directly to the king. 3 The microscopic supervision of the press in its minutest details was carried to the furthest extreme. A law of Philip IV. in 1627 directs that all legal papers shall be signed by the counsel or fiscal and shall contain nothing unnecessarily offensive. No letters or apologies, or panegyrics, or gazettes, or news, or papers on state affairs, or verses, or dialogues, or other matters, even if only consisting of a few lines, shall be printed in Madrid without the approbation of a member of the Royal Council nominated as commissioner for the purpose with power to appoint deputies ; in other towns the chanceries Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 18. Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 21. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 20. j 4 g CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. or courts or justiciars shall depute the duty to suitable persons. Any printer, binder, or bookseller concerned in getting out printed matter without such licence, or with supposititious or fraudulent names or imprints, shall, for a first offence, suffer a fine of 50,000 maravedis and two years' exile; for a second, double, and for a third total confiscation and perpetual ban- ishment, the fines being suggestively divided between the in- former, the judge and the treasury. 1 In 1648 there was a complaint that memorials to the king were printed which were not simple statements of services, but contained discussions on political or other matters — an ingenious evasion of the censorship which was stopped by requiring, under pain of con- dign punishment, the licence of the Juez de Imprentas for the printing of all such documents. 2 In 1692 the printers of Madrid were ordered to print no memorials, fly-sheets, or other papers of any kind, without licence from the Superin- tendente genera/ de las Impress/ones, under a fine of 2000 ducats and six years' exile. 3 In 1705 this law was extended to printers everywhere, with a penalty of 500 ducats, ten years of Presidio and other severe punishment. 4 In 1728 the order was repeated that no paper, however brief, should be printed without preliminary examination and licence, and to insure the observance of this a monthly statement from all Spain of every paper (except legal documents) with the subject and name of author, was required to be made to the king through the Secretary of State. 5 In the codification of the press laws in 1752 it was provided that no memorial or loose paper of any kind or size, even if only a few lines, 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 9. I am inclined to think that in this as in so many other matters the laws were most negligently enforced. In looking over a number of Spanish pamphlets, issued between 1624 and 1652, only one has a formal approbation and seems to have undergone the prescribed process. One has a licence granted by the municipal authorities of Cordoba. The rest content themselves with simply " Con Licencia " on the title-page. There was evidently great laxity of administration. 2 Autos Acordados, I. vii. 15. 3 Autos Acordados, I. vii. 19. 4 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 11. 5 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 14. CENSORSHIP B Y THE S TA TE. T A „ * 149 except notes of invitation or the like, should be printed unless it had been presented to the Royal Council and duly licensed, under pain of 2000 ducats and six years' exile. Even legal papers, signed by counsel, which formerly were exempt, had been utilized, in the general repression, as vehicles for satires and defamatory statements, and by a law of 1749, repeated in 1752, were required to have the licence of the Council, or of the tribunal before which the ca-e was pending. 1 Under such restrictions and impediments the transactions of commerce and even the daily business of life was carried 011 under the most serious disadvantages, and it is easy to understand how Spain fell behind in the race with freer countries when this spirit pervaded the nation and repressed its energies. Of course all this implied the close supervision of printing offices and book-shops by a host of officials, with power to inflict infinite vexation as the alternative of extortion. Printers and booksellers, in fact, were practically outlawed, for a law of 1692 deprived them of their fueros or municipal rights and placed them under the sole jurisdiction of the Superintendente de Imprentas, or of his subdelegates, under the plea that if the inspectors were to be accompanied by the consuls of the town or other officials -there would be a likeli- hood of notice in advance with opportunity of concealing contraband articles. 2 The crown could deprive its subjects of their civil rights, but it dared not meddle with ecclesiastical privileges. There were printing offices in religious houses— the printing of the millions of bulls of the santa cruzada was performed in convents and we have seen that the Cathedral of Valladolid had the monopoly of printing cartillas or primers 1 Novisima Recop VIII. xvi. 19, 22 cap. 1, 6. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 2.— It is somewhat suggestive of the mysteries of Spanish administration that in the codified press-law of 1752 this is twice alluded to and printers are forbidden to impede the entrance of the superin- tendent or his delegates unless they have orders from a higher quarter to obstruct the examination (Ibid, ley 22 cap. 7, 16). j^q CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. —and the censorship dared not invade the sacred precincts. Whether advantage was taken of this to do unlicensed printing surreptitiously I do not know, but the existence of such offices was a weakness in the system. Accordingly a law of 1766, repeated in 1804, directs that to remove the abuse of printing offices established by privileged bodies or persons, no such office shall exist in a convent or other privileged place. All such shall be sold or rented to laymen within two months and be removed from the privileged enclosure; moreover no manager of an office shall be an ecclesiastic, for all persons responsible for its conduct must be amenable to the royal jurisdiction. 1 The natural result of this repressive system was the depres- sion of the printing business, which declined and deteriorated while that of the rest of Europe was constantly developing and improving. A comparison of the productions of the presses of Spain and France during the seventeenth century shows how inferior the former had become, although in the preceding century they had been virtually on an equality. It was doubtless partly on this account and partly to escape the rigor of censorship that many Spanish writers came to have their books printed abroad. As early as 1610 this had grown to proportions sufficient to call for the most rigorous repression. A law of that date provides that anyone so doing, without special royal licence, all who aid him in the transaction, and anyone attempting to import books so printed, shall forfeit their citizenship and any honor or dignity which they may hold, besides half their property, applicable in thirds to the informer, the judge and the treasury. Of course all copies of such books were confiscated.' 2 This was followed in 161 7 by a further provision that no licences for such purpose should be granted and if granted they should be void, and persons attempting to import books under them should forfeit the books and incur a fine of 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xv. 5. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi 7. CENSORSHIP B Y THE STA TE. 1 ^ j 50,000 maravedis. 1 In the codification of 1752 this takes the shape of a prohibition to import or sell any books in Spanish, written by Spaniards and printed abroad, without special royal licence, under penalty of death and confiscation — but the death-penalty is commuted to four years of Presidio, with augmentation for repetition of offence. 2 For a considerable period the domains of the crown of Aragon were not legally subject to this insane medley of meddlesome legislation. Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia had succeeded in maintaining much of their ancient liberty and in escaping the centralized absolutism of Castile. Their freedom as regards censorship was rather nominal than real, however, for, as we have seen, no books could cross the Castilian frontier which had not been subjected to the Cas- tilian regulations, and as Castile was the larger market the presses of Saragossa, Barcelona and Valencia must perforce have adapted themselves to the necessities of trade. But in local matters at least they were comparatively free, and it was doubtless for lack of an efficient censorship in Barcelona that in 1640 and 1642 Philip IV. called on the Inquisition, whose jurisdiction extended everywhere, to condemn the Catalan manifestos. 1 Autos Acorclados, I. vii. 8. Picatoste (La Grandeza y Decadenza de Espana, Madrid, 1887, T. III. pp. 169-70) says that by the commencement of the seventeenth century there were in Spain but eight or ten printing offices in Madrid and three or four in Seville, but this is an evident mistake, for there were presses busy in Barcelona, Valencia, Saragossa, Pampeluna, Cuenca and Toledo. The subjection of books to the alcavala, or ten per cent, tax on sales, was a heavy burden, till it was removed in 1636, after a struggle in which Doctor Bias Gonzalez de Rivero showed that including all imposts the taxes on books amounted to 50 per cent., and he asserted that during the previous thirty years the printing offices in Spain had decreased by one-half. In spite of the law of 1610 the printing of Spanish books abroad continued. Picatoste tells us that foreign printers sent their agents to Spain to make contracts with authors, and the books were smuggled into the country. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 22, cap. 13. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Thus in the Aragonese kingdoms the ferocious laws of Philip II. and his successors had no currency, and the pre- liminary censorship remained in the hands of the bishops, while of course anything heretical which escaped their vigi- lance was liable after publication to condemnation at the hands of the Inquisition, and the Index was everywhere in force. Originally the bishops, as the guardians of religion, were the natural censors to prevent the dissemination of heresy, but the law of 1558 had charged them, under the crown of Castile, merely with the supervision of books of ritual and education, and this was construed in 1773 as defining the limitation of their censorship ; they ought to be consulted on questions of dogma, but were warned that they must not use the expression "imprimatur" or any other implying jurisdiction. 1 In Aragon their functions remained undisturbed. The Cortes of Aragon doubtless refused to adopt the law of 1558, and as the next best thing, in 1565 the provincial council of Valencia organized a complete epis- copal censorship. No book was to be printed in future unless approved by the Ordinary or by examiners of his appoint- ment, and this approbation was to be printed in front of the work. The possession or sale of prohibited or heretical books ' 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 3 cap. 4; VIII. xvi. 28. Still there are occa- sional evidences of episcopal jurisdiction, as in the approbation of Solorzano's De Jure Indiarum and Solis's Historia de la Conquista de Mexico, alluded to above. In the indignant vindication of the Regalistas by Philip IV. in 1647, also, the episcopal approbation of their works is adduced as a proof of their orlhodoxy. An auto of 1624 provides that all works written or translated by members of the religious orders shall require the approbation of their superiors and also of the episcopal ordinary of the diocese.— Autos y Acuerdos del Consejo, Madrid, 1649, fol. 6o, Auto ccxxxiii. The ecclesiastics seem to have complained that the law of 1773 restricted their rights as defined by the Council of Trent (Sess. IV. de edit, et usu Sacror. Libror.). In 1778 Carlos III. admitted that they could use the power thus bestowed to license sacred books, but these were not to be printed until after submission to the Royal Council to see that they contained nothing adverse to the royal prerogative (Novis. Recop. VIII. xvi. 29). CENSORSHIP B Y THE STA TE. Y ^ was likewise assumed to be under episcopal jurisdiction ; the books were to be burnt and the offender excommunicated, and for a repetition of the offence the Ordinary was directed to prosecute him for suspicion of heresy. 1 The whole business was treated as exclusively an episcopal function and there is no mention of any duties devolving upon the State or the Inquisition. This continued to be the practice. Even the op- portunity afforded to Philip II. after suppressing the rebellion of Antonio Perez in 1591 worked no change in this respect except to require the formal licence of the royal representa- tive. The Cortes of Taragona, assembled in 1592 to ratify Philip's demands, deplored the evils hitherto endured in Aragon from the freedom of the press and decreed for the future heavy penalties against those who should print books without express licence from the king or the president of the Audiencia. 2 There were no regulations provided for the enforcement of the censorship and the press must have con- tinued busy, for the Cortes of Moncon in 1599 say that there are many paper mills, capable of producing most of the paper used, but their business is interfered with by the Genoese and others who carry away the rags — los draps soliis que surveixen pera fer dits papers — wherefore the export of rags is forbidden for the future. 3 The Aragonese books of this period are 1 Concil. Valentin, ann. 1565, Sess. I. c. iii. (Aguirre V. 413). 2 Cortes de Taragona, ano de 1592, Ley 18 (Herrera, Relacion de los Movimientos de Aragon, Madrid, 1612, p. 131). There is no allusion to these laws in the Ados de Cortes del Reyno de Aragon, Caragoca, 1664. 3 Capitols y Aetes de Cort, cap. 88 (Barcelona, 1603, fol. Iii.). The Catalan paper mills continued to enjoy a high reputation, but their activity which in 1599 was so great as to require the prohibition of rag ex-- portation must have greatly declined with the rigor of censorship. In the latter part of the seventeenth century we find Genoese papers largely used in the royal chancery (Briquet, Papiers et Filigranes des Archives de Genes, Geneve, 1888, p. 84). It must have been for the purpose of securing them a market rather than for the assumed object of improving the quality of book- production, that the codified press law of 1752 requires all printing to be done on fine paper like that of the mills of Capellades (near Barcelona, renowned !ij4 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. therefore mostly devoid of the long series of certificates and approbations and licences with which the Castilian publica- tions are encumbered. The bishop or his ordinary orders an examination, the examiner reports favorably and the episcopal approbation suffices, or, after 1592, the royal representative issues a licence on the strength of it ; the tassa, or limitation of price, is also lacking ; there was nominally a subsequent collation of the MS. and printed sheets, but as there is no accompanying/^ de erratas, it probably was not enforced. 1 This continued until the advent of the Bourbon dynasty. The War of Succession afforded an opportunity to destroy the liberties of the Aragonese kingdoms. By an edict of 1707 Philip V. united them to the crown of Castile and abolished their fueros " by right of conquest," but it was not until 17 14 that the desperate resistance of Catalonia was overcome and he could organize the new regime of absolutism. In the reign of terror which ensued he founded the Audiencia of Catalonia, which was a sort of Aulic Council, with the Captain General, the Marquis of Ciudad-Rodrigo, at its head, clothed with legislative, judicial and executive functions, and respon- sible only to the supreme authority in Madrid. Its members were nearly all strangers, ignorant of the very language of the land. 2 It was the same in Aragon and Valencia, and in the for their product) and not on what is called printing paper, under pain of 50 ducats and forfeiture of the books, with increased penalties for repetition of offence (Novis. Recop. VIII. xvi. 22 cap. 12). This seems to have been diffi- cult to enforce and was repeated in 1753 and 1755, with provision for the inspection of all offices (Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos, p. 1581). 1 In 1582 the Canones Pcenitentiales of Antonio Agostino, Archbishop of Tarragona, are duly submitted to his vicar-general, who certifies that he has . had the book examined by the Rev. Doctor Bartolome Roca and grants licence for printing and selling. In 1602 Camora's Monarchia Mistica de la Iglesia has an aprovacion by the examiner to whom the work was entrusted by the vicar-general of the see, followed by a licence issued by Cardinal Ascanio Colonna, Viceroy and Captain General of Aragon, based on the examination by the Ordinary. How purely formal this was is seen by the licence being dated four days earlier than the approbation. 2 Autos Acordados, III. ii. 3. — Bofarull y Broca, Historia de Cataluna, T. IX. pp. 205, 207. CENSORSHIP B Y THE STATE. 1 55 following November the Castilian censorship was extended over them all. Licences for printing and publication were required to be applied for to the Royal Council at Madrid ; but " to avoid injurious delays," especially when the authors were residents of the subjugated kingdoms, they were merci- fully spared the necessity of having the printed copy compared with the rubricated MS. by the corrector general at Madrid. The Aud iencias of Saragossa, Barcelona and Valencia were authorized to appoint correctors for their respective provinces, who were to have oversight of all books printed in them, and were to make diligent inspection of the printing offices. As for papers and other loose documents, not books, licences were to be applied for to the respective Audiencias. 1 Byway of clearing the land of all dangerous and seditious matter, preparatory to the operation of the censorship, in 171 7 Castel- Rodrigo issued an edict declaring guilty of high treason every one who should not surrender all books, pamphlets, poetry, etc. written in Catalonia between 1705 and 1714, and in the following year further edicts of the same nature were pub- lished. 2 In 1 735 the routine established in the three kingdoms of Aragon was that the licence of the Royal Council at Madrid was first obtained ; after printing, the copy was com- pared with the rubricated MS. by a person named by the Audiencia (usually the original examiner who had approved the work) ; his sworn statement of the list of errata and number of sheets was sent to the corrector general in Madrid, and on his certificate the government secretary of the kingdom in question issued his certificate of the tassa, which was given to the parties interested on their engaging to deliver the requisite number of copies to the Royal Council. 3 This routine was preserved in the codified law of 1752 4 and the cumber- 1 Autos Acordados, I. vii. 2.6; 27. Repeated by Carlos IV., December 18, 1804 (Novis. Recop. VIII. xvi. 13). 2 Bofarull y Broca, T. IX. pp. 211, 212. 3 Autos Acordados, I. vii. Glossa 1. 4 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 22 cap. 19. jij6 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. some process doubtless did its share in repressing the intel- lectual activity of the three kingdoms. It happened that in 1772 there appeared in Barcelona a work on the Aristotelian philosophy bearing a licence from the episcopal vicar general as well as from the royal audiencia. This harmless revival of the old Aragonese system in pure surplusage aroused the susceptibilities of the crown and gave rise to the decree of 1773, referred to above, forbidding for the future all assump- tion of episcopal power to license books. 1 . Navarre, which had been conquered by Ferdinand in 15 12, came earlier under complete subjection to the Castilian crown. In 1569 there would appear to be still a measure of independ- ence, for a law of Philip II. says that without examination and licence by the Royal Council no books of ritual shall be imported into Castile, " even if printed in Aragon, Valencia, Catalonia or Navarre." 2 By 1613 there must have been organized a complete local system of censorship, based upon Philip's law of 1558, for in a book of that date, published at Pampeluna, the approbation, licence, tassa, and fe de erratas show that the Council of Navarre was clothed with authority in that kingdom similar to that of the Royal Council in Castile, and that the prescribed routine of examination, licence to print, comparison of printed text with MS. and regulation of price was followed. The dates of the several documents, however, would seem to prove that the business was performed in a perfunctory manner and rather with the object of securing the fees than of preserving the faithful from error. 3 Yet Navarre preserved the semblance of its inde- pendent institutions and in 1783 a law of its Cortes called 1 Machicado et Villarna Additiones Hispanicse ad Biblioth. Ferraris, Matriti, 1783, p. 298. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 4. 3 Guadalajara y Xavierr, Expulsion de los Moriscos, Pamplona, 1613. The Historia Apologetica de Navarra, by Gongora y Torreblanca, Pamplona, 1628, shows the same routine duly observed. THE REVOLUTION. 157 forth an edict of Carlos III. regulating the whole subject. The Council of Navarre was recognized as having the same powers as that of Castile and was to license books under the same regulations, but books refused licence in Castile were not to be licensed in Navarre, for which purpose correspond- ence must be kept up between the fiscals of the two Councils. The censorship of the bishops of Navarre was to be limited to that exercised by those of Castile. There was to be free trade in books between the two kingdoms and unlawful editions of books "privileged," or copyrighted, were not to be allowed. 1 THE REVOLUTION. The enlightened Carlos III. desired to lighten the burdens and remove the shackles which oppressed the literature of Spain without relaxing the control of authority. We have seen how, in 1768, he imposed limits on the arbitrary censor- ship of the Inquisition, and in 1 763 he had already endeav- ored to simplify that of the State and render it less onerous. In addition to the removal of the iassa, alluded to above, he ordered that the first licence, para imprimir y vender, should suffice and the second, para publicar y vender, should no longer be necessary. This did away with a cumbrous and expensive process, the cause of no little delay, and conse- quently the office of corrector general, with its fees and share of fines, was abolished. The special portero, or mes- senger of the Royal Council employed in the censorship, was likewise suppressed, and all persons were authorized to apply personally or by their agents to the Council for licences — a permission suggestive of the exactions which had previously flourished. The payment made to the censors or examiners 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 30. 8 158 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. of books was declared exorbitant and oppressive, and they were required to serve gratuitously, save an honorary copy of the book examined, the honor of being employed in a service so distinguished being pronounced sufficient, as it was else- where in Europe. Approbations and licences were no longer to be printed in books, but simply a statement that they had been approved and had the necessary licence ; commendatory letters from friends were also prohibited. 1 In 1769, as we have seen, he suppressed the subdelegates of the censorship in the provincial capitals; and, with the object of encour- aging the book trade, he forbade the importation of all books which were printed or reprinted in Spain. In 1778 he con- gratulated himself on the result of this legislation as shown in the flourishing condition of the printing business, so necessary for the development of the sciences and useful arts, and he made changes in the regulations concerning privileges with a view to facilitate the reproduction of books. 2 As a further stimulus to book-manufacture he prohibited the importation of any books of later date than 1 700 except in paper covers. The Spanish 'binders were to have the full advantage of the home market, and only old books and MSS. bound outside of Spain could be introduced into the land. 3 At the same time Carlos III. was as firmly persuaded as his predecessors of the necessity of controlling the press, and he did not hestitate when he thought necessary to adopt the most energetic measures to protect the prerogative and the faith. In 1770 he rendered the censorship more burdensome 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 24. The overgrown approbations had become an abuse. The censors would frequently write long and effusive panegyrics to display their own learning. In the Espana Sagrada of Florez the appro- bations and licences of Vol. IV. occupy 26 quarto pages, and those of Vol. VI. 24 pages. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 26, 27. — Alcubilla, p. 1582. 3 Sanchez, Extracto Puntual de todas las Pragmaticas, Cedulas, etc. de Carlos III., Madrid, 1792, T. II. p. 19.— Archivo Municipal de Sevilla, Sevilla, i860, T. I. Carpeta XI. No. 272. THE REVOLUTION. by increasing its centralization, on occasion of a book published at Valencia entitled " Puntos de disciplina eclesiastica pro- puestos a los Senores Sacerdotes. ' ' This was prohibited as false and satirical, damaging to the royal prerogative and disturb- ing the harmony between the secular and clerical authorities. For the future all presidents and corregidores of the Audien- cias, Chancillerias and cities were forbidden to license any books or papers treating directly or indirectly on the powers and jurisdiction of Church or State, or on matters of govern- ment, but were to send all such to the Royal Council. 1 His special wrath was excited by Louis Sebastien Mercier's " L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante. Reve s'il en fut jamais" — a philosophical anticipation of the future which had a phe- nomenal success throughout Europe. It was condemned in Rome in 1773, and in 1778 Carlos denounced it in a special royal cedilla in the bitterest terms as a mortal pest, subversive of all social order. All copies were ordered to be burnt by the executioner and their further importation was strictly prohibited. The Inquisition had been ordered to condemn it and had obediently hastened to do so, reserving, however, a single copy, to be kept in the royal library. 2 So, when the importation of Diderot's Encyclopedic called attention to the neglect of the regulations requiring a licence for the importa- tion of all foreign books, Carlos ordered the strict enforce- ment of the law of Ferdinand and Isabella of 1502. All books were required to be stopped at the port of entry until submitted to the Royal Council and a licence issued for them; and all subsequent importations were to be examined to see that no alterations had been made in them. 3 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xviii. 9. ^ Index Leonis XIII. p. 10.— Novisima Recop. VIII. xviii. 10. — Indice Ultimo, p. 9. 3 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 31. This cedula was promptly followed by a list of books stopped at the custom house and submitted to the Royal Council, which replied that all old and well-known books should be passed, while those which appeared to be new or altered should be held until copies were i6o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. Perhaps the most significant indication of the liberalizing tendency of the period was the relaxation of the prohibition of the Scriptures in the vernacular. In 1757 the Congrega- tion of the Index conceded the use of such versions, if ap- proved by the Holy See and edited with comments from the holy fathers or learned Catholic men. 1 The first advantage taken of this permission seems to have been by the Canon Alberto Catenacci, who in 1771 issued a translation of the Acts of the Apostles, dedicated to Clement XIV. and bearing the imprimatur of Ricchini, the Master of the Sacred Palace. 2 This was followed in 1778 by the brief In tanta librorum, in which Pius VI. approved of the translation by Antonio Mar- tini, Archbishop of Florence, of the whole Bible with its com- mentaries which carefully preserved the uninstructed reader from being misled by the inspired writings. As twenty years had elapsed since the decree of the Congregation, this took the conservatives of Rome by surprise and excited much animadversion — indeed, some of those who had always upheld the absolute authority of the Holy See and its claim to blind obedience did not hesitate to say that the papal brief ought submitted and examined. Three months later an order was issued that, to prevent damage from detention at ports which were damp, books intended for Madrid could be forwarded to the douane there ; of those intended for residents at the ports and elsewhere official lists should be forwarded by the government scriveners, specifying author and date and place of edition (Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos, p. 1584). — Like all other similar regulations these were speedily neglected. 1 Index Benedicti XIV. p. vi. 2 Atti Apostolici con varie note tradotti dal Canonico Alberto Catenacci . . . dedicati alia Santita di Nostro Signore Papa Clemente XIV. In Roma, 1771, Con Licenza de' Superiori. The text of the Vulgate and the Italian version are given in parallel columns. The notes are moderate in length. Fra Agostino Giorgi, the censor to whose examination Ricchini committed the work, says of it "e poiche cosi, com 'egli b tradotto, corresponde esattamente al Testo latino della Volgata, e nel resto nulla ha che si opponga alia nostra santa Cattolica Religione e alle regole della Chiesa, io lo reputo, e utilissimo per la comune istruzione de' Fedeli, e degno per ogni titolo delle pubbliche stampe." THE REVOLUTION. 161 to be denounced to the Inquisition and that it contained false and erroneous propositions which Pius should be forced to recant. 1 Nevertheless, Spain soon followed the example of the pope. In 1782, the inquisitor general, Felipe Ber- tran, Bishop of Salamanca, issued a decree in which he de- clared that, although ample cause had existed for extending Rule V. of the Spanish Index beyond the Tridentine Rule IV., still, as those causes had ceased to exist, and in view of the utility to be derived by the faithful from versions of the sacred text hitherto prohibited, it had been, after mature deliberation, resolved to modify the rule to the precise terms of that of Trent, and make it conform to the decree of the Congregation of the Index of 1757 and the brief of Pius VI. approving Martini's version. This was accordingly incorpo- rated in the Rules of tne Index of 1790, and Spanish versions of the Bible, properly annotated, after nearly two hundred and fifty years of prohibition, were again rendered lawful. 2 The prohibition had lasted so long and had been so rigidly enforced that many people had come to regard it as an article of faith and not of discipline and anticipated the apostasy of the people as a probable consequence of rescinding it. There was wide-spread and deep-seated disapprobation, to remove which Dr. Joaquin Lorenzo Villanueva, himself a calificador of the Inquisition, wrote a learned folio volume on the subject which has every appearance of being inspired, or at least suggested, by the Holy Office. He traced the practice of the Church with relation to Scripture from the beginning ; he showed that the greater number of heresies 1 Villanueva, De la Leccion de la Sagrada Escritura, Prologo. 2 Villanueva, p. 95.— lndice Ultimo, p. xvii. — Possibly this decree of the Inquisition may have been brought about by the preparation of a Spanish version of the Bible by Scio de San Miguel, with a voluminous commentary, which appeared in Valencia the same year, 1790, in ten folio volumes. There was little danger that so ponderous a work would have an extended circulation among the people, but it seems to have met a popular want, for an edition in eight folios followed in 1791 and another in nineteen quartos in 1797. It still holds its place and has been reprinted in 1843, 1846, 1852, 1858 and 1864. l62 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. had arisen from among the learned and the priesthood, so that if the arguments for depriving the people of the Bible are good they would justify its withholding in the Latin from the clergy ; he pointed out that there was no longer any in- tellectual activity or independence likely to cause danger — the people were submissive and no one thought of opposing his private opinion to the tradition and authority of the Church ; he devoted successive chapters to the benefits derivable from reading and studying Scripture— to those who search it with humility and trust in God it is the Book of Life, it makes men good citizens and is the firmest support of the State — and he winds up with an eloquent exhortation to all to avail themselves of the permission conceded. No Protestant could dwell with greater warmth upon the duty of assiduously search- ing the Scriptures and upon its beneficent influence on heart and soul. 1 That such a book should be written under the auspices of the Spanish Inquisition was in itself a phenomenon of the utmost significance. 2 It was while Villanueva was rounding his periods to show that there was no longer danger to be anticipated from the 1 Villan ueva, Prologo ; pp. 66, 200-1; cap. xxiv., xxv., xxvi., xxvii. Menendez y Pelayo (II. 189) qualifies Villanueva as a Jansenist, but admits that his work on the Bible is "solido, ortodoxo y eruditisimo," and that the attacks which it drew upon him were rather violent than reasonable. Under his maternal name of Lorenzo Astengo, Villanueva in 1798 published the " Cartas de un Presbitero Espanol," an earnest defence of the Inquisition against Bishop Gregoire of Blois. Notwithstanding this, he was thrown in prison during the reaction under Fredinand VII. and a pamphlet containing a speech of his in the Cortes of Cadiz was placed on the Index by the Inquisi- torial edict of 1815 (Walton's Translation of Puigblanch's Inquisition Unmasked, London, j8i6, Vol. I. p. xli.). 2 How complete has been the change in the policy of the Church respecting the vernacular Scriptures is seen in the Pastoral Letter of the prelates assem- bled, in 1884, in the Council of Baltimore—" It can hardly be necessary for us to remind you, beloved brethren, that the most highly valued treasure of every family library, and the most frequently and lovingly made use of, should be the Holy Scriptures" (Acta et Decreta Concilii Plenarii Baltimorensis Tertii, Baltimorae, 1886, p. lxxxix.). The version recommended is the Douai, with appropriate commentaries. THE REVOLUTION. jg^ spirit of inquiry and independence that events were rapidly developing which were to check Spanish liberalism and bring about a reaction more rigid than ever. Carlos III. died in 1788 and his bigoted and narrow-minded son and successor, Carlos IV. was left to face the menacing portents of the Revolution of '89. As the monarchy crumbled in France, his anxiety to exclude from his dominions all inflammatory matter became more and more urgent. As early as December 13, 1789, the Inquisition issued an edict commanding the surrender of all papers coming from France and conveying revolutionary ideas. 1 One prohibition followed another in quick succession. The Inquisition declared all works of mod- ern philosophy to be heretical, and in the annual Edict of Denunciations required everyone to inform against those who read them. 1 Everything provocative of sedition was sedulously barred out ; if received, the civil power as well as the Inquisition ordered the possessor forthwith to surrender it and divulge the name of the sender. Prints representing the events in France were especially dreaded and were ordered seized at the ports of entry. In 1790 a French traveller wearing a waistcoat ornamented in squares, each containing a horse at full speed with the legend Libert'e, excited the gravest apprehension. He was arrested and a royal order forbade the admission of such waistcoats or of any articles conveying references to the troubles in France. In August, 1792, a cedula commanded that all pamphlets and papers, printed and MSS., treating of the Revolution should be seized at the custom houses and sent to Madrid ; all snuff-boxes, fans, ribbons and other matters bearing allusions to it were to be sent to the Ministerio de Hacienda, where the obnoxious fig- ures and inscriptions should be removed before delivery to the owners. All French books destined for Madrid were to 1 MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq I find in this year a case of a Bachiller Geronimo Caro prosecuted by the Inquisition of Mexico for keeping and reading prohibited books. 2 Llorente, IV. 09. 164 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. be sent thither under seal, and those for other places were to be examined at the port of entry by special agents instructed to retain all that bore upon the forbidden topic. Two months later a still more stringent order was issued, by which a com- missioner of the Inquisition was adjoined to the royal agent in the examination of all books arriving from France, and minute instructions were given as to their separation into per- missible, prohibited and doubtful — the latter to be detained until the royal decision could be had. In 1793 repeated orders forbade any allusion, favorable or unfavorable, to French affairs in books and newspapers. In September of the same year copies of a Spanish version of the French con- stitution were discovered in Barcelona and it was reported that 3000 had been printed for the Spanish market, which caused a fresh agitation and strict prohibition. This policy of suppressing all knowledge of affairs beyond the Pyrenees was vigorously maintained. In 1799 a work was seized, printed at Malaga, entitled " Persecucion del clero y de la Iglesia en Francia," and in 1800 two books on Napoleon's expedition to Egypt. 1 Of course it was impossible to enforce absolutely these pro- hibitions. Bourgoing assures us that during the Revolution and even during the war, the Spaniards procured French journals in spite of all the efforts of the authorities. 2 Llorente tells us that the arrests for such offences were numerous, especially among the students of Valladolid and Salamanca. 3 A law of 1 798 deplores the cupidity which led the booksellers to circulate forbidden books, diffusing a poison which made itself apparent even in the literary transactions of universities and academies. The offenders are threatened with the most rigorous application of the law and are told not to permit in their shops conversations tending to subvert the political 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xviii. 11-14. — Alcubilla, pp. 1593-4. 2 Tableau de l'Espagne Moderne, Paris, 1803, I. 313. 3 Llorente, IV. 99. THE REVOLUTION. jg^ order. 1 The offence was a purely political one, but under the time-honored system of censorship its punishment was still in the hands of the Inquisition. In 1799 two booksellers of Valladolid, Mariano and Raymon de Santander, were prosecuted by it for having sold some prohibited books and were condemned to defray the expenses of the trials, to two months' confinement in a convent and to perpetual banish- ment to a distance of eight leagues from Valladolid, Madrid and all other royal residences, which was virtually equivalent to ruin. 2 In spite of unrelaxing effort the evil was incurable. In 1802 Carlos complains that even the indefatigable zeal of the Inquisition is insufficient to prevent irreparable damage to religion from the importation of wicked books, but his only resource is to order a more rigid enforcement of the law with a threat of increased penalties. 3 It was not the fault of the government if the Spanish people were not kept in absolute ignorance of the events which were transforming Europe, and were not thus sedulously rendered unfit to meet the crisis impending over them. During this period increased solicitude was naturally aroused by that essential feature of modern civilization, jour- nalism. In a nation doomed by its rulers to obscurantism the growth of the newspaper had necessarily been slow. The first Madrid journal appeared in 1661 and in 1677 there was created the office of gacetero, clothed with absolute power over the licensing of gazettes and their contents, in addition to which they were subject to examination before publication by the Royal Council.* This was not likely to stimulate their growth and by 1738 their number had increased to only two. From this date to 1761 there were three, but in 1763 there 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xviii. 16. 2 Llorente, IV. 122. 3 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 32. 4 Diario de Noticias (Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. LXVII. p. 120). 8* CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. were nine. This was too rapid a development, and between 1763 and 1786 the number fluctuated between six and two, but in 1786 it rose to eight and in 1787 to ten; it was ruthlessly cut down by Carlos IV., but increased to seven in 1804 and to eight in 1808. 1 When we think of the "North Briton," of which 11 Number 45 " appeared in 1763, and of the Letters of Junius between 1768 and 1772, we can measure the difference between the artificially created torpor of Spain and the native vigor of England, and we can esti- mate the influence of institutions upon national character and development. The first formal appearance of periodical literature in Spanish legislation occurs in a law of Carlos III. in 1785. From this and subsequent enactments we can gather that hitherto no distinction had been drawn between journals and books, except that a general licence to issue the periodical had to be applied for. When this was granted, the MS. for each number was submitted to the Royal Council and on being approved was put in type. The printed copy and MS. then went before the corrector general for comparison, and when he was satisfied that no alteration had been made, per- mission to publish and sell was given. It is easy to under- stand the slow development of journalism, subjected to such restrictions and delays. By the law of 1785 periodicals were put under the exclusive supervision of the Ministro de 1m- prentas, who was to appoint two censors to examine each number presented, and on their approbation to grant the licence. 2 By 1788 the increasing number of journals seemed to require a stricter censorship and a law was issued regulating the details and instructing the censors in their duties. They were to take particular care that in the newspapers there should be no filthy or licentious expressions, nor satires of any 1 Diercks, Das moderne Geistesleben Spaniens, Leipzig, 1883, p. 252. Bourgoing (Tableau, I. 313-14), about 1798 enumerates seven journals, literary, commercial and political. 2 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvii. 4. THE REVOLUTION. l fy kind, nor political matters, nor things discrediting persons, theatres or national instruction, nor in especial things injur- ious to the honor or estimation of corporations or persons of any class, condition, dignity or employment. The journalists were to abstain from any covert or direct allusion against the government or its magistrates, and all this under the penalties established by the law. A special clause moreover forbade any remarks on matters resolved upon by the king, his minis- ters and tribunals without express permission. 1 This would appear to limit the field of journalism so strictly as to render it absolutely innoxious, but Spanish ingenuity was not exhausted by this formidable catalogue of restrictions. In 1758 the Diario de Madrid had been founded and licensed especially for the publication of all that occurred of importance to commerce, literary, civil and economic. Spain was trying every expedient to revive her trade and industries, and the methods deemed appropriate for this were shown by a decree of October 23, 1790, ordering the calling in and suppression of all copies of the Diario of October 21, and notifying all censors and persons connected with the publication of Diarios and periodicals that any report of sales of bank stock or shares of other companies, or authorized securities, would be punished according to law. The subdelegates in all cities where Diarios were issued were ordered to serve on them a similar notification. 2 The increased severity of censorship stimulated by events in Paris made itself felt with particular rigor on the periodical press. As the people were to be kept in ignorance of the outside world, the function of the pestilent newsmonger was to be eliminated as far as practicable from the social organ- ization. April 1 2, 1 791, a decree appeared which declared that many prejudicial matters saw the light in periodicals, where- fore all were suppressed except the Diario de Madrid, which 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvii. 3. " Alcubilla, Codigos antiguospp. 1589. 1 68 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. for the future was to restrict itself to statements of facts and notices of things lost and found, without printing verses or political matters of any kind. 1 The extinguished journals, however, must soon have sprung to life again, for a royal order of July 23, 1793, commands the Royal Council to limit and restrict the licences and printing of Diarios and other period- icals, not permitting any unless they conform themselves wholly to the intentions of the king. In that stirring time, when thrills of excitement were running through all lands, it was impossible wholly to suppress the expression of what was occupying the thoughts of all men, but Carlos succeeded in accomplishing it as nearly as legislation and police could effect it. An order of December 7, 1 799, commands the governor of the Council to call in the Diario of that day and to forbid the continuation of an article on the origin of legislation and government. The censor moreover is to be warned that sue h speculations are not permis ible, but only articles which, without meddling with government, its origin and relations, promote commerce and industry and pure taste.' 2 In one direction the development of commerce about this time raised a new question which was promptly settled by a fresh restriction. The modern plan of publishing books by sub- scription and issuing them in parts invaded Spain. It was an innovation threatening dangers all the more alarming because invisible, and was speedily prohibited in 1804. 3 In spite of all this perpetual meddling, Carlos grew more and more dissatisfied with the efficiency of the censorship. In 1804 a circular to all the subdelegates in his dominions called their attention to the laws of 1554? 1558, 1627 and 1752, the strict observance of which was emphatically enjoined. 4 This did not suffice, and in 1805 he remodelled and^ reinvigorated the whole system by a comprehensive decree. This recited how the liberty of the press in various 1 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvii. 5. 3 Novisima Recop. Vlil. xvi. 34. 2 Alcubilla, pp. 1589-90. * Alcubilla, p. 1580. TBE REVOLUTION. jgp countries had wrought religious and political evils, while in Spain it was imperfectly repressed. The Royal Council, overwhelmed with other business, could give no attention to the censorship, while censors, receiving no salary, discharged their duties negligently, or shirked them altogether and evaded responsibility. To remedy this, the whole matter was now confided to a Juez de Imprentas, with absolute authority, amenable to no tribunal, and receiving his orders only from the king, to whom he was responsible for all evils arising from carelessness or connivance. He appointed his subordinates, but could not dismiss them without the royal assent. The censors were to be few, but combining the learning of all the faculties, and were to be held strictly responsible for the consequences in case they erred in too great mildness of judgment, and were not allowed to plead ignorance or lack of perception. If a censor passed a work containing any- thing contrary to the faith, morals, laws or prerogative, defamatory libels, personal satire, calumnies against individ- uals or bodies, he was dismissed and prosecuted as an abettor to the wrongful act or doctrine. Moreover, he was not to rest satisfied with the mere innocuous character of a book, but was required to consider whether it would be useful to the public, or likely to prove prejudicial through scientific errors or vices of language or style. A MS. condemned as dangerous was not to be returned to the author, but all copies and drafts of it were to be demanded and surrendered. The censorship was inviolably secret, but when an author de- manded a copy of the adverse censure it was to be given to him and he was entitled to reply, when the Juez de Imprentas decided the case, or if in doubt gave the book to another censor. Besides all this, a preliminary censorship was con- fided to the episcopal vicar, to whom all MSS. were to be submitted in the first place for him to have an examination made with the utmost secrecy and to return them with his opinion. Books concerning the Colonies were moreover to be subjected to the Council of the Indies and those relating I7Q CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. to other departments of State to their respective ministries. A fee of sixty reals per volume was to accompany the MS. submitted to the Juez de Imprentas ; this was not returned if the book was condemned, but a second fee of the same amount was exacted if a licence to print was issued. Any changes made on press entailed a fine of fifty ducats on both author and printer, and the altered sheets were to be can- celled and reprinted. Printing offices, book-shops and all importations were subject to rigid inspection. Even the transactions of literary academies and societies required the licence of the Juez, but were exempt from the payment of fees. As for periodicals, the Juez was not empowered to license new ones, which the king reserved to himself, but he appointed censors for the existing ones, who were to receive salaries of 200 ducats payable quarterly by the respective editors. The whole department was expected to be self- sustaining, and it was even intimated that there might be surplus funds to be employed elsewhere. 1 This elaborate preliminary censorship left the Inquisition undisturbed in its functions of guarding the public against evasions of the law. In 1809, at Lima, a priest named Camilo Henriquez was denounced to the Holy Office as a reader of prohibited philosophical works. A domiciliary visit failed to discover anything unlawful, but the informer, a Dominican intimate with the accused, persisted in his statement, and a more minute search revealed that the mattresses were stuffed with the dangerous literature. After a year in prison Henriquez was banished to Quito. In the ensuing revolution he took an active part, and his name is still honored in Chile as one 1 Novisima Recop. VIU. xvi. 4T. When, on the enforced abdication of Carlos IV. in 1808, Ferdinand VII. succeeded to the throne, one of his first acts was to restore the censorship to the Royal Council and to take it from the Juez de Imprentas. — Eguizabal, Apuntes para la Historia de la Legislacion Espanola sobre Imprenta, Madrid, 1879, P x 4°- THE REVOLUTION. I » I of the founders of the republic. 1 A more curious instance of rigor occurred when, in 1806, in consequence of the Louisiana purchase, Carlos IV. ordered the Viceroy of Mexico to investigate and report on the boundary line between Texas and Louisiana. The viceroy commissioned Fray Melchor de Talamantes to make the necessary examinations. The commissioner found that it would be desirable to consult the works of Robertson and Raynal with their maps. As these were prohibited he applied, through the viceroy, to the Inquisition for permission, saying that, although the books were detestable in consequence of their impious maxims, the information they contained, especially in their maps, was important for the public service. To this the Inquisitors replied, February 18, 1807, that these works were totally prohibited, but that they might be consulted by two califica- dores of the Holy Office, the frailes Jose Peredo and Jose Pichardo, to whom instructions might be given as to the information desired, and on February 27 a commission was formally made out to these two frailes to consult the dan- gerous books in full confidence that the integrity of their faith would not suffer in thus fulfilling the wishes of the government. The commissioner himself, although a doctor of laws and a member of a religious Order, was not allowed to examine them personally. 2 Had the object of Carlos been to stunt the intellectual development of his subjects and to discourage literature, art, and science, he could scarce have devised means more effect- ual than this elaborate system which concentrated power and punished any remissness or indulgence in its exercise. Yet his mop failed to keep out the ocean. The Revolution broke in and swept him and his paltry defences away. When the monarchy disappeared in the Napoleonic invasion, when the only hope of preserving Spanish nationality lay in appealing 1 Palma, Anales de la Inquisicion de Lima, p. 86 (Lima, 1863). 2 From the originals kindly furnished to me by General Riva Palacio. 172 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. to the people, and when that appeal was responded to by an uprising which showed that the popular heart still cherished the tradition of old-time heroism, the superannuated and worn- out institutions necessarily passed away. In 1810 the Regency felt that, as the whole machinery of absolutism had broken down, and that it had only the people to rely upon, the peo- ple must be called into council. The well nigh obsolete de- vice of the Cortes was revived and the popular representatives were invited to assemble at Cadiz. The greater part of the kingdom was held in subjection by French bayonets ; the abdicated Carlos was an exile in Italy; his son, Ferdinand VII., a prisoner in France; Wellington was at bay behind the lines of Torres Vedras in Portugal ; some of the American Colonies were in full revolt and others were trembling on the verge of insurrection. Spanish self-reliance and- impertur- bability were never more brilliantly displayed than by the deputies who, on September 24, 1810, assembled in that re- mote corner of the invaded land, and through weary months framed the measures which in time transformed Spain from an absolute into a constitutional monarchy, in spite of the apparent hopelessness of their labors, in spite of the ravages of yellow fever among the crowds of refugees, and in spite of the danger which any day might bring forth of assault by land or sea. It speaks well for the sobriety and stability of the Spanish character that, although the nation had been sedulously kept in tutelage by a parental despotism which refused it the most elementary training in self-government, there should have been so little impracticable theorism in the first really delib- erative representative assembly that Castile had seen since the Comunidades of 152 1. Weary generations were still to elapse before the nation could acquire the political aptitudes which for centuries had been so carefully eradicated, but the men of 1 810, doubtless impressed with the supreme gravity of the situation, were wonderfully moderate in the discharge of their almost unlimited responsibilities. Although most of the depu- THE REVOLUTION. ties were chosen indirectly by universal suffrage, nearly all of them were nobles, priests, professors or lawyers. In spite of the Chinese wall which Carlos had endeavored to build around his dominions, some ideas of human rights had smuggled themselves across the border, and the first act of the assem- bled Cortes was the proclamation of the sovereignty of the nation as the basis of their authority. That the shackles which had fettered the Spanish mind should be shattered by such a body was inevitable, and no time was lost in taking up for consideration a matter which was regarded as the first duty of the assembly. On September 27, only three days after the first meeting, a commission was appointed to draft a law on the freedom of the press, and on October 14, the birth-day of Ferdinand VII., it was ready to report. The discussion was warm and vigorous, but on the 19th, by the decisive vote of 70 to 32 the first article was adopted which declared that all individuals and corporations had full liberty to write, print and publish their political ideas without pre- liminary licence, revision, or approbation, under the restric- tions embodied in the law defining offences and penalties. It would have been too much to expect that the same freedom would be granted in the religious sphere, but a great advance was made in transferring the censorship of matters concerning the faith from the Inquisition to the episcopal tribunals, and, although the Inquisitor Riesco of Llerena was himself a deputy, but a single vote was cast adverse to the change. An effort to subject press offences to trial by jury was voted down and special tribunals, in which the clergy had full representation, were created for them. 1 1 Modesto de Lafuente, Historia General de Espana, T. XXIV. pp. 447 sqq. — Paredes, Curso de Derecho Politico, p. 642. — Toreno, Levantamiento, Guerra y Revolucion de Espana, Paris, 1838, T. II. pp. 201, 211, 237-45 — Eguizabal, Legislacion sobre Imprenta, p. 82. The intrusive government of Joseph Bonaparte was too transient to exercise any influence on the course of Spanish legislation, save by breaking down the old barriers, and only passing notice need be given to its policy respecting censorship. By a royal order of September 17, 1809, the Index Expurgatorius ^4 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. The sincerity of the friends of liberty was soon to be put to the test. Human nature is consistent only in inconsis- tency, and tolerance is the last lesson learned by those who have suffered from intolerance. It was inevitable that the unaccustomed liberty should be abused by both parties. The law had scarce been passed when a paper entitled La triple Alianza by Don Manuel Alzaiber excited such lively repug- nance that a majority of the Cortes voted to submit it to the Inquisition. Nor was this the only test of the firmness of the convictions of the deputies. In 1812 there appeared two bitter attacks on the authority of the Cortes— the Manifiesto of Don Miguel de Lardizabal, a former member of the Regency, and the Espaha vindicada en sus clases y gerarquias by Don Jose Colon, Dean of the Royal Council. Parties in the Cortes changed sides ; the liberals were for the most active proceedings against the obnoxious publications and their writers, and the serviles were loud in defending the liberty of the press, which the partizans of reaction were busily using in attacks upon the Cortes. In the end, Don Jose Colon escaped censure, while Lardizabal was sentenced to banish- ment and his Manifiesto was burnt by the executioner. 1 Still, the Constitution of Cadiz, published March 19, 1812, provided (Tit. ix. Art. 371) for the freedom of the press in political matters, subject to responsibility, in nearly the same words as the law of 1810. As in Tit. 11. Art. 12, the Roman was declared to be no longer in force. The only books not allowed free cir- culation were denned to be those which attacked the government or the state religion, obscene works corrupting to morality and those prescribing super- stitious devotion. The determination of these was left to the discrimination of those dealing with them, with strict instructions not to exercise undue severity, and public librarians were told to use discretion in favor of artists and learned men. A free press formed no part of the Napoleonic policy; the censorship of periodicals was confided to the minister of police, with no rules to fetter his powers.— Codigo Espanol de Jose Napoleon Bonaparte, Cap. I. I iii. Art. 10; § v. Art. 4-7 (Colegido por Juan Miguel de los Rios, Madrid, 1845, pp. 42, 44). 1 Lafuente, XXV., 120-8.— Toreno, III. 62-69, 106. THE REVOLUTION. l ^ Catholic religion had been declared the faith of the nation, to be perpetually observed and protected by the prohibition of all others, it was not to be expected that the same liberty would be a lowed in religious matters. In fact, a satirical pamphlet entitled Diccionario crttico-burlesco, by the librarian of the Cortes, Don Bartolome Jose Gallardo, which was re- garded as an attack on religion, led to his imprisonment and caused a sensation by favor of which the reactionaries of the body, under lead of the Inquisitor Riesco, made a concerted effort to resuscitate the dormant Inquisition and were nar- rowly defeated after a stubborn contest. 1 An elaborate law, adopted June 10, 1813, regulated the censorship in thirty-five articles, 2 but the political changes which followed were too rapid for it to become effective. It was not to be imagined that Ferdinand VII., trained in the traditions of absolutism, would accept the principles which had stimulated the nation through its desperate struggle for existence. The manifesto or decree, dated May 4, 181 4, at Valencia, but not issued till May 11, just before he reached Madrid, declared the policy of the restored monarchy. All the acts of the Cortes, the constitution and the laws enacted under it, were pronounced revolutionary and void. It is true that he promised to maintain the liberty of the press so long as it should not degenerate into licence, but his construction of this liberty was revealed in a clause in which he decreed the penalty of death against all who should, in speech or writing, defend the abolished constitution and laws or even 1 Lafuente, XXV., 205, 211-17.— Toreno, III., 104-109. The Diccionario critico-burlesco was a burlesque on a work entitled " Dic- cionario razonado manual para intelligencia de ciertos escritores que por equivocacion han nacido en Espana." As a political squib it might have been allowed to sink into forgetfulness, but the bitter mockery which it poured over much that the nation held sacred rendered it a fair quarry for the reactionists. The inquisitorial edict of July 22, 18 15, after the Restoration, forbade it even to those who held licences to read prohibited books.— Walton's Translation of Puigblanch's "Inquisition Unmasked," Vol. I. p. xxxix. 2 Ejuizabal, Legislacion Espanola sobre imprenta, pp. 70, 85. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. keep copies of the acts of the Cortes which he ordered to be surrendered. The very memory of that body should be ef- faced. 1 At the same time a circular forbade, until definite press laws could be drafted, the printing of any writing of any kind until presented to the authorities, who were to sub- mit it to learned and judicious persons free from any sus- picion of entertaining seditious opinions.' 2 The reaction which followed was terrible. The ferocious party spirit, which has rendered so difficult the establishment of rational liberty in Spain, availed itself of the popular enthusiasm for the restored monarch, to establish a despotism regardless of law or of mercy. 3 The law of 1805, the most comprehensive and vigorous of all the legislation on the subject, was revived by an order of November 11, 1814. 4 The return of Napo- leon from Elba revived the panic fears excited twenty-five years before by the Revolution ; a single order of May 2, 1 81 5, suppressed all newspapers except the Gaceia and the Diario of Madrid, and the old laws were re-enacted for the exclusion of all literature coming from France, with instruc- tions for their most-rigid enforcement. 5 Although the decree which had annulled all the acts of the Cortes had virtually revived the Inquisition, it was formally reinstated by a royal order of June 21, 181 4, and it was instructed forthwith, in conjunction with the Royal Council, to arrange for the. routine Of censuring and prohibiting books. 6 It was reorganized by the appointment in August of Francisco Xavier Mier y Cam- pillo as inquisitor general, and was not backward in resuming 1 Coleccion de Cedulas, etc , de Fernando VII , Valencia, 1814, pp. 8-10. ' l Coleccion de Cedulas, etc., p. 11. 3 " Su gobierno no era una monarquia absoluta, sino una dictatura civil que ahorcaba y otra militar que fusilaba."— Paredes, Curso de Derecho Politico, p. 643. * Eguizabal, Hist, de la Legislacion sobre Imprenta, p. 140. 5 Eguizabal, pp. 142-144.— The " Historia de la vida y reinado de Fernando VII." (Madrid, 1842, T. II. p. 92) states that only the Diario escaped suppression. 6 Coleccion de Cedulas, etc., de Fernando VII. pp. 85, 91. THE REVOLUTION. jyy its censorial functions. An edict of July 22, 1815, revived and put in force all the old regulations and Indexes ; it de- plored the flood of irreligious and seditious literature which had covered the land since 1808, too vast for separate and individual condemnation. A partial list, therefore, compris- ing only 183 prohibited books and journals, was printed, and the faithful were referred to the rules of the Index as defining what kinds of books were forbidden. All such were to be surrendered within six days, under the old penalty of 200 ducats and excommunication latce sententice} Although Ferdinand and his courtiers could not believe it, the old regime had passed away forever, and his efforts to restore it only resulted in a series of conspiracies relentlessly repressed and culminating in the revolution of 1820, when the nerveless king, frightened at the menacing aspect of the Madrilefio mob, promised to assemble the Cortes and swore on March 9 to observe the Constitution of 181 2. The next day he issued a manifesto declaring his adhesion to constitu- tional principles and summoned his people to follow him in the path of constitutional liberty. In the revolutionary exal- tation of the moment all restriction on the press vanished ; a crowd of journals and pamphlets made their appearance and freedom speedily degenerated into licence. The Cortes which assembled sought to set bounds to this ; by the decree of October 22 they specified the limits which should be observed, they provided episcopal censorship in matters of religion, defined offences and established their penalties and the mode of prosecution, including trial by jury. It was impossible that the antagonistic principles of absolutism, con- 1 Walton's Translation of Puigblanch's " Inquisition Unmasked,'' Vol. I. pp. xxxvi.-lxvi. The list comprises thirty-five journals, and even so innocent a work as a translation of Saint- Pierre's " Paul and Virginia." Mr. Walton adds that during the time of the Cortes there were about forty newspapers published in Spain, which in 1816 were reduced to three, all issued in Madrid — the Gaceta and Diario issued twice a week and the Mercurio, a monthly. All foreign papers moreover were strictly prohibited (Ibid. p. lxviii.). i 7 8 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. stitutionalism and democracy could come to peaceable accord ; agitation and disquiet prevailed, and the law of October was of little avail in restraining the abuses of the press, especially as juries were rarely found to convict. The Extraordinary Cortes of 1821 accordingly framed a new law, adopted Feb- ruary 24, 1822, denning offences more clearly, enhancing the penalties and modifying procedure so as to render it more effective.' The second constitutional period was as brief as the first, its only permanent achievement being the final suppression of the Inquisition. Faction and passion were too strong for regulated liberty, and, in the eyes of the Holy Alliance, the inflammable condition of Spain was a menace to the peace of Europe. The Congress of Verona decided on intervention and France accepted the mandate. When a large portion of the nation welcomed the invaders, effective resistance was impossible, and in 1823 the Due d'Angouleme occupied Spain with little difficulty. Freed from his bonds, Ferdinand VII. resumed with alacrity his role of absolutism. The newspapers were reduced to two — La Gaceta and El Restaur ador, which breathed vengeance and stimulated popular passion against the constitutionalists. The latter was edited by a furious fraile, Manuel Martinez, and when a more moderate ministry saw fit to suppress his journal, Ferdinand rewarded him with the bishopric of Malaga. On November 14, 1824, the General Superintendent of Police issued a proclamation which was a worthy echo of the law of 1558, showing that the spirit of the sixteenth century was dominant. It was nothing less than a gigantic plan to purify at a single stroke all the existing literature of the nation. All books, pamphlets, papers or prints, issued or imported between January 1, 1820 and September 30, 1823, of whatever nature, and also every- thing prohibited by the Church or the Inquisition, of what- ever date, were to be delivered by their owners to their 1 Lafuente, XXVII. 135, 138, 209, 362.— Eguizabal, pp. 73-80, 9S-122. THE REVOLUTION. 1 79 parish priests within thirty days ; if the owner desired to reclaim those which should be found innocuous, he was to accompany them with duplicate lists, otherwise he was held to abandon them. The priests were ordered to send lists of all received to the police subdelegates of the districts, who were to combine them and forward to the intendant of the pro- vince. The latter was to consolidate these, to despatch them to headquarters, and to await instructions. Disobedience was threatened with summary prosecution and informers were stimulated with promise of secrecy and one-third of the fines imposed. This was followed by a royal cedula of December 22, prescribing the utmost vigilance over importations. In every custom house there were to be two inspectors, one appointed by the Royal Council, the other by the bishop of the diocese. They were to examine not only the books but the packing paper in which they were enveloped and the wrappers of packages of other merchandize. Moreover all booksellers were required every six months to submit to the Royal Council an inventory of all foreign books in stock, and the president of the Council, the regents of the Chancellerias and Audiencias, and the bishops in their diocese 5 were authorized, personally or through deputies, to examine and register all libraries, public and private. 1 If Spain was not relegated to the Dark Ages it was not through any lack of good will on the part of her rulers. This was followed, June 12, 1830, by an elaborate law re-establishing the ante-revolu- tionary system with its cumbrous machinery, for all products of the press, however insignificant. Everything contrary to the Catholic faith and royal prerogative was forbidden under pain of death, and careful provision was made to supervise the importation of books from abroad. 2 During this period the bishops even published the decrees of the Roman censor- 1 Lafuente, XXVIII., 324, 395, 397. — Eguizabal, p. 152. 2 Eguizabal, p. 162. i8o CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. ship until even the absolutist government felt obliged to complain of this disregard of the laws of the land. 1 Reaction thus triumphed and crushed with a bloody hand all attempts to lighten the yoke, but the time soon came when events forced legitimacy to make terms with liberalism. Don Carlos, brother of the childless Ferdinand, was heir presump- tive and head of the extreme absolutists known as Apostblicos, who desired a theocracy and the re-establishment of the Inquisition. Their hopes were dashed when in 1829 Ferdi- nand married Maria Cristina of Naples, whose daughter Isabella was recognized as heir apparent. When in 1832 Ferdinand was desperately sick, Cristina was appointed regent. She changed the ministry, proclaimed an amnesty and the liberals rallied around her. On Ferdinand's death in 1833 Cristina assumed the regency. Carlist risings occurred in Biscay and extended to Navarre, Castile and Catalonia. Thus the situation forced Cristina to lean more and more on the liberals ; parties defined themselves, the Carlists as abso- lutists and the Cristinos as constitutionalists. The logic of events thus brought about in 1837 the proclamation of a constitution based upon that of 181 2, but with concessions to the royal prerogative — a compromise between the moderate and progressive liberals. A very significant alteration was the change from the recognition of Catholicism as the sole true faith and the only one to be tolerated, to a curt enun- ciation of the duty of the State to provide for its cult as being the religion of the Spaniards. One of the efforts of the Cortes of 1836-37 was to reconcile the liberty of the press with the repression of abuses which had grown insuffer- able. 2 It was at this period that George Borrow made his well- known attempt to test the amount of freedom practically 1 La Espana bajo el poder arbitrario desde 1820 a 1832. Paris, 1833, pp 182, 381. 2 Lafuente, XXIX., 463. — Paredes, pp. 646-8. — Antequera, Historia de la Legislacion espanola, Madrid, 1884, p. 415. — Martinez de la Rosa, Examen critico de las Revoluciones de Espana, II. 238, 254, 258. THE REVOLUTION. 181 accorded to the press by printing and circulating the New Testament. The effort now would be fruitless to disentangle the facts of his narrative from the imaginative embroideries with which he was pleased to embellish them, but I presume that it is substantially true that the edition which he printed in Madrid was a version made from the Vulgate by the Padre Felipe Scio, confessor of Ferdinand VII. and therefore thor- oughly Catholic in text ; but the notes and commentaries, rendering it unwieldy in size, and probably unfitted for Bor- row's object, were omitted. 1 We have seen that both the Holy See and the Spanish Inquisition had withdrawn the prohibition of the vernacular Scripture, provided it were accompanied with a fitting commentary, which necessarily rendered it too bulky and expensive for popular use. The abolition of the Inquisition in the revolution of 1820 had abolished the Index, and its resuscitation by the police regu- lations of 1824 could only have been temporary. In the absence of municipal law the general prohibition of the Church could only be effective in foro conscientice, and only be enforced by spiritual censures. That no law existed is evident from Borrow' s success in having his Testament printed in Madrid and in opening a shop for its public sale ; but with a change of ministry the sale was stopped and he was thrown into prison — to be released with an apology in a few weeks. His colporteurs through the country were occasion- ally gaoled by zealous priests ; the business was contraband when public attention was called to it, and his stocks of books were seized without redress being possible. It was in the height of the Carlist war, however, and tottering ministries thought more of balancing between the favor of England and of the clergy than of the legality of their acts. 2 1 Borrow's Bible in Spain, chap. xix. — The more recent issues of the Bible Society for circulation in Spain are reprints of the translation of Cipriano de Valera. 2 Borrow, chaps, xxxvi., xxxviii., xxxix., xlii., xliv., xlix. — Menendez y Pelayo (Heterodoxos, II. 660) naturally makes merry over the extravagances of 9 182 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. It would be useless to follow in detail the intricate maze of Spanish politics during the next forty years, with its infinite multitude of laws alternately enlarging and restricting the liberty of the press. 1 The abdication of the regency by Cristina in 1840, the proclamation of the majority of Isabella in 1843 at tne a S e °f I 3> ner agitated reign until driven from the land in 1868, the brief experiment of Amadeo of Savoy until his abdication in 1873, tne short-lived Republic which came to an end when Alfonso XII. was proclaimed in 1874, could teach us little except that time and experience tended to moderate the extremists on both sides. The reactionary constitution of 1845 which deprived press offences of trial by jury, was succeeded by the liberal one of 1869, and this again by that of 1876, which is still in force. The nation in these experiments was undergoing the hard and practical education necessary to all peoples aspiring to self-government, for which it had been peculiarly unfitted by its tutelage under the pater- nalism of the old monarchy. Outside of the two groups of irreconcilables — the Carlists and the Red Republicans — the conservative of the present day no longer dreams of returning to ancient absolutism; the liberal admits the necessity of a central power armed with authority to enforce public order.' 2 As regards the liberty of the press, the constitution of 1876 following closely that of 1869, gives (Art. xm.) to all Span- iards the right to express freely, in speech or print, their ideas and opinions without subjection to a preliminary cen- sorship. As Art. xi. concedes . liberty of thought and belief — though inhibiting public religious ceremonies not of the Borrow, but he does not point out under what law the sale of Testaments was suppressed. 1 The curious student will find the vast and minute legislation of Spain on this subject, between 1834 an d 1867, set forth in detail by Eguizabal, op. cit. PP- I75-367- 2 Paredes, Curso de Derecho Politico, pp. 646-58. — Antequera, Historia de la Legislation espanola, p. 417. — Curry's Constitutional Government in Spain, New York, 1889. THE REVOLUTION. 183 Catholic religion — this covers all expression, by word or print, of every faith. But Art. xvn. permits the temporary suspension of this right when required by the safety of the State in extraordinary circumstances. Not only can this be done by act of the Cortes, but, when they are not in session, by the government, which is bound to apply for the approba- tion of the Cortes at the earliest moment. Still, political and military chiefs can establish no penalties save those provided by law. 1 Practically, however, guarantees of this general character amount to little. They can be virtually annulled by the severity of press laws, and these again are modified in either direction by the temper of the courts and of the people. The Ley de Imprenta of 1879, formulated under the reaction- ary ministry of Canovas, had a system of penality and of special tribunals which rendered the liberty of the press almost illusory. That of 1883, which is still in force, is much more liberal. It defines as a libro anything in print, not a periodical, and containing over 200 pages ; a folleto is a pamphlet over 8 and under 200 pages ; a hoja suelta is one not exceeding 8 pages ; a cartel is a hand-bill to be posted on walls ; a periodic 0 is a serial publication appearing at regular or irregular intervals, not exceeding 30 days. The only requisite for the publication of a book is that it shall bear the imprint of the printer, and the same for a pamphlet, adding the deposit of three copies with the authorities at the time of publication ; for hojas sueltas and carteles there must further be a signed declaration by the publisher, setting forth his name and address, and that he is in full possession of civil and political rights. Announcements and prospectuses, purely commercial and artistic, are exempted from these for- malities. To establish a periodical, notice must be given to the authorities four days before the issue of the first number, 1 Paredes, pp. 667-8. The Concordat of 1851 with the Papacy stipulated that Catholicism should be the sole religion of Spain to the exclusion of all others (Antequera, p. 432). 184 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. with a signed declaration setting forth the name and address of the deponent and his possession of full rights, the title of the periodical, the name and address of the editor, the times of its appearance, and the office where it is printed, with evidence that the subsidio or tax of the latter has been paid and that it is able to perform the work. The printer is authorized to demand the delivery to him of all MSS. signed by the authors; these he cannot use against the will of the writers, but can present to the tribunals when they are de- manded to shield himself from responsibility. The legal responsibility devolves on the editor, and in his default on the proprietor, without prejudice to that of others, civil or criminal, for offences committed by means of the periodical. Editors must be in full possession of civil and political rights; if these are suspended they cannot act, and the management must present another within four days, or the periodical must cease to appear. Three copies of each number, signed by the editor, must be deposited with the authorities ; in Madrid three additional copies are required for the Ministerio de Gobemacion, of which one is sealed and returned. Reclama- tions and rectifications must be inserted in the same type and as prominently as the article provoking them — if from the authorities, in the next number, if from individuals within three numbers; this must be done gratuitously unless tbe reply is more than twice as long as the original article, in which case the extra space is to be paid for at the regular rates. The Council of Ministers can prohibit the importa- tion of periodicals, pamphlets and hojas sueltas printed abroad in Spanish, and also of prints, drawings, medals, etc. 1 This simply defines formalities and responsibilities, and leaves the punishment for infractions and offences to the penal code, which can scarcely be called harsh. Clandestine publications are especially dreaded. These are defined to be such as bear no imprint, or a fictitious one, or which have 1 Paredes, pp. 684-9, 734~8. THE REVOLUTION. I8 5 not fulfilled the requisite formalities. In the code of 1870 this is punishable by arresto mayor, varying from a month and a day to six months, but I believe that in 1883 this was increased to prisibn mayor, of six years and upwards. For the ordinary press offences, political and otherwise, refusing to insert reclamations and even provoking resistence to the laws, the penalty is only a moderate fine, varying from 25 to 250 pesetas— the peseta being equal to the French franc — but it is evident that a journal hostile to the government could be practically suppressed by depriving successive editors of their civil rights. For insulting or menacing a public official in the discharge of his duty, however, the penalty is heavier, being prisibn correccional, from six months to six years, with a fine ranging from 125 to 1500 pesetas. The punishment provided for inciting to sedition is doubtless also applicable to journals. Moreover, for the offence of reading or distrib- uting, in popular meetings, printed matter inciting to a change in the form of government, the penalty of banishment, from six months and a day to seven years is provided. 1 It is evi- dent from all this that in Spain, as elsewhere, journalism is the principal object of solicitude. Literature in general may be said to be free from legal trammels. At the same time the consciences of the faithful are more closely cared for than is usual in modern Catholic communities. Of course, the decisions of the Roman Congregations are binding on the Church, and the bishops, in the exercise of their tradi- tional power, have standing organizations for the censorship of books within their dioceses. In 1880 there appeared in Madrid an official Spanish edition of the Index of Pius IX., brought up to date with all the later decrees of condemna- tion. 2 The obedience to be rendered to this, however, is a matter for the conscience of the individual, for it is no longer as of old enforced with the sanctions of secular law. 1 Novisimo Codigo Penal de 1870, Art. 182, 186, 203, 251, 266-7, 584. 2 Leon Carbonero y Sol, fndice de Libros Prohibidos mandado publicar por su Santidad el Papa Pio IX. Edicion oficial espanola. Madrid, 1880. CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. When compared with the press laws of France and Ger- many those of Spain may be regarded as exceedingly liberal, showing how rapidly the legislative power has advanced to the recognition of the fundamental rights of human intelli- gence. Yet there, as elsewhere, the administration of the law is quite as important as its framing, and the discretion necessarily left to tribunals and officials can readily be so ex- ercised as to nullify the intentions of the legislator. Popular prejudice and passion will discover means to gratify them- selves, whatever be the provisions of a code. When a priest of Santander can refuse absolution to a woman because she could not prevail upon her husband to give up reading a lib- eral journal, a very effective extra-legal censorship can be enforced. 1 In Catalonia an introduction to reading and arithmetic was published for the use of the Protestant school, the reading portions consisting of the gospels without note or comment. A part of the edition was sent to England, and of these 1300 were returned to Spain during the summer of 1883. On their arrival at the Barcelona custom house they were seized and solemnly burnt as heretical literature. 2 So recently as 1888 the journals report a case occurring in Biscay, where an agent of the Bible Society was attacked by some twenty students under the leadership of a Jesuit father j all his Bibles and Testaments were seized and a pious bonfire was made of them ; the authorities refused to send the rioters before the appropriate tribunal, with the result that the matter was remitted to a local magistrate whose correctional power was as limited as his desire to exercise it. Even more significant is a case, related in the report of the Spanish Church Aid Society for 1888, in which one of their pastors, Senor Vila, was condemned to two years and four months' imprisonment for publishing a reply to an attack on the 1 Diercks, Das moderne Geistesleben Spaniens, Leipzig, 1883, p. 57. 2 London Athenaeum, August 18, 1883, p. 212. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 18/ Protestants by a priest. 1 Time and discussion have evidently accomplished much, but more is needed before the wisdom of the law-giver becomes the habitual rule of thought of the people, and the errors of centuries are obliterated. 2 THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. Spanish literature, in the sixteenth century, like the Spanish armies, seemed destined to dominate the civilized world. In no land was there a more active intellectual movement in all the principal lines of thought, or one with a fairer pros- pect of brilliant development. The intensity of the Spanish 1 Curry, Constitutional Government in Spain, p. 91. This sentence was doubtless based on Art. 240, § 3, of the Codigo penal, which prescribes prisibn correctional (from six months to six years) for ridiculing the dogmas or ceremonies of any religion having disciples in Spain. The law is impartial, but it would be too much to expect as yet that its administration should be equally so. 2 The fluctuations in the liberty of the press and its gradual development in spite of successive reactions may be traced with some accuracy in the number of periodicals. Of these there were in Madrid 18 in 1813, which in 1820 had increased to 61. These fell off to 31 in 1821, to 28 in 1822, to 13 in 1823, and to 3 in 1824. From 1825 to 1827 there were 4, in 1828, 6, in 1829, 5, in 1830-31, 6, in 1832, 10, and in 1833, 12. With the development of liberalism the number advanced to 30 in 1834, but fell off to 23 in 1835. Then it gradually increased until in 1850 there were 114, in i860, 123, in 1870, 302. The official returns of March 1, 1882, show 63 political and 178 non- political, or 241 in all. For the whole of Spain (except Barcelona where some 20 to 30 may be reckoned) there were in 1870, 239 political journals, of which Madrid possessed 75, Cadiz 9, Seville 9, Gerona 5, Tarragona 3, Sara- gossa 4. The whole number of periodicals issued in Spain was 279 in 1862, about 540 in 1868, 550 in 1869, while in 1877 they were estimated as at least 800. The returns of March 1, 1882, in addition to those of Madrid stated above, showed for the provinces 188 political and 381 non-political, making for the whole of Spain 251 political and 559 non-political, or a total of 810. Possibly in this there may be omissions, for the estimate of those familiar with the subject was 900. — Diercks, Das moderne Geistesleben Spaniens, Leipzig, 1883, pp. 252-55. In 1889 an unofficial estimate is 850. i88 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. character, its force, its disregard of obstacles, its tenacity of purpose, seemed to promise the same triumphs in the use of its admirable vehicle of expression as had been won by the conquistadores of the New World. Yet a blight settled down on Spanish literature like that which unnerved the conquer- ing tread of the Spanish te?-cios, and by the end of the seven- teenth century the nation which had seemed destined to supremacy alike in the world of letters and of arms had shrunk until in both spheres there were none so poor as to do it reverence. To the political decadence of Spain many causes contrib- uted and the problem is a complicated one which is beyond my present subject. It must suffice here to allude in passing to the censorship as one of those causes, by its destroying all originality of thought, by its resolutely keeping the mind of the nation as far as possible in the old medieval groove at a time when the rest of Christendom was emerging from the military to the industrial stage of civilization, and by its thus dooming Spain to a condition of practical stagnation when all elsewhere was in active movement and development. The exclusion of new ideas meant not only the stunting of litera- ture, but the prevention of progress in the practical arts and sciences, in trade and commerce, at a time when not to ad- vance was to retrograde. We have seen how a paternal gov- ernment, by means of the censorship, was perpetually med- dling with its subjects and repressing their efforts at improve- ment — how a book on a new method of cultivating rice could be prohibited ; how no medical work could be printed without the approbation of some ancient Sangrado, wedded to anti- quated error, and how the quotations of the stock exchange became regarded as a matter too dangerous for publication. The development of the national resources was impossible under such a system. Spanish industry was overwhelmed by the competition of rivals who were constantly seeking new processes to cheapen and ameliorate products. There was another mode in which censorship worked irre- THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. mediable mischief to the monarchy. Corrupt administration was a cancer which was constantly eating out its vitals and reducing it to feebleness. A free press which could expose theft and dilapidation, or even an occasional bold and timely pamphlet, might have saved it millions of annual revenue and made the difference between affluence rendering the nation prosperous and respected, and the virtual bankruptcy which was so constantly crippling its enterprises. But, as we have seen, there was nothing on which the censorship was more rigid than on all criticism of public officials. No comment was allowed upon any transactions connected with the gov- ernment ; no healthy public opinion was possible ; officials enriched themselves and the nation was pauperized. Yet perhaps the worst political result of censorship was the studious unfitting of the people for the changes in store for them. Through long generations they had been carefully kept in leading-strings, and when they were suddenly called upon to walk alone it is no wonder that they tottered and stumbled. The fierce revulsions and the chronic instability of Spanish institutions since the Napoleonic invasion are the direct result of the censorship in which absolutism found its most effective instrument for building its power upon the ignorance of its subjects. All this is self-evident, and it would seem equally so that censorship was primarily responsible for the intellectual ma- rasmus which so long afflicted Spain. Yet it has been denied that the Inquisition, which, as we have seen, was the active agency of censorship, and in the intellectual field, its prime mover, exercised any injurious influence over Spanish thought and expression. It is not only the presumptuous blindness of apologists like Don Juan Manuel Orti y Lara, who does not hesitate to claim for the Inquisition whatever glory Span- ish literature has won. 1 No one can call in question the 1 La Inquisition, Madrid, 1877, p. 263. — "Oh, dichosas cadenas del Santo Oficio, que tan fuertemente sujetaban al monstruo de la heregia, que no le 9* 190 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. authority with which Senor Menendez y Pelayo speaks on all questions concerning the intellectual development of his native land, or his profound critical acquaintance with all departments of its literature, yet in an eloquent passage of his admirable " Heterodoxos Espanoles" he wholly rejects the assumption that the Inquisition interfered with or stunted philosophical thought, or that Spain became a Bseotia. He points out that the Spanish Index does not contain the names of Averrhoes, Avempace, Tofael, Pomponazio (except his De Incantationibus), Marsilio Ficino, Campanella, Telesio (these two with some expurgations), Descartes, Giordano Bruno, Leibnitz, Hobbes, Spinosa, or, except some trivial expurgation, of Bacon. Native philosophical works were treated with equal leniency — Lully, Vives, Sabunde, Huarte, Dona Oliva were permitted or lightly expurgated. It was the same with science : Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, are not to be found in the Indexes. In 1594 a member of the Council of the Inquisition and subsequently inquisitor general, Juan de Zuniga, as royal commissioner reorganized the University of Salamanca, and founded there a faculty of mathematics dejaban libertad alguna para impedir a los ingenios espanoles el vuelo que tomaron desde las alturas de la fe por las regiones del saber y de la poesi'a ! " It is not easy to recognize the stimulus to culture by the Inquisition in placing on the Index (Quiroga, 1583. — Reusch, Die Indices, p. 419) the Com- mentaries of Luis Vives on St. Augustin, nisi repurgentur, and forcing him to a retractation (Eduard Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, Leipzig, 1865, p. 184) ; or in the list of expurgations of his Commentaries on the City of God, drawn up in the Antwerp Index of 1571 (p. 2) by Arias Montano. Nor did that glory of Spanish orthodox learning, Arias Montano, himself escape the censorship which he exercised on others, as is testified by four columns of expurgations of his Commentaries on Scripture in the Index of Sotomayor, 1640 (p. 95), continued to the end in the Indice Ultimo (p. 15) — expurgations for the most part borrowed from the Roman Index Brasichellensis (Bergomse, 1608, p. 39), which treated him even worse. Balmes (El Protestantismo, cap. lxxii.) is more cautious. He says nothing about the influence of the Inquisition and censorship and carefully omits to mention that the writers whom he parades most proudly as evidences of Catholic intellectuality — Reuchlin, Erasmus, Melchor Cano, Descartes, etc. — were condemned. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. I 9 I such as no other university in Europe possessed, ordering moreover the works of Copernicus to be used as the text-book on astronomy. 1 Vives anticipated Bacon in formulating, with an ampler grasp, the canons of induction ; Gomez Pe- reyra anticipated Reid in his metaphysics and Descartes in the theory of the automatism of animals; Francisco Sanchez taught scepticism even more radically than Montaigne or Charron ; Herrera anticipated Ramus. The anti-Aristotelian rebellion had its origin in Spain ; there was a crowd of phil- osophers — Pedro Dolese, Francisco Valles, Fosco Marcello, Benito Pererio, Juan Gines de Sepulveda, Pedro Juan Nunez, Monzo, Monllor, Cardillo de Villalpando, and others who distinguished themselves on various sides of the eternal ques- tions which the human intellect has debated since the origin of thought. The Spanish theologians were unquestionably the most eminent in Europe. The philosophy of law is a science which Europe owes to Vitoria, Baltasar de Ayala, Domingo de Soto, rather than to Grotius and Puffendorf. General grammar and the philosophy of language is a Spanish science, founded by Francisco Sanchez in his Minerva. Arias Montano was the first to form a conception of compar- 1 It was at this same Salamanca that, in the first half of the eighteenth century, Diego de Torres says that he had been there five years before he accidentally learned that there was such a thing as mathematical science. — Ticknor, Hist, of Spanish Literature, Period III. chap. ii. Even a century earlier the factitious character which Spanish culture was assuming is exposed by Navarrete, who tells us that there were thirty-two universities and more than four thousand grammar schools where Latin was taught. This he considers a great evil. They were sought by thousands of youths seeking to escape a life of honest labor by entering the priesthood ; these mostly obtained only a smattering of learning, and those who failed to enter the church became vagabonds and beggars and were the source of enormous crimes. He recommends not only the limitation of these places of so-called learning, but the enforcement of the law that no scholars should beg without holding a licence from their teachers. — Navarrete, Conservacion de Monarquias, Discurso XLVI., Madrid, 1626, p. 299. An unflattering sketch of the students of the period may be found in Quevedo's Historia de la Vida del Buscon. ig2 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. ative philology, which found its development in the 18th century at the hands of a Spaniard. The foundations of historical criticism were laid by Vergara — and all this the In- quisition stimulated rather than impeded. 1 Yet these worthies, for the most part forgotten save to anti- quarian research, almost without exception flourished before the censorship of Church and State had time to overcome the fervid and persistent energy of the Spaniard of Charles V. and Philip II. Granting all that may be claimed for the progress which they made, for the new fields of thought which they opened, and for the intellectual triumphs which they won, and the question only becomes sadder why so brilliant a dawn, in place of developing into a more brilliant noon, should have so speedily ended in the premature mists of twi- light. The answer I think is not far to seek if we recall the series of impediments detailed above so sedulously imposed on the acquisition of knowledge and the expression of thought. It was not only that all originality became dangerous and that safety lay alone in following a designated and worn-out pathway, but even there the artificial barriers erected were 1 Heterodoxos Espanoles, II. 707-14.— Cf. Tapia, Historia de la Civiliza- tion Espanola, T. III. pp. 202-57. How the Inquisition stimulated culture may be inferred from the case of Francisco Sanchez, the foremost man of letters of his day. Denounced to the Inquisition of Valladolid in 1584, for remarks in his lectures incredibly trivial, he was brought from Salamanca, tried, and dismissed with a sharp reprimand and a warning that if he was not more discreet he would be severely punished. In 1600 stupid and bigotted monks again denounced him. Again he was brought to Valladolid and imprisoned in a private house where he soon fell sick. His papers were all seized and submitted to calificadores. From his deathbed he wrote a touching petition to the inquisitors begging that he might have funeral honors, and that anything deemed improper might be expunged from his MSS. so that they could be published for the benefit of his children (Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. II. pp. 58, 127). Even the great Arias Montano himself did not escape denunciation, but by appealing to Philip II. and to the inquisitor general he averted formal proceedings (Ibid. T. XLI. p. 387). Healthy development of culture was impossible when such a fate impended over every scholar. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. such as to check the ardor of generous spirits, and wound the proud sensitiveness of genius. How the system worked in detail can best be understood by one or two examples from a time when the censorship was yet new and before it had crushed all effort into a barren uniformity. Esteban de Garibay was a hidalgo of Guipuscoa who had labored for years on his great historical work, the Compendio de las Crbnicas. He was on friendly terms with the learned men of the court, he had served in the wars as a standard- bearer of his native town, Mondragon, he was of unblemished orthodoxy, a familiar of the Inquisition, and had proved his zeal against heresy upon more than one occasion. Such a man could encounter no unnecessary obstacles in bringing his book before the public, and the matter-of-fact account which he gives in his gossiping memoirs of the various details of the process enables us to realize the impediments thrown in the way of authorship by the jealous watch kept over the press, from which the most blameless was not exempt. Per- sonal residence at the court was unavoidable, and Garibay tells us that when his MS. was ready for the press he left Mondragon October 9, 1566, and reached Madrid October 1 8th. His first care was to go over his book with Bartolome de Atienca, a member of the Royal Council, Hieronimo Zurita and other scholars. Three months were consumed in this preliminary work, and on January 25, 1567, he presented it to the Royal Council, presided over by the inquisitor gen- eral, Diego de Espinosa, who appointed as its examiner the Licenciado Juan Diez de Fuen Mayor, one of those with whom Garibay had already been in council. Juan Diez re- ferred it to the Doctor Juan Paez de Castro, chronicler of the king, who resided at Quero, near Alcala, whither Garibay carried his MS. and remained to assist de Castro in the exam- ination. On March 10 de Castro issued his certificate that he had found in the work no scandalous doctrine but only what was quite sound and Catholic. In all this Garibay had evidently been favored, and it is easy to see how readily a i 9 4 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. rival or an enemy, or even a captions critic, might have pro- longed his troubles or even have defeated his object, and also how ruinous these delajs and journeys would be to an indi- gent man of letters. Armed with this certificate Garibay returned to the Royal Council, and, on April 4, the king issued from the Escorial the licence authorizing its printing in Spain. But Garibay was not satisfied with the Spanish press and had the ambition to have his cherished work printed by Plantin of Antwerp. Although Flanders was a Spanish possession this required an additional licence which was not procured until June 15. Wars and troubles long delayed his voyage to Flanders. The years which he might have profit- ably spent in revising his work were lost, for he could not alter a syllable in his rubricated MS. Yet his persistent patience was inexhaustible, and in 1570 he sailed with his precious copy from Bilbao to Nantes, passing thence through Paris and Cambrai to Antwerp, which he reached June 3. Seeking Arias Montano, who was printing his Polyglot with Plantin, he proceeded to make arrangements with the latter, but found that his Spanish licences were of no avail and that he must have local ones for Flanders. He returned to Brus- sels, where the Duke of Alva referred the matter to his privy council, and on June 16 a licence was issued to him with a privilege for ten years. Then the chancery of Brabant had to issue another, which he obtained on the 19th. Finally in August he commenced the long-delayed labors of the press ; he boasts that the printing was the most rapid ever performed on a Spanish book, but it consumed a year, and he did not leave Antwerp until January 2, 1572. He counts it a great miracle and mercy of the Lord that he sent the MS. from Antwerp to Spain by sea, instead of carrying it himself through France as he had at first intended, for near Chatelheraut he was robbed by a troop of horsemen, whom he assumes to have acted under the commands of Charles IX., because his travelling companion carried despatches from Alva to Philip II. and the courts of France and Spain were then on bad THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. terms. Had his MS. been lost he says he would have incurred great trouble with the Royal Council, seeing that the printed impression had to be compared with the original to verify their identity. It was moreover another special mercy that it arrived safe, for the edition was shipped in several vessels, of which one was captured by the English and two were wrecked, whereby he lost copies to the value of 2000 ducats. At length on March 29, 1572, he reached Madrid with the MS. and visited some of the members of the Council, includ- ing the president and the inquisitor general, Espinosa. The earlier portions of the work were compared with the MS. and found correct, when he was excused the rest, which he de- clares was a great relief to him. In consideration of the beauty of the impression and of the great expense which he had incurred, the tassa was fixed at four maravedis the sheet, which he seems to regard as a particular favor. His troubles however were not yet over, for the copies were to arrive and pass the inspection of the Inquisition at the ports of entry, and as they were in bales unbound there was great liability to damage in the opening and repacking. To avert this he pro- cured from the Supreme Council of the Inquisition cedulas duly signed and countersigned addressed to the commission- ers of the Inquisition at Valladolid, Logrono, Seville, Cadiz and Murcia, ordering the bales to be forwarded unopened to the Inquisitions of Valladolid and Seville, whereby he tells us he escaped great damage and annoyance. Finally, in June 1573, nearly seven years after the MS. had been ready for the press, he had the pleasure of presenting a bound copy to Quiroga, who had replaced Equnosa as inquisitor general, and who refused to accept it without paying the price — the first money, as Garibay informs us, that he received from his book. 1 Of course, in this case, much of the delay and labor arose from Garibay's desire to have his work printed in Antwerp, 1 Memorias de Garibay (Memorial Historico Espanol, T. VII. pp. 284-6, 3°3> 3i8, 326, 328-9, 341). 196 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. but on the other hand there evidently was every wish to show all possible favor to a writer who was laboring loyally for the enhancement of Spanish glory. The rewards of liter- ature are at best but scanty and doubtful, and when such routine obstacles were thrown in the path of those regarded with favor, it is easy to appreciate the discouragement weigh ing upon the less known, and the facilities for quenching an aspiring spirit whose labors might be thought likely to raise doubtful questions, or who might chance to excite personal enmity or jealousy among the numerous officials holding his fate in their hands. The correspondence of Francisco San- chez, better known as el Brocense, the most learned humanist of his day, with Juan Vasquez del Marmol, the corrector de libros, shows what embarrassments and delays were inflicted on authorship, even when author and corrector were on the best of terms, at a time when a letter might be four months in reaching Salamanca from Madrid. 1 More bitter than the experience of Garibay was that of Leon de Castro, a learned professor of Salamanca. His Commentary on Isaiah (1570) was three years in seeing the light, after being ready for the press, and the delay cost him 1000 ducats. His Apologeticus pro lectione apostolica et evangelica (1587) consumed six years spent in journeyings to Madrid, Valladolid, and Alcala before he could obtain authority for its publication. He attributed this to the enmity of Fray Luis de Leon and repaid it by joining in denouncing Luis as a heretic to the Inquisition, which resulted in the imprisonment of the latter for nearly five years during a trial ending in acquittal. 2 This however was by no means all, for, after running the gauntlet of these preliminary examinations the unhappy author passed under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, which could subsequently suppress him or mangle him at its pleasure. How it exercised this power in very wantonness may be gathered from the case of the Histoi'ia Pontifical y Catholica 1 Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, II. 31-5. 2 Reusch, Luis de Leon und die Inquisition, pp. 84-5. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. I 9 7 of the learned Doctor Goncalo de Illescas, Abbot of San Frontes, a thoroughly orthodox and religious writer. From the licences and approbations prefixed to the work it appears that when, in 1564, he applied for permission to print, the MS. was referred by the Royal Council to the examination of the distinguished frailes, Alonzo de Orozco and Juan de Robles, who recommended it for publication with high encomiums on its utility. In spite of this, when it appeared, the Inquisition took umbrage at its account of some of the popes, and seized the whole impression, which, as it consisted of two quite portly folios, inflicted on him or on his printer a serious loss — the printer being Portonares, whose ruin by the seizure of the Vatable Bible I have already men- tioned. He was further persecuted until he agreed to re-write the portions objected to. These additions were scrutinized by order of the Royal Council, in 1567, by Pedro Juan de Lastanosa who pronounced them free from scandal, safe, very learned and well fitted for so good a work. Nevertheless the Inquisition required that it should undergo a further revision at the hands of two professors of Salamanca, Francisco Sancho and Gaspar de Torres, together with Maestro Leon, renowned for his Commentaries on Isaiah — doubtless the Leon de Castro, whose troubles we have just considered. These declare in their certificate that they had removed from it everything liable to cause scruple in the reader, and they further bore testimony to the zeal and soundness of the author. Still a further correction was deemed necessary which was entrusted to the learned Franciscan, Francisco de Alcocer. After this careful elimination of all historical truth likely to create scandal, the second edition was printed. Again the Inquisi- tion was dissatisfied ; this edition shared the fate of the first and was put on the Index. Few men would have had the courage to persevere, after losses and discouragements so severe, but the indomitable author set to work to revise his book a third time. In 1572 the Royal Council committed it to Fray Miguel de Medina for matters concerning religion 198 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. and to the annalist Hieronimo Zurita for historical correct- ness. Fray Miguel certified that as now revised it could be read with safety, that it deserved to be printed not once but many times, for the benefit of the public and the well-earned reward of the author. In this third edition the book escaped condemnation, but the lynx eye of the Inquisition still found subject for expurgation, and in the later Indexes a whole chapter is ordered stricken out. 1 Still harder was the case of the learned Franciscan, Fray Nicolas de Jesus Belando, with his Hisloria civil de Espana desde el ano ijoo asta 17JJ, published in 1740. The work was dedicated to Philip V. who caused it to be carefully examined a second time by a member of the Royal Council before accepting the dedication. Yet it displeased the Inqui- sition and was condemned in 1744. The author ventured to protest ; he offered to defend his work and to make in it the alterations which might be suggested. To this the answer was his incarceration with excessive severity, and he only left the inquisitorial prison to be sent to a convent which he was forbidden to leave, and where he was ordered to write no 1 Illescas, Historia Pontifical y Catholica, Barcelona, 1622, T. I. Prelim. — Llorente, Hist. Critique, I. 475. — Index Librorum Prohibitorum, Antverpiae, 1570, p. 101. — Indice de Sotomayor, 1640, p. 465. — Indice Ultimo, 1790, p. 140. In both these later Indexes the obnoxious chapter is specified as P. I. Lib. iv. chap 35 of the editions of Madrid, 1613, and Barcelona, 1622. My copy is of the latter edition and shows that the chapter is wrongly referred to. Two leaves have been cut out bodily, containing the end of chapter 41, the whole of 42 and 43 and the beginning of 44. From references in the index and tables, one of which is borrado, the obnoxious passage evidently con- cerned the fabulous Pope Joan, whose story gave so many anxious hours to the papal historians. The entry in the index which escaped the censor — Juan Anglico, sifue muger — shows that Illescas only referred hypothetically to the matter, and indeed we may feel sure that after so many revisions it could not have been left in a shape offensive to pious ears. The condition of the volume illustrates the crude methods adopted by the censors when passages too long to be readily rendered illegible had to be removed. In this case four folio pages are torn out in order to obliterate matter which probably did not occupy more than a column. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. I 99 more books ; he was moreover deprived of the station which he had won in his Order and was subjected to harsh penances. Nay more. Don Joseph Quiros, a priest and advocate in the Royal Council, wrote a memoir on the case, arguing that the Inquisition should hear an author before condemning his book. For this he was thrown into the prison of the Inquisi- tion and confined in a cold damp cell during February and March, which, in view of his seventy years, would have ended his days had not Philip intervened and procured his release under condition that he would write nothing more about the Inquisition. 1 If historical criticism originated in Spain, as Senor Melendez y Pelayo assures us, we can easily see why it did not develop when such was the lot of those who hesitated to make historical facts square with the official defi- nitions of what history ought to have been. Thus no writer who had passed the Scylla of the Royal Council could feel sure that his work might not at any mo- ment, during his life or after his death, fall into the Charyb- dis of the Inquisition. Every reader, friendly or inimical, was a possible accuser. The Edict of Denunciations, published annually in all churches, required everyone, under pain of the major excommunication, to denounce anything suspect or er- roneous that he might know of anyone else having said or done or believed, and the informer was assured of inviolable secrecy. An instructive specimen of the secret accusations thus stimulated is a paper presented about 1630 to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition by Don Luis Pacheco de Narvaez, teacher of Philip IV. in philosophy and fencing. In this, after alluding to the duty imposed on him by the annual Edict, he proceeds to point out many errors and insults to the church contained in the books of Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas — the Politico, de Dios, La vida del Buscon, SueTws and Dis- curso de todos los Diablos. These books had all passed the censorship of the Archbishop of Saragossa, and been pro- 1 IJorente, Hist. Critique, II. 428, 465. — Indice Ultimo, p. 145. 200 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. nounced to contain nothing contrary to the faith, and at least the Politico, de Dios had been licensed in Madrid. Now in the latter three works there are many things that could rea- sonably be objected to by a reverent son of the Church, but most of the points made by the worthy fencing-master show how the minute and captious criticism of the Inquisition had trained the malevolent to find error in the simplest things. When, for instance, Quevedo in the Politico warns his king to vigilance and adduces in support that it is only once re- lated of Christ that he slept (Matt. vm. 24) and then the disciples immediately cried out " Lord save us : we perish," Narvaez characterizes the passage as so horrible that he refers to it with dread, for it implies a denial of Christ's humanity. 1 So in the Buscon a description of a half-starved horse, of which it is said that one could see the penances and fasts it had endured, is gravely denounced as a reflection on these medicines of the soul and means of grace. 2 This sounds like a travesty of inquisitorial censorship, but the seriousness with which it is pre, en ted to the dread tribunal shows the training which the people had received, and it is not so far removed from the eccentricities of official expurgation as to be without interest as an illustration of the ease with which censors and calificadores could find guilt in the most innocent expressions. Narvaez's denunciation was fruitless. Quevedo had not yet fallen under the displeasure of Olivares and his works re- mained uncondemned. 3 Comparing the audacious and often 1 Politica de Dios, cap. ix. (Ed. Pamplona, 1631). In the revised edition the passage in fact is completely rewritten (Ed. Madrid, 1729, pp. 43-44). 2 Menenclez y Pelayo, III. 879-80. In a similar spirit, when Las Casas, Bishop of Chiapa, sought to defend the Indians from the oppression of the Conquistadores, even such a man as Juan Gines de Sepulveda did not hesitate to accuse him of heresies respecting the papal power and the righteousness of conquering the infidel. — Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. LXXI. pp. 339 sqq. 3 In the Index of Sotomayor (1640, p. 425) the Politica de Dios is per- mitted in the Madrid edition of 1626 and no other — possibly because there may have been some difference in the readings, but probably as a protection THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 2 0I brutal satire in which he revelled on the follies and vices of all classes, with the hypersensitiveness of censorship of which we have seen examples, one is impressed with the capricious- n ess of the Inquisition and can estimate how little men could forecast what it might condemn or tolerate. The latitude which this allowed to personal favoritism or enmity and the benumbing influence of such uncertainty could only have a most dispiriting and unfortunate influence on all classes of literature. This capriciousne s is well exemplified in the case of the Celestina. One of the objects professed by the censorship, as we have seen, was the preservation of popular morals from all contamination. About 15 71 the Inquisition of Saragossa inquired of the Supreme Council whether it ought to issue an edict against pictures containing nudities, and the reply was that this could be done when the nudities were too shocking. Llorente tells us, indeed, that great annoyances were inflicted on those who had snuff-boxes or fans or objects of art and decoration on which were represented mytholog- ical subjects in a manner regarded by the Inquisition as too free. 1 The Celestina is one of the great monuments of Span- ish prose. It first appeared in 1499 and more than thirty editions were printed in the sixteenth century ; it was trans- lated into all European languages and exercised greater influ- ence on Spanish literature than perhaps any other book. 2 It was even used as a text-book in the schools, to the great scandal of Azpilcueta, who urged that the major part of it against the pirated editions of Aragon and Navarre. Ten others of his books, which are works of edification, are also permitted. All the rest of his writings, whether in print or in MS., are prohibited at the special request of the author ("lo qual he pedido por su particular petition, no reconociendolos por proprios"), probably the only request of the kind on record. He became, however, too much a classic to remain on the Index, and in the Indice Ultimo of 1790 (p. 221) the only one of his books which appears is his posthumous Parnaso Espanol, which is ordered to be expurgated. 1 Llorente, Hist. Critique, I. 489. 2 Ticknor's Spanish Literature, I. 235-44 (Ed. 1864). 202 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. should be stricken out. 1 Yet the Inquisition saw nothing objectionable in its crude indecency until the Index of 1640 ordered about fifty lines to be expurgated ; this was continued in the subsequent Indexes and it was only prohibited in How readily this arbitrary power was abused by enmity or favoritism is visible in the case of the Venerable Servant of God, Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Bishop of Puebla, who refused the archbishopric and for a time served as Viceroy of Mexico. In his quarrel with the Mexican Jesuits, the Inquisition of Mexico took the side of his antagonists and suppressed his legal papers drawn up in defence of the rights of his church. After his return to Spain and appointment to the bishopric of Osma, the Supreme Council of the Inqui- sition suppressed his letters on the Jesuits and had them pub- licly burnt by the executioner in 1659, while the Jesuits were freely permitted to fill the court and indeed all Spain with satires and libels on him. His letters and memorials were duly placed on the Index, but when the prolonged effort for his canonization so nearly succeeded, and in 1760 the Con- gregation of Rites reported that after careful examination of all his works, in print and MS., it had found nothing objec- tionable in faith and morals, and when this report was con- firmed by Clement XIII. the Inquisition removed the prohi- bition. As the facile instrument of royal authority it even, in 1762, prohibited a work by a German Jesuit, Franz Neu- mayr, because, among other reasons, it was derogatory to the memory and writings of Palafox. 3 1 Azpilcueta, Enchiridion sive Manuale Confessariorum, cap. xxiii. No. 30. 2 Indice de Sotomayor, p. 948. — Indice de Vidal Marin, 1707, II. 280. — Indice Ultimo, p. 40. — Menendez y Pelayo, II. 708. In the catalogue of the publisher, Pedro Joseph Alonso y Padilla, in 1737, the Celestina appears with the note " se ha de expurgar de qualquier im- pression que sea, para poderle leer, como consta del Expurgatorio del afio de 1707." 8 Palafox y Mendoza, Obras, Ed. 1762, T. I. Prolegom .— Cargos y Satis- factions, No. 47 (Obras, XI. 241).— Satisfaccion al Memorial (XI. 289, 328, THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 203 If in Spain the Inquisition was thus forced to yield to the pressure of Carlos III. who earnestly desired the canonization of the saintly bishop, in Mexico it preserved its malignant rancor. Palafox had persistently refused to have his portrait taken, but an artist found no difficulty in sketching him while in performance of a public function. The likeness was en- graved and immense numbers were circulated, as he was uni- versally beloved by his flock. After his return to Spain in 1649, a friend of the Jesuits, travelling on a feast-day, stopped at a way-side inn kept by an Indian, who had in honor of the day erected a little altar with a lighted candle and surrounded it with images of saints. Among these was a portrait of Pala- fox ; it bore no nimbus or sign of sanctity, but the traveller on reaching Mexico reported the circumstance to the Inqui- sition, which at once issued an edict ordering the surrender of all likenesses of Palafox, under pretext of preventing the idolatry of worshipping a living man. Immense quantities of them were thus collected — in Puebla alone over six thousand, and in many places more than the number of inhabitants. When the news of this reached Spain it caused a great sensa- tion as it was used by the Jesuits to prove that the prohibition of the portrait meant condemnation of the man. 1 In Mexico the edict of suppression remained in force until after Spain had for a century been endeavoring to obtain his canoniza- tion. I have a copy of a portrait of him, borrado, with the features obliterated by smearing with printers' ink, which happens in the inscription to refer to an event with the date of 1787, showing that it was issued subsequent to that time, and that the Mexican -Inquisition was still implacable. It also shows how long the memory of the saintly man lingered among the descendants of his flock. 2 466-7). — Rosende, Vida de Palafox (Obras, XIII. 314). — Indice Ultimo, p. 203. 1 Rosende, Vida de Palafox, Lib. III. c. ii. (Obras, XIII. 309). 2 I owe this portrait to the kindness of General Riva Palacio of Mexico. Somewhat similar was the condemnation by Valdes in the Index of 1559 204 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. This was not by any means the first time that the Jesuits had sought to utilize the censorial powers of the Inquisition to maintain themselves against their opponents. When in 1627 the Universities of Salamanca, Valladolid and Alcala united in a memorial against the establishment of the Jesuit College in Madrid, the Society answered it by an application to the Inquisition to suppress the memorial and prosecute the author, Doctor Juan de Balvoa, professor of law in Salamanca, but the calificadores of the Supreme Council decided that there was no theological error in it. 1 When the eccentrici- ties of Padre Juan Bautista Poza gave the Dominicans a fair opportunity to attack their detested rivals, the Inquisition, in spite of its Dominican tendencies, was forced by Olivares to come to the rescue of the Jesuits. The pamphlets against against them were rigorously suppressed and the writers arrested and prosecuted. The ex-Carmelite, Doctor Juan de Espino, was the chief sufferer. For some fifteen years he carried on an indomitable fight and was fifteen times thrown into inquisitorial or episcopal prisons. 2 Francisco Roales was another opponent, whose writings suffered, though by keeping in Italy he seems to have escaped bodily harm. In 1634 some pamphlets of his and of other opponents to the Society were burned by the Inquisition in Madrid with extra- ordinary solemnity, such, indeed, as had never been vouch- safed to the writings of the greatest heretics. A procession (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 232, preserved in the fndice Ultimo, p. 262) of a forgotten controversial tract against the Jews, printed in 1481 by Hernando de Talavera, then confessor of Queen Isabella and subsequently the first Archbishop of Granada. All his contemporaries unite in praise of his rare Christian virtues, but he was practically hounded to the death on a charge ol Judaism by Lucero, the inquisitor of Cordova, who was punished for his mis- deeds and who was thus spitefully avenged by the condemnation of Talavera's book, after an interval of half a century. 1 Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, Seccion de MSS. S. 294 fol. 220.— Llorente, Histoire Critique, II. 424. 2 Cartas de Jesuitas (Memorial Historico Espahol, T. XIII. pp. 9, ir, 13-17, 19, 24, 27, 32, 181, 230; T. XIV. pp. 39S-6; T. XV. pp. 100-2; T. XVII. pp. 197, 218, 285, 395 ; T. XVIII. p. 30S).— fndice Ultimo, p. 94. THE INFLUENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 205 marched through the streets escorting a mule with carmine velvet trappings, bearing a box painted with flames in which were the condemned pamphlets, while a herald proclaimed with sound of trump that the Society was relieved of all accusations and that these papers were false, calumnious, im- pious and scandalous. The moral effect of this display was however somewhat impaired by the rabble supposing that the box contained the bones of a Jew and shouting " Death to the dogs ! " " Burn the Jews ! " and other pious cries. The edict of condemnation was sent to all the churches of the land to be duly published. 1 When Jesuit influence declined, the censorial power of the Inquisition was used effectually by the frailes, whose pedantic and artificial style of preaching was ridiculed so mercilessly by Padre Francisco de Isla in his Fray Gerundio, published under the pseudonym of Lobon de Salazar. As the successive volumes appeared they were placed on the Index by edicts of 1760 and 1776, together with all the controversial writings to which they gave rise, and all further discussion of the sub- ject was prohibited. 3 Nothing could have been more whole- some for the purification and elevation of pulpit eloquence than such a discussion, but as usual the censorship was antag- 1 Cartas de Jesuitas (Mem. Hist. Espafiol, T. XIII. pp. 67-71, 73~4)-— Indice Ultimo, p. 94. Accompanying the edict of condemnation was another, deploring in general terms the scandals caused by the bitter hostility between the different religious Orders. To prevent this for the future, any insult offered to any Order by a member of another, whether in the pulpit, the lecture room, or the press, was declared punishable by the major excommunication, imprisonment in a distant convent, and dismissal from any office held in the Inquisition, with disability for reinstatement. The superiors of all the Orders were commanded to exercise the strictest censorship over the writings of their members and to strike out all offensive expressions before approving of any book. Mutual rancor, however, was too deep-seated to be thus repressed and the edict had to be repeated in 1643 (MSS. of Bodleian Library, Arch S. 130.— Cartas de Jesuitas, Mem. Hist. Esp. T. XVII. p. 285). s Indice Ultimo, p. 102. 10 206 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. onistic to all improvement, and the intellectual stagnation of Spain was too precious an inheritance to be disturbed. The expenses attendant on the cumbrous and elaborate formalities of the censorship were another heavy burden and discouragement to struggling literature. I have already al- luded incidentally to the exactions levied at each stage of the process and to the fines for their non-observance, which were expected to defray the cost of the whole organization. The victim furnished the wood for the pile on which he was burnt. It would have been an exception to the ordinary ad- ministration in those days if the authorized charges did not form a comparatively small portion of the total sum levied on authors. They were wholly defenceless ; they could only suffer in silence and not venture to provoke, by ill-timed complaints, the malice of those who controlled their fate. We have seen the unchecked abuses of the censorship in the visitas de navios, and there can be no reasonable doubt that similar ones infected the cumbrous routine of the Council, for which there was such abundant opportunity. The arbi- trary power exercised by the officials is seen in a simple order of the Juez de Imprentas, in 17 13, instructing the messenger who delivered the licences to demand, of all books that were printed, copies for the Escorial, for the president and each member of the Royal Council, for the secretaries of Gobierno and Camara, for the superintendent and for the messenger himself. Of these numerous copies three were to be bound, and anyone refusing to give them was to be prosecuted. This spoliation of the feeble literary folk proved so oppressive that Philip V., in 1 71 7, says that many authors refused to write and others kept their MSS. unprinted, wherefore he reduced the number to three copies— one for the Royal Library, one for the Escorial, and one for the governor of the Royal Council. Numerous regulations issued between 1761 and 1796 show that it was difficult to enforce the rule even for the Royal Library, and that there was a constant effort to THE INFL UENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 207 increase the number. In the reinvigorated law of 1805 six copies were required. 1 Even heavier, comparatively, was the burden imposed on importations. No bookseller obtaining new books from abroad could be sure that they would be ad- mitted, and of the small quantity that he could venture to import as an experiment, he was required, by a regulation of 1784, when applying for a licence, to give two copies, one to the Royal Council and one to the examining censor, besides paying the latter one real per sheet for reading it.' 2 In fact, with the exception of the casual action of Philip V. in 1 71 7 and the temporary relaxation under Carlos III., it may be said that as a rule it was the desire of the Spanish government to discourage authorship systematically. This spirit finds expression in the preamble of the law of 1627 by Philip IV., called el Grande by his flatterers. In this he dis- tinctly asserts as a reason for the stricter enforcement of the censorship that there is an excessive abundance of books, wherefore special attention and care are to be directed to decreasing their number by refusing licence to such as are unnecessary and can be dispensed with, and of which the reading will not be of benefit to the public. 3 This stimulated 1 Alcubilla, Codigos antiguos Espanoles, pp. 1585-6. — Novisima Recopi- lacion, VIII. xvi. 37, 38, 39, 40, 41. — Philip had himself set the example of exactions in 1716 by ordering that a bound copy of every book printed since 171 1 and of all thereafter published should be delivered to the Royal Library as well as to the Council. — Novis. Recop. VIII. xvi. 36. This was not the first time that these exactions were levied on literature. In 1636 among the burdens enumerated was the necessity of giving a copy of every book to each member of the Royal Council. — Picatoste, Grandeza y Decadenza de Espafia, III. 170. 2 Alcubilla, pp. 1582-1586. 3 Novisima Recop. VIII. xvi. 9. — Yet Philip IV. had, but two years before, richly endowed the Jesuit Imperial College of Madrid with funds for buildings and for the maintenance of twenty-three professorships, embracing all depart- ments of human knowledge (Coleccion de Documentos ineditos, T. III. p. 548). Learning and culture were thus ostentatiously encouraged provided they were kept within certain rigorously defined channels, but the expression of their development was studiously repressed. The natural result of the mutually destructive principles embodied in this system is seen in the assertion 208 CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. the severity of the censors, whose individual tastes and opin- ions were thus made the standard by which to suppress un- heard unfortunate authors struggling to reach the public. Scholarship and culture were doomed when authors were openly warned that, in addition to the obstacles inherent in the system, the product of lifelong labor might be smothered and extinguished because some pedant or ignoramus might pronounce it unprofitable or unnecessary. This provision of the law was not allowed to become obsolete. In 1797 it was cited in refusing a licence for a new edition of a history of the royal life-guard. The work was admitted to contain nothing contrary to faith, morals, or the royal prerogative, but was condemned as simply useless. 1 In 1804, moreover, the enforcement of this standard of utility was strictly en- joined on all subdelegates of the censorship. 2 The deadening influence of such a system on literary aspirations can scarce be exaggerated. The result of this long-continued and systematic repression of intellectual activity is forcibly presented to us by Padre Feyjoo in his Discourse on the Glories of Spain. His mere effort to recapitulate the claims to respect of Spanish intellect shows how low it had fallen by the second quarter of the eighteenth century. He admits that in Europe Spain was regarded as a land scarce removed from barbarism — scarce distinguishable from Africa save by language and religion — and he argues that this is the result of indolence and not of the lack of natural aptitude. In his effort to prove this it is pitiable to mark the eagerness with which the good padre gathers up every fragment of reputation, and the pious care with which he treasures every approving word bestowed by a of Manuel Lanz de Casafonda, a century and a quarter later, that in that magnificent foundation the only subjects taught were Latin, moral theology and mathematics— the latter not extending beyond the principles of arithmetic and geometry (Valladares, Sem.inario enidito, T. XXVIII. pp. 158, 164). 1 Alcubilla, p. 1577. 2 Alcubilla, p. 1580. THE I NFL UENCR OF CENSORSHIP. 209 foreigner on Spanish writers. Nothing escapes his diligence. Lucan and Seneca, Quintilian and Columella, are cited in support of Spanish intellect, and the list of great men is care- fully brought down to modern times, but it is observable that these illustrious names virtually cease with -the first quarter of the seventeenth century. The virile strength of the Spanish character carried on the development of culture for a while after the establishment of the censorship, but the unrelaxing pressure wrought its work, and then numbness and torpor checked the fruiting of the harvest which had given such brilliant promise. The lighter literature serving to amuse a public trained to avoid serious thought, lingered awhile longer, but this in turn flickered out. The triumph of Church and State was complete over a docile people, to whom were closed the avenues of intelligence which were bringing new life and light to all other Christian nations. The deadly blight of enforced orthodox uniformity settled down upon the land and Spanish genius sought safety in a slumber which lasted for two centuries. Of course Feyjoo does not recognize or does not dare to state the reason, while deploring the result which he labored so strenuously to overcome. He explains the lack of varied culture among his contemporaries by the lack of books and teachers, but he does not ask himself why books and teachers were lacking. 1 The learned Gregorio Mayans y Siscar was more logical when, in writing to Ma- canaz in 1748, and asking him to inquire whether in Holland printers could be found to bring out at their own expense some works on jurisprudence, he adds .that it is impossible to print such books in Spain because, as there is no knowledge, the taste for them is also lacking. 2 This epitomises the story — Catholic Spain looking to heretic and rebellious Holland for an intellectual market which had been persistently de- 1 Feyjoo, Theatro Critico, T. IV. Discursos XIII. XIV. 2 Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, T. II. p 171. 2IO CENSORSHIP OF THE PRESS. stroyed at home. 1 The transitory efforts of Carlos III. to liberalize the system were unavailing. An educated public is a plant of slow growth, and even under Carlos III. the system was still strong enough to crush the aspirations of scholarship. In 1779 two learned brothers, frailes of the Order of Merced, Pedro and Rafael Mohedano, commenced the publication of a Historia literaria de Espana, of which nine volumes in quarto had appeared in 1786, when the In- quisition took umbrage at it and stopped the publication. 2 Of course it was not the absence of natural aptitude in the people that deprived Spain of her share in the wonderful progress made by civilization after the censorship was effectively organized — centuries in which she was, not a leader of thought, but the unwilling recipient of such ad- vances made elsewhere as could filter through her closely barred frontiers. It would be grossly unfair to the Spanish race to assume that this arose from any inherent deficiency. The Spaniard is patient of labor, acute of thought, gifted with imagination and eloquence and possessing a language admir- ably adapted for the expression both of reason and emotion. The stunted intellectual development of the nation- during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries must be explained by factitious and not by natural causes — by the systematic and uncompromising repression of all intellectual effort be- yond the narrow limits prescribed by a petrified theology 1 Gregorio Mayans, under, the pseudonym of Justo Vindicio, gives a most deplorable picture of the condition of Spanish learning and literature in the middle of the eighteenth century— paucissimi sunt, he says, qui colunt literas, catteri barbariem. Learned men, he adds, are obliged to sell their books in order to live, and to burn their MSS. to prevent their use by grocers as wrapping paper. For all this Manuel Lanz de Casafonda, in his defence of Spanish literature, takes him sharply to account (Valladares, Semanario enidito, T. XXVIII. pp. 152-3). Casafonda however says (lb. p. 125) that the time spent in the schools and universities is lost, and that those who desire to learn are obliged, after leaving them, to employ competent instructors. 2 Bourgoing, Tableau de l'Espagne Moderne, I. 316. THE INFL UENCE OF CENSORSHIP. 2 1 I and an absolute government, and, even within these limits, by the arbitrary capriciousness which rendered dangerous all exercise of thought. If of this any further proof were needed it would be found in the revival of Spanish letters when the shackles were gradually removed — when the manly struggle of mind with mind once more became possible, when men began once more to find themselves permitted to think and speculate on the mysteries of human life and to communicate to their fellow men the thoughts that filled their souls. The admirable rena cence of Spanish literature within the last two generations shows us how much the world has lost by its repression during the preceding two centuries, and is full of promise that its future will amply fulfil the expectations jus- tified by its early achievements. MYSTICS AND ILLUMIN ATI. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. From the remotest antiquity there has been handed down the belief that the soul could elevate itself to the Godhead through prolonged contemplation, assisted by mortification of the flesh. When the body is systematically weakened by fastings and vigils, spiritual exaltation is readily superinduced in certain natures by continued mental concentration ; the faculties become resolved into vague consciousness, passing through the stage of ecstasy to that of trance. Released from its bonds of flesh the soul apprehends, with all the dis- tinctness of reality, that which has formed the object of its waking aspirations, and it enjoys visions of ineffable bliss in reunion with its Creator. Such was the spiritual intoxication of the Brahmanic and Buddhist tapas and samadhi, and such was the Yoga system through which union with the Universal Soul was purchased by the austerest mortifications of the flesh. It was inevitable that Christian devotees should become adepts in the practice and it was accepted by the Church as a recognized form of religious exercise. Mystical theolo- gians, such as Richard of Saint Victor, St. Bonaventura, John Gerson and many others, prescribed the methods through which the soul by means of contemplation or mental prayer could lift itself above itself, could reach the Divine Essence and become divinely illuminated. This led to ecstasies with visions of heavenly beings and prophetic revelations, such as those vouchsafed to St. Hildegarda and St. Birgitta. The seraphic Franciscan Order contained many mystics, especially in its Spiritual section, and St. Douceline may be regarded 10* 214 MYS TICS A lVD IL L UMINA TL as the prototype of St. Teresa de Avila, while Jacopone da Todi, the author of the Stabat Mater, sang the raptures of ecstatic abstraction in which the intellect disappears and hu- manity is annihilated in the flood of divinity. So the German mystics of the fourteenth century — Master Eckart, John Tau- ler, John of Rysbroek, Henry Suso and others, taught, in various degrees, the virtues of mental prayer and profound ab- straction, in which the soul gradually lost the consciousness of earthly things and was elevated to heaven, where in a rapture of divine love it became one with God and tasted in advance the joys of paradise. 1 This high-wrought exaltation of the nervous system was necessarily at times succeeded by reaction, in which the devotee fancied himself abandoned by God and doomed to perdition, but through these alternate vicissitudes he advanced, gradually overcoming the weaknesses of the flesh and liberating the spirit, until he reached the stage of perfec- tion in which his will was wholly subordinated to that of God, and he practically became an incarnation of the divine spirit. In this state he was necessarily sinless. It was not alone the orthodox who ventured into these perilous paths of superhuman ecstasy. The Amaurians and their followers, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, commonly designated in Germany as Beghards and Beguines, indulged in the same practices and drew from them dangerous infer- ences, perhaps inevitable in their pantheistic tenets. They invented or adopted the term Illuminism to describe the con- dition of man illuminated interiorly with the Divine Spirit, so that his acts became those of the Spirit itself, and he was no longer subject to external laws. Moreover, as the per- fected adept thus could do no sin it followed that whatever he might do was righteous. When the flesh was thoroughly subdued to the spirit this belief was probably harmless, but 1 " Secundum secessuin ilium, quo homo a seipse deficiens, in unura illud quod Deus est se recepit ac aberravit, atque cum illo unum effectus est, ubi jam homo non ut homo operatur." — H. Susonis de Veritate Dial. cap. ix. (Opp. Laur. Surio interprete, Colon. Agripp. 1588, p. 288). DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 215 when the original Adam reasserted himself, it could only lead to the overthrow of the moral law. Although the results of this have probably been exaggerated by eager heresiologists, there were enough extravagances perpetrated by zealots who taught the pre-eminent purity of nudity, and enough hypo- crites who gratified the senses under the veil of asceticism, to give color to the denunciation of Illuminism as destructive to morality. The condemnation of these beliefs at the Council of Vienne in 131 2, and the embodiment of its de- crees in the canon law, rendered the subject a familiar one to all canonists, although the heretics who provoked the de- nunciation were obscure and the heresy would otherwise have been in time forgotten. It afforded, however, as we shall see, a weapon for the destruction of orthodox mysticism when that grew distasteful to the Church. Mystic orthodoxy and heresy were so closely related that it was easy to confuse them. After the Lutheran revolt the spiritual exaltation of mysticism became regarded as dangerous, for it led to the conclusion that man could work out his own salvation and bring himself into direct relations with God without the in- termediation of the priest. Yet it had the authority of too many of the loftiest names in ecclesiastical annals to be di- rectly condemned, and the readiest means of attack lay in the Illuminism which threatened to release its followers from the obedience due to the Church, and in the doctrine of im- peccability with its tendency to fleshly indulgences. We shall trace hereafter some of the steps in the process which converted the orthodoxy of Bonaventura and Gerson into the heresy of Molinos and Madame Guyon. Spain, during the middle ages, was singularly free from mystic aberrations. Eymerich, in his Directorium Inquisi- torum, written in 1375, enumerates all the heresies with which he and his predecessors had to struggle, and he makes no mention of errors of the kind. The first inquisitorial man- ual compiled after the establishment of the New Inquisition 2 l6 MYSTICS AND' IL L UMINA TL in 1480, is the Repertorium Inquisitorum, printed at Valencia in 1494, and it is likewise silent on the subject. 1 In fact there was scarce enough spiritual activity in Spain during the medieval period to lead to the cultivation of mysticism, whether orthodox or heretical. Yet in the intensity of the Spanish character there was ample material for religious enthusiasm when once the nation should be aroused from the careless tolerance bred of habit- ual intercourse with the Moors. The process was slow but it moved with accelerating momentum and culminated in the establishment of the Inquisition in 1480, the conquest of Granada and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, and the alterna- tive offered to the Moors in 1502 of conversion or expatria- tion. Religious fervor was enkindled, the exaltation of the faith was taught to be the duty of every Spaniard and of the State, and a fierce fanaticism, stimulated by the all-pervading functions of the Holy Office, interpenetrated the national character with a completeness of which probably the onlv counterpart is to be found in the early career of Islam. The Reformation added fuel to the flame by the abhorrent antag- onism which it excited in the masses of the people. The Spanish temperament was distinguished rather by force than by moderation ; religion, thus made the chief business of life, could scarce fail, on the one hand, to develop into supersti- tion, or on the other to rise into the burning devotion of a Loyola, and both phases combined to furnish a peculiarly fruitful soil for mystic extravagance. The works of the lead- ing mystics became a prominent portion of the national lit- erature to be read as classics by everyone, thus insensibly introducing their teachings into the very fibre of the national 1 Repertorium Inquisitorum s. vv. Beatce, Begardce, Beguincc, Hmresis, Hceretici, etc. — Menenclez y Pelayo (Heterodoxos Espanoles, II. 523) ascribes errors of the kind to numerous Spanish heretics of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, but he has been misled by the confusion so long existing between the Spiritual Franciscans and Fraticelli of the south and the so-called Beghards and Beguines of Germany. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 217 character. 1 It was inevitable that there should be throngs of ardent devotees eager to win the sublime delights of ecstasy. It was equally inevitable that there should be no lack of im- postors to practise on popular credulity, and that both classes should find admirers and disciples without number in a pop- ulation left almost wholly without due religious instruction by the negligence of its worldly prelates. 2 It was the busi- ness of the Inquisition to restrain the one class from aber- rations from the faith, and to detect and punish the other. The duty was not an easy one, for the boundaries between heresy and sainthood were often perilously obscure, and self- deception played so large a part in many of the manifestations of the mystics that the differentiation of conscious from un- conscious imposture is often impossible for the impartial inves- tigator. The beata, or devotee, occupied in religious practices with- out formally entering a religious order— perhaps at most a Tertiary of the Mendicants— was a character well known among all Spanish communities as fervor grew strong towards the close of the fifteenth century, and popular veneration frequently ascribed to these women supernatural attributes. It is related of Cardinal Ximenes, while he was yet provincial of the Franciscans, about 1493, that when making a visitation of his province he came to Gibraltar and, at the sight of the African coast, was seized with a longing to earn martyrdom in a mission to convert the Moors, but was deterred by a beata who with prophetic vision announced to him the splen- 1 About 1761, Don Manuel Lanz de Casafonda, in laying out a course of reading for a stranger learning Castilian, commences with the Guia de Peca- dores of Luis de Granada, followed by the Nombres de Cristo of Luis de Leon, the Cartas of Santa Teresa and the works of Juan de Avila. After these the student may undertake Cervantes. — Valladares, Semanario eriidito, T. XXVIII. p. 122. 2 For the condition of the Spanish Church in the sixteenth century see Alfonso de Castro, Adversus Hayeses, Lib. I. c. xiii. and Carranza, Comen- tarios sobre el Catechismo, p. 167b.— Comp. Menendez y Pelayo, Heterodoxos Espaholes, II. 525. 218 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. did career which lay before him and the services which he would render to Church and State. 1 That a man of the clear, shrewd intellect of Ximenes should allow himself to be governed in so important a matter by the predictions of an inspired crone seemed perfectly natural to his contemporaries. It was universally believed that the most intimate intercourse could take place with the invisible world. If the sorcerer could evoke Satan and hold converse with him, the holy man or woman cou'd have visions of Christ and the Virgin and receive revelations of the future. St. Birgitta and the blessed Angela of Foligno are familiar ex- amples of the habitual communication with heavenly beings to which man could attain by austerities and devout contempla- tion. When this was the universal belief authorized by the Church, there was no limit to the superstition of the vulgar, to whom the direct personal intervention of God was a possibility of daily occurrence. Even in the latter half of the sixteenth century an incident related by Zapata shows how implicit was the credulity on which devotee or impostor could rely. A company of sharpers travelled through Spain, personating Christ and the apostles, lodging at wayside inns where they would be received with washing of feet and other demon- strations of veneration. At table, after meat, they would summon the host to confess his sins, which naturally would mostly be short measure and other similar peccadillos. Then he would be told to produce his money, of which he was allowed to retain a small portion as honestly earned ; another share, as slightly tainted, St. Peter would take to pay the expenses of the party, while the bulk of it, as wrongfully acquired, was assigned to the devil. Then Satan, with hoofs and horns, would sweep in and carry it off. This blasphem- ous swindle was successfully practised for some time, until probably some agnostic Boniface denounced to the authori- 1 Gomez de Rebus Gestis a Francisco Ximenio, Compluti, 1569 Lib. I. fol. 7. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 2ig ties the divine company, who were soundly scourged and sent to the galleys. 1 When such was the condition of popular enlightenment we can understand the career of the Beata of Piedrahita, although the attention and the discussion which she excited in 1509 show that her performances were a novelty, and that she was probably the first of a long series whose extravagances we shall have to consider. The practices of the mystics were by this time tolerably well known. Francisco de Villalobos, physician to King Ferdinand, writing in 1498, complains of the Aluminados or Illuminati, who were derived from Italy, but of whom there was mucha pestilencia in Spain and who should be cured by scourging, cold, hunger, and gaol.' 2 Francisco de Osuna, the earliest Spanish mystic writer, in 1527 alludes to a holy man of his acquaintance who for more than fifty years had devoted himself to recojimiento — the divine abstraction of mental prayer which was the. means employed to elevate the soul until it enjoyed direct communion with God. 3 To what these aspirations might lead in untutored and undisciplined minds, and how ready were the people to accept the marvellous illusions of hysterical devotees, are seen in the account of the Beata given by Peter Martyr of Anghiera to his patron the Count of Tendilla. Not the least interesting feature of the case is the fidelity with which its grotesque details were copied by her innumerable imitators. She was the daughter of a fanatic peasant of Piedrahita in the diocese of Avila who seems to have carefully trained her in mystic exercises. She was wholly given up to contempla- tive abstraction and had so mortified the flesh with continual fasting that her digestion had almost ceased to act. In early youth she had assumed the Dominican habit, and as her repu- tation for sanctity spread, the visions and revelations, which 1 Miscelanea de Zapata (Memorial Historico Espanol, XT. 76). 2 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 526. 3 Francisco de Osuna, Tercera Parte del Libro llamado Abecedario spiritual, Trat. XXI. cap. iv. fol. 204a (Burgos, 1544). 220 M YS TICS A ND IL L UMINA TI. were the natural product of her abnormal mode of life acting upon a nervously excitable temperament, won for her the reputation of a prophetess. She enjoyed the most intimate relations with God, with whom she held constant converse and in whose arms she was dissolved in love. Trances were frequent in which she lay as one dead, with arms outstretched and stiffened in the form of a cross, and on emerging from them she edified her hearers with wondrous accounts of her heavenly experiences. Although ignorant of Scripture she was said to be equal to the most learned theologians, and the rapturous fervor with which she expressed her love for Christ melted the hearts of all who listened to her. Sometimes she asserted that Christ was with her, sometimes that she herself was Christ or that she was the bride of Christ. Often she held conversations with the Virgin in which she spoke for both, and they would ceremoniously contend about prece- dence, as when passing through a doorway the Virgin would say " The bride of so great a son should go first," to which she would reply " If you had not borne Christ I would not have been his bride ; the mother of my spouse must have every honor." That these eccentricities of a morbid brain were as yet a novelty in Spain is seen in the discussion which they excited. Many denounced them as superstitious and demanded that they be suppressed. Unfortunately this was not done. The Beata had many zealous believers, among whom were the powers of the land. King Ferdinand encouraged the belief by visiting her and expressing his confidence in her inspira- tion. Cardinal Ximenes, who as inquisitor general had jurisdiction over the matter, argued that she was filled with divine wisdom. The controversy ran high and as the only mode of determining it the matter was referred to the Holy See for judgment. Julius II. appointed his legate, Giovanni Ruffo of Friuli and the Bishops of Burgos and Vich a com- mission to examine the Beata and to suppress the scandal if it were found to be merely female levity. What conclusion DEVELOPMENT OE MYSTICISM. 221 they reached as to the reality of her intercourse with God Peter Martyr could not ascertain, but as they discharged her without reproof, we may assume that they decided in her favor. 1 The precedent was of evil import and gave the Inquisition ample work in the future. Thus the possibility was admitted that a devotee could be filled with the Holy Spirit and be divinely illuminated, and that this condition could be attained by assiduous devotion to mental prayer and abstraction, accompanied by macera- tion, and exhibiting itself in ecstasies and trances. The admission was perilous, for the fortunate individual thus favored could evidently not deem himself subjected to the restraints of obedience ; he drew his inspiration from the same source as the Church itself, and if its commands con- flicted with those of his interior voice his allegiance was due to the latter. There were some, like St. Teresa de Avila, whose rare humility enabled them to reconcile one with the other, but there was danger on the one hand that self-asser- tion would follow the dictates of passion or inclination dis- guised as inspirations from God, or on the other that impostors might adopt a career affording them opportunity to acquire popular veneration and gratify their instincts. Of this we have an instance occurring soon after the affair of Piedrahita. Fray Antonio de Pastrana, custodian of the Franciscan province of Castile, reports to Cardinal Ximenes the misdeeds of a contemplative fraile of Ocaha who was "illuminated with the darkness of Satan. ' ' God had revealed to him that he shou'd engender on holy women a number of prophets who would reform the world ; but the worthy custo- dian put an untimely end to this promising method of reformation by incarcerating the alumbrado and subjecting 1 Petri Anglerii Epistt. 428, 431 (Ed. Elzevir. 1670, pp. 223, 225).— Llorente (Hist. Critique, I. 362) says that the Inquisition followed with an investiga- tion, but that she escaped through the favor of the king and the inquisitor general. His information however is evidently confined to the account in Peter Martyr which says nothing of this, and it is wholly unlikely. 222 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. him to so active a treatment that in a few days he acknowl- edged his error. 1 Thus we find mysticism and illuminism fairly planted in Spanish soil where they were to grow with such rank luxuri- ance, in both orthodox and heterodox directions. In the threatening rapidity of this growth it became important for the Church to differentiate accurately between orthodoxy and heterodoxy, but the task was by no means easy, for they faded imperceptibly into one another. The difficulty was increased by the fact that the policy of the Church was by no means consistent. What it praised at one time it persecuted at another. Santa Teresa and San Juan de la Cruz were canonized after undergoing tribulations more or less sharp for their opinions, and their canonization did not prevent their teachings and practices from being denounced as heretical in the person of Molinos, whose Quietism was scarce more exaggerated than that of Osuna, Teresa or Luis de Granada. The Abecedario spiritual of Osuna escaped animadversion by the censorship, while the Oracion y Meditation of Luis, though a work of comparatively moderated mysticism, was promptly prohibited.' 2 In this nebulous field of speculation, thus filled with heretical pitfalls, one cannot feel sure of accurately defining 1 Vicente de la Fuente, Historia Eclesiastica de Espana, III. 102 (Ed. 1855)- 2 The Abecedario wholly escaped condemnation in the Indexes of the six- teenth century; in that of Sotomayor (1640) only two unimportant passages are expurgated. Yet already in 1559 the Index of Valdes prohibits the works of Luis de Granada (Reusch, Die Indices, p. 224). In the Index of Quiroga (Ibid. p. 380) there is an attempt to explain this by saying that the books of authors highly reputed for piety, such as Francisco de Borja, Luis de Granada, Juan de Avila and others have been forbidden because writings have been falsely attributed to them, or heretics have interpolated them, or they contain matters intended in a Catholic sense which may be perverted by the enemies of the faith. The censors of Granada, indeed, objected to Luis de Granada's first work, telling him that he taught a singular doctrine, that he wished to establish too great a familiarity between God and man, and to make men saints on earth. — Giovanni da Capugnano, Vita del P. Luigi Granata. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 223 the boundaries of what, in the sixteenth century, was admitted to be orthodoxy, but, roughly outlined, it was something like this. Meditation, in which the mind was active, had always to the true mystic been an object rather of contempt — at most a stepping-stone from which to reach the loftier regions of contemplation, elevated beyond the reach of reason. 1 The foundation of the system was contemplation or " mental prayer" — recojimiento or the concentration and abstraction of the faculties, abstraction from all external things and con- centration upon God. To attain this efficacious means were found in the mortification of the flesh — fasting, scourging, the hair shirt and other devices familiar to ascetics. 2 The devotee was instructed to seek some dark place so that nothing external might divert the senses. He was to avoid thought and reason and was told to fix his mind on God or on the Passion of Christ. With practice, the intellect could thus be made wholly to disappear ; the soul threw off the fetters of the flesh ; filled with the intense longing of divine love it became conscious only of God ; will and intelligence were absorbed in the Divine Essence and the soul was reunited to its Creator. "Oh how ineffable," exclaims Francisco de Osuna, "is the calm in which God and the soul are united in love, when He comes down like a stream of peace, when words cease and the soul is silent, for it knows not what to ask when all its wishes are fulfilled ! Love sleeps not, but the intellect sleeps, and the will is at rest ; then, indeed, is the soul united to God and becomes one spirit with Him." 3 This is virtually the Quietism so severely condemned in Molinos and Madame Guyon. As Osuna says "Everything in nature tends to repose, which is the object and goal of all 1 Richardi de S. Victor Benjamin major Lib. I. c. iii. iv. — Geisonis de Mystica Theologia Practica, P. I. Consid. xxiv.— Molinos, Guide Spirituelle, Introd. No. 1. 2 Luis de Granada, Trattato dell' Oratione et della Meditatione. Tradotto per M. Vincenzo Buondi, Vinegia, 1561, cap. xxxi. p. 117. 3 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. xxi. cap. iii. fol. 2030. 224 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINA TI. things. In the same way man should seek for the quietude of his soul." 1 Luis de Granada, the most moderate of the Spanish mystics, tells us that the intellect and the will are to repose wholly in God : this is the most perfect state of con- templation, to which we should all earnestly aspire, for then the soul has reached its goal ; it no longer wanders in search of a greater fire of love, but enjoys the love acquired and reposes in it as the fulfilment of all its desires. 2 Osuna's greatest disciple, Santa Teresa, however, regards this quietude as one of the intermediate steps through which the soul ascends to union with God. At first, she tells us, there is an interior concentration felt in the soul, as though it possessed other senses than the external ones and had escaped the dis- turbing influence of the latter. In this stage perception and will are not lost, but they exist only to be filled with God. From this concentration generally comes internal quietude and peace ; the soul feels that it wants nothing ; talking, praying, meditating fatigues it ; it wishes only to love. Commonly this produces a slumber of the faculties, but they are not so absorbed or suspended that it can be called ecstasy, nor is it in any way Union. Often the soul knows that the will is united to God while the intellect and memory are free to work in His service. When there is Union of all the faculties it is very different ; then they can do nothing, for the understanding disappears. The will loves rather than perceives ; it does not perceive that it loves or what it does. " It seems to me," she says, "that there is no memory or thought, nor are the senses awake, so that the soul can be the more filled with what it enjoys. I cannot describe this state, but it appears to me the greatest grace that the Lord gives us on this spiritual path. ' ' 3 San Juan de la Cruz, who was the foremost disciple of Santa Teresa, and who ranks next to her as a spiritual guide, is equally emphatic in his description of 1 Abecedario spiritual, Trat. xxt. cap. i. fol. 198/'. 2 Oratione et Meditatione, cap. lxiv. p. 294. :) Santa Teresa, Libro de las Relaciones (Carta XVIII. of Palafox). DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 225 this supernal state. There is a trace of pantheism in his assertion that God exists in the souls of all his creatures ; when man brings his will into full conformity with that of God, his soul is transformed into God and becomes God by participation. 1 This giving of himself to God and of God to him, says Osuna, is so complete that God appears to be wholly in the man, and the man, if not enlightened by faith, might almost say that God is wholly included in him and there is nothing of God elsewhere. 2 All this approaches peril- ously near the teachings of Quietism from which deductions so abhorrent to the moral sense were drawn by the ingenuity of the Roman Inquisition, but Juan de la Cruz goes even further than this when he says that he who hates his soul shall save it ; those who devote themselves to virtue, prayer and mortification are in the wrong path ; they seek the luxury of converse with God and are really enemies of the Cross of Christ. What God wishes is the negation of all the faculties and the annihilation of the will. 3 1 Subida del Monte Carmelo, II. 5 (Obras espirituales, Barcelona, 1619, pp. 101, 103). In the Noche escura del Alma he describes the Union of the soul with God — O noche que juntasse El rostro recline sobre el amado. Amado con amada Ces6 todo y dexeme Amada en el amado transformada. Dexando mi cuydado * * '* * * * Entre las azucenas olvidado. Quedeme y olvideme (Obras, p. 351.) 2 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. XIII. cap. iv. fol. 123^. — " Este darse el hombre a Dios y Dios al hombre es una dadiva tan perfectamente dada que quando se da parece que Dios este en el hombre todo y enteramente ; quiero dezir que si la fe no alumbrasse al hombre que tiene a Dios quasi diria que en si se incluye Dios todo y que fuera de si no esta." The blessed Angela of Foligno, a mystic of the fourteenth century, had frequent visions of God in which he would say to her " I am thou and thou art I ;" but in 1744 we find Doctor Amort qualifying this as of questionable orthodoxy. — Amort de Revelationibus etc. Privatis, P. II. p. 198. 3 Subida del Monte Carmelo, II. 7 (pp. 109-11). Had the writings of San Juan de la Cruz been treated as harshly as those of the later Quietists he would have fared- as badly. The doctrine condemned 226 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. This rapturous spiritual intoxication was inculcated, not as an occasional indulgence, but as the main duty of life. If, says Osuna, you have any manual labor to perform, you must not on that account omit the recojimiento, but must practise it internally and externally as much as possible, and thus pro- gressively mortify yourself. Moreover, if this practice so grows upon you that you become unskilful in the things you have to do, and you forget them, and do not understand them as well as formerly, and find yourself unfitted for your external duties, so that you seem to have lost your human wits and cannot light a fire or kindle a taper or gather up crumbs, you must not be surprised and abandon the recoji- miento, for the soul passes through this state to become wise in all things. He adds that prelates and gentlemen should devote two hours a day to it, and that he has known great merchants who, in spite of their affairs, practised this holy abstraction and carried it to an extraordinary extent. 1 San Pedro de Alcantara shows to what degree these spiritual indulgences were abused when, in a manual intended for in Molinos was that the soul must abandon its will to God with the most perfect resignation. Then it listens to God and speaks with him as if it and he were the only ones in the world (Guide Spirituelle, Introd. No. 17). The torments and struggles through which it passes are the means which God uses for its purification. It should submit to them passively, abandoning itself to the will of God and making no effort itself (Ibid. Lib. 1. c. vii. No. 14). This, which was so rigorously and cruelly suppressed under the name of Quietism, had long passed unchallenged as one of the veriest commonplaces of mysticism. Molinos and Madame Guyon did not express it with any more clearness than Rulman Merswin in the fourteenth century (De IX. Rupibus Libellus, cap. xxviii.-xxxi. ap. H. Susonis Opera, Laur. Surio interpr. Colon. Agripp. 1588, pp. 403-12). Jer6nimo Gracian, the spiritual director of Santa Teresa, says of mental prayer : "Algunos la llaman contemplacion ; otros, quietud de esp'/ritu ; otros, morar dentro de si ; otros, centro del corazon ; otros, atencion interior, 6 centra de la voluntad." — Itinerario de la Perfeccion, cap. ix. g 1. 1 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. xv. cap. ii. fol. 137. Osuna is here speaking of what he calls general recojimiento, which was to be practised while attending to other duties. When the devotee shut himself up in dark- ness and solitude it was special recojimiento. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 227 general circulation among the people, he cautions his readers against excessive abandonment to these exercises. There must be lucid intervals in which the intellect is allowed to work or else the health suffers, which he says happens not infrequently to those who are immoderate. 1 This indicates the revenge taken by the body on the soul which thus tyrannically abused it. The balance between flesh and spirit could not be thus destroyed without disastrous effects on both. Osuna describes for us the physical results of this hyper-excitation of the nervous centres. In the divine abstraction all control over the limbs is lost, and when the devotee emerges he is as though crippled and unable to move. In many persons it was accompanied with involuntary gestic- ulations and with screams peculiarly loud and piercing, or with heavy groans which no self-control could stop. One devotee had his head so habitually bent backwards that in order to elude observation he would talk about the roof and its timbers as though he were intently considering them. The appetite failed and all food became tasteless. Healthful sleep was replaced with spiritual excitement. The novice was told that he should not take more than six hours of sleep a day, and that he should employ scourging or other efficacious means, if necessary, to keep himself awake, while one more advanced must content himself with five. The power of sleep thus was gradually lost ; perfected adepts customarily slept but three hours a day and their slumbers were uneasy and broken. There was one who confidentially told a friend that in seventeen years he had not slept as much as men are wont to do in four months. 2 San Pedro de Alcantara, indeed, for 1 S. Pedro de Alcantara, De la Oracion y Meditacion, I. xii. ; II. v. 2 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. VI. cap. iv. fol. 56; Trat. IX. cap. vi. fol. 91-2 ; Trat. XIII. cap. v. fol. 126a ; Trat. XV. cap. iii. fol. 1380. — All this was well understood by the older mystics. See Henry Herp's description of the crazy gesticulations and cries of the devotees who lost all control over themselves when flooded with divine love. — Specchio di Perfettione, P. III. cap. xli. (Venetia, 1676, p. 185). 228 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. forty years averaged not more than an hour and a half of sleep, and during this period he never lay down to rest. 1 We can, in fine, readily believe Santa Teresa when she tells us that the bodily agony which accompanied the perfected forms of contemplation was the severest that the human frame can endure.' 2 The mental condition thus superinduced was a veritable hysteria, assuming various forms, of which the most usual consisted in ecstasies and trances. Sometimes it manifested itself in complete insensibility, as in one case in which the devotee was found apparently lifeless in bed and only recov- ered while being arrayed in his shroud : he declared that he could have been cut in pieces without feeling it. 3 More com- monly the attack was one in which the soul seemed to leave the body, entering into converse with God and enjoying di- vine revelations. This, which has always been a prominent feature of advanced mysticism, was the development which principally attracted popular veneration, and we shall meet with so many cases of it that Santa Teresa's description of its subjective phenomena is not without interest for us. When mental prayer or abstraction reached the degree of Union with God, she tells us that there was ecstasy or trance, which might be of various degrees of intensity. When great, the hands were stiff and sometimes stretched rigidly like sticks ; the body remained in the position which it occupied when seized, either standing or kneeling ; the breath was shortened so that speech was lost, and the eyes were closed ; if it con- 1 Santa Teresa, Libro de su Vida, cap. xxvii. 2 Santa Teresa, Moradas, VI. i. — Brierre de Boismont {Des Hallucinations , 3e Ed. Paris, 1862, p. 305) divides ecstasy into physiological and pathological, but he admits the impossibility of strictly differentiating these two states, and also that complications result from intervening hysteria. The experiences of the Spanish mystics are not peculiar to them, but are to be found in all races and ages. Johann Engelbrecht, who had been transported to heaven, used to pass one, two, or three weeks without eating, and on one occasion never closed his eyes for nine months (lb. p. 304). - 1 Abecedario spiritual, Trat. IX. cap. vi. fol. 92^. DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 229 tinued for a space, the limbs ached on recovery. The soul was so filled with the joy of the Lord that it seemed to forget to animate the body. It was as though the Lord desired the soul to perceive what it enjoyed, and many things of the Divine Majesty were frequently revealed to it. In the desire to know and praise God the soul forgot itself, and the rap- ture and sweetness of this state so far transcended earthly pleasures that the soul habituated to these delights necessarily held the things of earth in small esteem. Teresa defines the difference between ecstasy and trance as consisting in the gradual fading away of outward consciousness in ecstasy ; the senses become extinguished and the soul lives wholly in God : while in trance there is a sudden seizure, with only a single notice given by the Divine Majesty in the depths of the soul, so quickly that it seems as though the Master snatched it. The soul appears to leave the body in order to fly to the arms of the Lord who bears it whither he wills. 1 With regard to the crucial matter of visions and revela- tions, Teresa tells us " Though I do not see with the eyes of my soul the persons of the Godhead who speak to me, yet I know them with a strange certainty. And though they pre- sent themselves as distinct persons, the soul knows them to be One God. I do not remember that it has seemed to me that the Lord speaks to me, but only his Humanity." Yet in her latest work she tells of having visions of Christ, fleeting as a lightning flash but leaving ineffaceable impressions, and in them He sometimes speaks and reveals the greatest secrets. 2 1 Santa Teresa, Libro de las Revelaciones, viii. (Carta XVIII. of Palafox). In the mystical language of all ages we hear much of the soul entering into itself and rising above itself. Teresa very sensibly rejects these efforts to describe the incomprehensible, which only darkened obscurity : " Dicen que el alma se entra dentro de si, y otros veces que sube sobre si : por este lenguaje no sabre yo aclarar nada." — Moradas, IV. iii. 2 Santa Teresa, Libro de las Relaciones, viii. (Carta XVIII. of Palafox).— Moradas, VI. ix. Cf. Carta cccxxxm. (Escritos, II. 288). This last assertion of Teresa's is not without importance, for, as will be seen hereafter, the Inquisition subsequently declared against visions of God. Yet Teresa's 1 1 230 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. On Easter eve, 1579, she had an ecstasy in which the Lord ordered her to give certain instructions to the Barefooted Carmelites, the Order which she was engaged in founding, and these she duly issued for their guidance. After her death her disciple, the Venerable Catalina de Jesus similarly had frequent intercourse with her, receiving commands which she transmitted to the provincial, and thus Teresa for awhile con- tinued to govern the Order from heaven. Teresa had no doubt as to the authenticity of her own revelations, but she wisely discouraged in others the habit of having them, and one of her post-mortem communications was forcibly directed against it. 1 In this caution Teresa merely echoed the opinion of all the wiser mystics, for visions and revelations were the besetting sin of the class and the beatas revelanderas became a nuisance, which, as we shall see, the Inquisition was obliged to repress severely. Francisco de Osuna had already argued that it was impossible for the soul imprisoned in the flesh to see God, who is pure spirit, and he broadly intimated his disbelief in the revelations which were so commonly bruited about by igno- rant enthusiasts for self-glorification. 2 The calm moderation of Luis de Granada was equally emphatic in warning the devotee against this prevailing weakness. He denounces these manifestations as an evidence and a cause of illusions writings are held to be inspired. Vicente de la Fuente says (Escritos de S. Teresa, I. 406) : "Que las obras de Santa Teresa sean inspirados no lo puede dudar ningun catolico, despues que la Iglesia lo ha declarada asi por sentencia del romano Pontifice en su espediente de beatificacion." It is interesting to compare these experiences with those of Emanuel Swedenborg, who in his ecstasies held continual converse with spirits and learned all the mysteries of the life to come. See his Arcana Ccelestia, T. I. pp. 65, 113, 192, 262, etc. (Tubingae, 1833). 1 Palafox, Obras, VII., 345, 365-98. 2 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. III. cap. ii. fol. 29-30. " Que por una poca de lumbre que an rescibido de Dios, o por algunas revelaciones a que dan mas credito que devrian se estienden en el hablar de Dios mucho mas que lo que deven ; no hablando para doctrinar a los otros sino para ser ellos tenidos en admiracion.'' DEVELOPMENT OF MYSTICISM. 231 and diabolical deceptions — "We need not fear to disobey God in refusing credence to them. If he wishes to reveal anything he will do so in a manner that admits of no doubt. ' ' 1 Padre Jeronimo Gracian, one of the most sensible disciples of Santa Teresa, tells us that his prayer to God was not to give him riches or honors or visions, revelations and miracles, through which men acquire the reputation of saints, 2 and he enumerates the desire for supernatural manifestations among the obstacles to perfection which the devotee must suppress. 3 Yet in spite of these warnings the fashion continued to spread. Visions and revelations became so much a matter of business that when Teresa's new Order of Barefooted Carmelites was torn with dissensions the leading beatas of the two factions had ample store of antagonistic revelations of the divine will wherewith to confound their adversaries. 4 They became simple weapons of partizan warfare. From this it was but a step to manufacture revelations said to have been vouchsafed to Santa Teresa respecting the independence of Portugal and the extinction of the Jesuits. 5 Public opinion had been edu- cated to the point that such things were politically useful. The power to work miracles was naturally not denied to those who stood in relations so intimate to God. In the bull of canonization of Santa Teresa, issued in 1622, Gregory XV. not only accepts as indubitable her visions and revela- tions, but tells us that Christ formally took her as his spouse ; that when receiving the sacrament she saw the body of Christ so perfectly that she in no way envied the blessed in heaven 1 Luis de Granada, De Oratione et Meditatione, cap. lvii. p. 272. Cf. S. Pedro de Alcantara, De la Oracion y Meditation, II. 5. Yet, as we shall see, this wise caution did not preserve Luis de Granada in his old age from falling a victim to the wiles of Maria de la Visitation. 2 Marmol, Vida del Padre Jeronimo Gracian, cap. xv. (Escritos de S. Teresa, II. 471). Yet Padre Gracian had frequent visions of Santa Teresa after her death, and communications from her (Ibid. cap. xvii. p. 478). 3 Itinerario de la Perfeccion, cap. v. § 2. 4 Vicente de la Fuente (Escritos de S. Teresa, II. p. xxix.). 5 Escritos de S. Teresa, I. 348 ; II. 537- 232 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. who enjoyed the beatific vision of God ; that during life she shone in miracles and cured the sick with a touch. At her death-bed the bystanders saw her already in glory : one beheld the bed surrounded with angels, another saw heavenly lights hovering over her, another witnessed figures in white garments entering her cell, another a white dove fly to heaven from her mouth, while a withered tree near the sanctified spot sud- denly burst into full bloom. After her death she appeared to a nun and said that she had not died of disease but of the intolerable fire of divine love. 1 In the communications which she received from God sometimes future events were revealed to her, and these all came duly to pass. That she should be lifted from the ground by the ardor of her devotion was an experience too usual with saints for her to escape it. Twice this occurred to her in church in spite of her efforts to pre- vent it ; then she prayed to God not to favor her in this manner and there were no more such manifestations. 2 Still we are told that when, in 1572, she summoned Juan de la Cruz to Avila as spiritual director of her convent del Encarnacion, and was discussing with him through the grille the mystery of the Trinity, both became so filled with divine ardor that they rose from the floor to the ceiling of the room. 3 When Juan de la Cruz celebrated mass his face shone with such glory that the eye could scarce rest upon it. 4 Bishop Yepes tells us that he found by experience that Teresa could read the thoughts and predict the future. She told him that at one time she had had almost incessant trances — the simple name of God would throw her into one. When writing she 1 Salazar, Anamnesis Sanctorum Hispanorum, T. V. p. 529. 2 Alban Butler, Vies des Saints, VII. 527, 544. 3 Heppe, Geschichte der quietistischen Mystik, p. 24. The gift of miracles was not vouchsafed .to all the perfect. Molinos tells us that there are many souls consecrated to God and rewarded with visions and revelations, but he does not grant them the power of prophecy and miracles which he bestows on others that bear the true cross with perfect humility and submission. — Guide Spirituelle, Lib. in. cap iii. No. 13. 4 Relacion sumaria de la Vida de Juan de la Cruz, \ iii. (Obras, p. 9). DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 233 would sometimes pass into an ecstasy and on recovering find three or four pages written unconsciously, which were evi- dently inspired. A continuance of this, she said, would have killed her, and for the last fourteen years of her life she ceased to have them, but then her existence was a continual prayer, and God was always present to her without her being in a state of ecstasy. 1 San Juan de la Cruz was equally gifted with the spirit of prophecy and the power of reading the heart. 2 It is necessary to understand these supernatural gifts, at- tributed by the Church to those who had reached the state of mystic perfection, in order to follow the effects of these teach- ings upon the development of popular beliefs. So shining an example as that of Santa Teresa was sure to produce a host of imitators, especially among women of impressionable temperament. It was no less certain to foster a crowd of impostors, and the task of distinguishing between those who merely deceived themselves and those who sought to deceive others was by no means easy, especially when every devotee who wrought herself up to ecstasies and trances was speedily surrounded by a legion of credulous disciples and greedy friars who exaggerated her marvels to the utmost, whether from local pride or from the speculative benefits accruing from skilful exploitation. DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. It might seem that these reveries and ecstasies were of small importance except to the individuals who thus found happiness in the annihilation of the body for the exaltation of the soul. At the most it could apparently only increase in some degree the superstition of the masses, who venerated the devotee as a being specially endowed with divine grace. Such had been 1 Escritos de Santa Teresa, T. I. pp. 567, 569-70. 2 Relacion sumaria, § v. (Obras, pp. 13 sqq.). 234 MYSTICS AND 1LLUMINATI. the feeling of the Church during the middle ages, so long as mysticism was uncontaminated with pantheism, and the im- munity enjoyed by the Beata of Piedrahita, after an investi- gation by a papal commission, shows that such exuberances of the devotional spirit were looked upon with a favorable eye. Still there were dangers lurking in the vagaries possible to the half-crazed brains of enthusiasts, as we have seen in the case of the contemplative fraile of Ocana. The prevalent vice-of "solicitation" — the seduction of spiritual daughters in the confessional — might assume the guise of obedience to inward commands from on high. Still more threatening was the risk that the assumption of perfectibility, gained by mental prayer or contemplation, might tend to revive the old doctrine of impeccability. This, when persecution came, was assumed to be the belief which principally distinguished the Alumbrcuio or Illumine, from the orthodox mystic. It facilitated the exciting of a healthy popular odium by attri- buting the foulest excesses to the initiated, and it was always the point to which the investigations of the Inquisition were specially directed. Even mystics recognized as orthodox came perilously near affording grounds for inferring claims to impeccability. When San Juan de la Cruz, about 1565, was consecrated priest, at his first mass he prayed for the grace that he should in future be preserved from mortal sin, and that for the sins of the past he might render full satisfac- tion during life, when the ardent flood of devotion which he thereupon felt overcome him was a proof to him that his peti- tion was granted. 1 Santa Teresa declares that souls which reach the highest grade will not commit mortal sins, though they may inadvertently commit venial ones, and be tormented with the fear of being in mortal sin without knowing \\.} 1 Heppe, p. 23. 2 Moradas, VII. iv. — " Digo pecados veniales, que de los mortales que ellas entiendan estan libres, aunque no seguras que ternan algunos que no entienden, que no les sera pequeno tormento." DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 235 Practically, moreover, there was an assumption of impecca- bility in the belief that the will of the perfected adept was at one with the will of God, and that he thus was directly under divine guidance. Francisco de Osuna explains the name of union given to mental prayer because in it man be- comes one spirit with God, through an interchange of wills, where the man wills nothing but what God wills and God does not depart from the will of man, so that in all things they are one. 1 Francisco Ortiz was no Alumbrado, but he based his defence before the Inquisition on the assumption that he was so completely under the influence of God that he could not be a heretic and that the Inquisition must be wrong — propositions which the inquisitors had no hesitation in qual- ifying as illusory, false, injurious to the Holy Office and savor- ing of heresy. 2 Archbishop Carranza teaches that the Holy Ghost becomes incorporated in the soul of the just man, banishing the spirits of wrath, avarice, pride, lust, and the rest ; that he participates in the divine nature and becomes by grace what Christ was by nature. 3 This indicates what was the crowning error of the mystics, what led to the dreaded name of Alumbrados or Illuminati 1 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. VI. cap. ii. fol. 53a. — " Llamase tambien union porque llegandose el hombre desta manera a Dios se haze un spirito con el por un trocamiento de voluntades que ni el hombre quiere otra cosa de lo que Dios quiere ni Dios se aparta de la voluntad del hombre, mas a todo son a una como las cosas que perfectamente estan unidas." 2 Eduard Bcihmer, Francisca Hernandez und Frai Francisco Ortiz, Leipzig, 1865, p. 163. 3 Comentarios, P. I. Art. 7, cap. iii. fol. 113^.—" A todos estos espiritus es contrario el Espiritu sancto y k todos ios alanca de la persona donde el entra. A los furiosos haze mansos y a los avaros liberates, a los deshonestos haze castos, a los mentirosos haze hablar verdad." *'Se haze una copula y una union entre el Espiritu sancto y el nuestro que por virtud del dicho ayuntamiento se hazen una cosa el Espiritu sancto y nuestra alma . lo que tiene Jesu Christo por naturaleza tenemos nosotros por gracia." — Ibid. cap. v. fol. 116&. This was by no means original with the Spanish mystics. Those of Ger- many in the fourteenth century taught the same doctrine.— Jundt, Amis de Dieu, Paris, 1879, pp. 106-7. 236 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. to designate those whom the Church denounced as heretics. It assumed that there was an interior voice from God, or an illumination of the soul by the Holy Ghost, which served as an infallible guide for thought and action. This was the Light zvithin of George Fox and his followers, and the ex- travagances of the early Quakers show to what disagreeable follies it might lead. Luis de Granada tells his disciples to let themselves be guided by the Holy Spirit, which knows what we need and will inspire and draw us to it. 1 To this interior light, derived from the union of the Holy Ghost with the soul, Carranza ascribed the power of understanding crea- tion more perfectly than by any natural science and of dis- cerning infallibly between points of faith, which was claim- ing the right of private judgment in a manner liable at any moment to lead to heresy. 2 It thus substituted a higher law and a supreme test for the obedience which was held to be the plainest duty of the believer in matters of faith and conduct. Even the humility of Santa Teresa could revolt when thus sus- tained. Before her spiritual gifts were recognized she was or- dered not to take communion so often and to perform only the devotions prescribed by the Carmelite Rule : for two years she obeyed and was a prey to bitterness inconsolable, till one day when almost desperate she heard a voice — "My daughter, fear not, it is I who will not abandon thee." This at once filled her with interior light, restored her peace and gave her strength to maintain against all men the truth of her confi- dence in God. 3 In fact, San Pedro de Alcantara told her that she ought not to ask the opinions of theologians con- cerning her acts, for the guidance of God must of course be 1 Oratione et Meditatione, cap. xxix. 2 Comentarios, P. I. Art. 8, cap. v. fol. 121a. — " Por esta lumbre sabemos lo que avemos de creer en las cosas de la religion, sabemos distinguir las cosas de la fe de las que no lo son. Por este don tenemos conocimiento en todas las cosas criadas mas claro y mas limpio que se tiene por ninguna ciencia natural." 3 Alban Butler, Vies des Saints, VII. 536. DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 237 right. 1 One of her chief disciples, Padre Jeronimo Gracian, describes this internal illumination as though a book were opened in the centre of the soul where with a single glance is read what is required ; or sometimes it comes in the form of words internally spoken by God. 2 In the group of mystics which gathered around Santa Teresa, from which the re- formed barefooted Carmelite Order was developed, it seems to have been a matter of course to apply to God for instruc- tions in all doubtful matters, and the replies appear to have been unequivocal. 3 All this was sufficiently threatening to established orthodoxy, with its fixed and intricate theology and its political structure based upon implicit obedience, but this was by no means the only obnoxious feature of mystic theory and practice. The authority of the Church over the souls and purses of men was 1 Escritos de S. Teresa, T. I. p. 551.— "Y en los consejos evangelicos no hay que tomar parecer si sent bien seguirlos 6 no, 6 si son observables 6 no, porque es ramo de infidelidad, porque el consejo de Dios no puede dejar de ser bueno." 2 Marmol, Vida del Padre Jeronimo Gracian, cap. xvi. (Escritos de S. Teresa, II. 475). » Escritos de S. Teresa, I. 563.— In 1581, a year before her dealh, she writes : " Las hablas interiores no se han quitado, que cuando es menester me da nuestro Senor algunos avisos (Carta CCCXXXIII. Ibid. II. 288). The power of self-deception among the mystics was unlimited. Padre Gracian was the spiritual director of Teresa, to whom she was bound to obedience. He relates that once they were debating whether they should go to Madrid or to Seville to found a convent of the new Order, when he told her to consult God; she did so for three days and reported that God ordered them to Madrid. Nevertheless he told her to go to Seville and she assented. Then he asked her why she preferred his opinion to God's will and she replied that faith told her that what he would order was the will of God and she had not the same faith in her own revelations. This is perhaps explained by his adding that it often happened that they would differ as to affairs ; he would change his mind over night and on telling her so in the morning she would smile and say that she had said to God, " Lord, if thou wishest that to be done change the mind of my director and make him order it so that I may not disobey him " (Ibid. I. 555). Of course in this region of morbid psychology it would be idle to expect consistency, yet one would hardly look for so emphatic a denial of free-will. II* 2 3 8 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. founded upon the power of the keys, upon the control which it possessed over salvation, upon the necessity of its ministrations to secure the pardon of the sinner, on its position as a medi- ator between God and man, and on its elaborate system of so-called good works through which the penitent could earn absolution for his offences. All this was seriously threatened by the theory of the mystics. However much they might protest undiminished reverence for the prescribed observances of re- ligion, there was a more or less conscious practical denial of their necessity. Their whole system was based upon mental prayer — contemplative revery or recojimiento —and everything else inevitably became in comparison of small importance. San Pedro de Alcantara tells us that oral prayer is only a stepping-stone to the higher mysteries of contemplation and is to be abandoned when the latter is attained. 1 Osuna says that they who read or pray aloud or listen even with undivided attention to devotions uttered by others deceive themselves when they think by these pious works to attain that which only comes from the internal operation of the heart ; such things may help in some degree, but they reach only a little way, and if we must forego either it is incomparably better to choose the self-communion of mental prayer. 2 It is well, he declares, to endure labor and fatigue like St. Paul, to med- itate like Solomon on the pains of hell, to perform like Martha works of mercy for the poor, to visit the afflicted like Elisha, and to go on pilgrimages to holy places, to fast with the disciples of St. John, but those who seek for higher things will practise the mental prayer of recojimiento, like our Lord who sought the desert to pray in secret to his Father. 3 Oral prayer, indeed, is a positive injury to those who are advanced in mental prayer; it is true that the monk must 1 De la Oracion y Meditacion, I. xii. 2 Abecedario spiritual, P. III. Trat. VI. cap. ii. fol. 52^. 3 Ibid. Trat. VI. cap. i. fol. 51a. This is simply a repetition of the doctrines of the medieval mystics, taught as early as the thirteenth century. See B. Fr. Bertholdi a Ratispona Sermones, Monachii, 1882, pp. 29, 44-5. DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 239 not omit that which is prescribed in his Rule, but he should postpone it to a time when he is not engrossed in interior devotion ; those who prescribe an Ave Maria as a penance for a trifling fault are to be avoided. 1 San Juan de la Cruz is quite as emphatic : church observances and the use of images and places of worship are merely for the beginner, like the toys which amuse children ; those who are advanced must lib- erate themselves from such habits, which to them are only a distraction from internal contemplation ; they may indeed incidentally use images and churches, but their souls rest in God and forget all that appertains to the senses. 2 San Pedro de Alcantara is not so outspoken, but in his enumeration of the nine aids to devotion he significantly omits all reference to the observances of the Church, though he recommends mortification of the flesh. 3 Mortification, however, may be regarded as an open question. San Juan de la Cruz, after founding the Carmelite house of Duruelo in 1568, lived in the austerest manner, with frequent use of the discipline and wearing not only a hair shirt but a chain of which each link had a sharp point to tear the flesh. 4 It is related of Luis de Granada that after death he was found to have worn an iron chain so long that it had imbedded itself in the flesh. 5 In this he only followed his own teachings. Perhaps, he says, the greatest of all dangers is that those who have tasted the inestimable virtues of prayer and have learned that all spirit- ual life depends upon it, imagine that it suffices alone for sal- vation and neglect the other virtues. But as prayer is a good means to acquire mortification, so mortification and the other virtues are steps to acquire the perfection of prayer, and one 1 Abecedario Spiritual, P. III. Trat. XIII. cap. iii. fol. 1220. 2 Subida del Monte Carmelo, III. 38.— He had already (ill. 14) denounced the Lutheran heresy of denying the sanctity of images, but he cautioned the mystic to regard them only as a means of remembering God and the saints. 3 De la Oracion y Meditacion, II. ii. 4 Heppe, Geschichte der quietistischen Mystik, p. 23. 5 Giovanni da Capugnano, Vita del P. Luigi Granata. 240 MYSTICS AND ILL UMJNA TI. is impossible without the other. 1 As a rule, however, morti- fication was only the preliminary training. The medieval mystics had taught that it was no longer requisite for the perfected adept, 2 and it was divinely revealed to the venerable mother, Francisca Lopez of Valencia, that a quarter of an hour of recojimiento was of higher worth than five days spent in ascetic practices — hair shirts, scourging, fasting, and sleep- ing on planks — for these only mortify the flesh while it puri- fies- the soul. 3 Even works of charity were to be avoided. Luis de Granada, like Berthold of Ratisbon, warns us that the most dangerous of all temptations in the spiritual life is the desire to do good to others; a man's first duty is to himself, and this he must not endanger in the effort to save others or allow the indiscreet ardor of charity to injure himself. 4 The most that the mystic would concede with regard to church observances was that exterior ceremonies and sacri- fices derived all their virtue from the spirit in which they were performed. Without love and faith they were a weari- ness to God ; simple faith and charity were better than all sacrifices and ceremonies. 5 Even the Cardinal Archbishop 1 Oratione et Meditatione, cap Ixii. p. 285. 2 Jundt, Amis de Dieu, p. 83. 3 Molinos, Guide Spirituelle, Lib. I. chap. xii. No. 80. 4 Oratione et Meditatione, cap. Iv. p. 242. — Cf. S. Pedro de Alcantara, De la Oracion, II. iv. All mysticism was not thus selfish and self-centred. Nicholas Estius lays great stress on trie practice of all the virtues as a means of attaining union with God, and teaches that the aspirant should be as anxious for the salvation of his fellows as for his own (Exercitia Spiritualia, Exercit. vii. x.). Spanish mysticism was of a peculiarly exalted and uncompromising character. 5 Carranza, Comentarios, P. ill. Obra III. cap. iii. fol. 429a. — " Finalmente dos cosas sabemos aqui de Dios. La una que los sacrificios y las ceremonias exteriores hechas sin charidad y sin fe no plazen a. Dios antes le cansan. La otra que plaze mas k Dios la misericordia y la fe sola que no el sacrificio esterior ni la ceremonia." When mysticism fell under the ban we can understand the expurgation of Don Quixote — " Las obras de Charidad que se hazen floxamente no tienen merito ni valen nada." — Indice de Sotomayor, p. 794. This shows the change which had taken place within half a century. The DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 241 Manrique, the inquisitor general, who was somewhat inclined to mysticism, admitted to Osuna that fasting was as nothing compared to love and oral prayer was as nothing in com- parison with contemplation. 1 This simplification of religious observance carried with it an unacknowledged simplification of religious belief. The mystic accepted as a matter of course the traditional dogmas of the Church. He never dreamed of disputing them, but the niceties of speculative theology, which formed the pride of the schools, were to him unattractive and unimportant. In fact, his attitude to them was rather one of careless contempt. It could scarce be otherwise with those who sedulously discour- aged thought and whose conception of man's highest duty was the cultivation of mental unconsciousness — self-abandon- ment to a revery of divine love in which the intellect was trained to remain wholly quiescent. This attitude towards the stupendous and intricate structure of belief elaborated by the schoolmen was not shown by any denial of the truth of its details but by assuming it to be unworthy of consideration. Mystical theology, says Osuna, is higher than speculative or scholastic theology ; it needs no labor or learning or study, only faith and love and the grace of God. 2 When Maria Cazalla was tried by the Inquisition as an alumbrada, one of. great canonist, Azpilcueta, tells us in 1577 that prayer is worthless unless uttered in lively faith and ardent charity. Innumerable priests, he says, were consigned to purgatory or hell on account of their prayers, each one of which was at least a venial sin; and he adds that many works reputed to be good were sins, either venial or mortal (Azpilcueta de Oratione, cap. viii. Cf. cap. xx. No. 36). Yet he was no mystic. For his preference of vocal prayer to mental see cap. xvii. No. 39-41, cap. xx. No. 61. In fact he condemns pro- longed mental prayer on account of the extravagances to which it led (cap. xviii. No. 104, c. xxii. No. 38), and he teaches that the Lord's Prayer contains everything that should be asked of God (Manuale Confessariorum, cap. xi. No. 1). As he was at the time papal penitentiary his opinions may be regarded as authoritative. 1 Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, p. 310. 2 Abecedario Spiritual, P. III. Trat. VI. c. ii. fol. 52.— Compare Molinos, Guide Spirituelle, Lib. III. chap. xvii. No. 163-4. 242 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. the accusations against her was that she and her brother, Bishop Cazalla, ridiculed x\quinas and Scotus and the scho- lastic theology. 1 During the middle ages, and as long as the peaceful supremacy of the Church remained unchallenged, all this might be passed over as the harmless eccentricity of a few enthusiasts. Even on the eve of the Reformation Erasmus derided as a new kind of Judaism the observance of exterior works without regard to their interior significance 2 ; he lavished his contempt upon the schoolmen and poured ridi- cule to his heart's content on pilgrimages and relics and indulgences, and though he had ample store of controversies with angry friars and theologians, the princes of the Church enjoyed his satire and his books were circulated everywhere without hindrance. It was different when the Lutheran revolt threatened to revolutionize Europe and no man could say how far the movement might extend. Especially the new 1 Melgares Marin, Procedimientos de la Inquisicion, Madrid, 1886, II. 28. 2 " Verum Christum visibilibus rebus, ob visibilia colere, et in his fastigium religionis ponere, hinc sibi placere, hinc alios damnare, his instupescere, atque adeo immori, et (ut semel dicam) his ipsis a Christo avocari, quae ad hoc tantum adhibentur ut ad eum conducant, hoc est nimirum a lege evangelii, quae spiritalis est, desciscere, et in Judaismum quendam recidere Huccine tot annorum laboribus denique perventum est ut pessimus sis et optimus tibi videare ut pro Christiano sis Judaeus mutis tantum elementis serviens Postremo ne Judaico more certis quibusdam observa- tionibus tanquam magicis ceremoniis Deum demereri velimus docet [Paulus] eatenus opera nostra grata esse Deo quatenus ad charitatem referuntur. . . . . Concipiamus laborem et pariamus iniquitatem : semper serviamus trepidi atque humiles ceremoniis Judaicis." — Militias Christianas Enchiridion, canon V. (Ed. Argentina, 1515, pp. 58, 59, 61, 69). In the later editions much of this portion is rewritten, without changing its purport. The whole of this, embracing some twelve quarto pages, is expurgated in the 1640 Index of Sotomayor, p. 284. The only wonder is that the sensitive- ness which struck out the sentence in Don Quixote did not also expunge the eloquent passage, leading up to the prohibited portion, in which Erasmus dwells with all his force and acuteness, on the worthlessness of external observances unaccompanied by charity and amendment. These observances are useful he says for the vulgar, and the perfected Christian will endure them for the sake of example. DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 243 dogma of Justification by Faith gave added importance among the conservatives to the necessity of pious works ; the latter became an outer line of entrenchments which must be fortified and defended against the enemy at all hazards. Yet in 1527 Osuna boldly taught that the only requisite for justification was that the sinner should be annihilated through humility and be re-created in a state of grace, and this annihilation must comprehend the good works which he may have per- formed, knowing them to be useless. 1 Moreover, the mystic theory which taught that man could exalt his soul to union with God brought the Creator and the created into direct relations with each other and dispensed with intermediaries. Mysticism still believed in the seven sacraments and in tran- substantiation — indeed the mystics were overfond of frequent communion and even were accustomed to take several "forms" or wafers, assuming that they thus enjoyed en- hanced advantage — but when innovation was in the air and errors were sprouting everywhere, there was no saying how soon those who believed themselves under the special guid- ance of the Holy Ghost might learn to dispense with the ministrations of priesthood and might dispute the power of the keys. The system which brought man face to face with God diminished the importance of the mediator, a first step of which the logical conclusion was his final expulsion. It was an approach to Lutheranism and to justification by faith — the mystic was a Lutheran in posse, and though he might still profess obedience to the Holy See it was a profession merely. In the mystical manuals it is noteworthy how slender are the references to papal authority and how com- pletely indulgences are ignored as a means of salvation. It was perfectly natural that in the trial of Maria Cazalla in 1 Abecedario Spiritual, P. III. Trat. XIX. cap. iii. fol. 183a. — " Y assi para la justificacion del pecador no es menestra otra cosa sino que este anichilado por humildad y no contradiga por pecado. Y assi de no nada sera recreado y sacado al ser de gracia . . . . y esta anichilacion ha de ser aun en las buenas obras morales que hiziere conociendo ser inutiles," 244 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. 1532 she should be formally accused by the prosecuting officer of the Inquisition as a believer in the errors of Luther and the Alumbrados. 1 In this, as in the case of the vernacular Scriptures and the censorship of the press, the Lutheran revolt changed the aspect of affairs and the attitude of the Church towards those who wandered from the beaten track. Before 151 7 inde- pendence of thought and speech could be condoned as a matter of little moment, like the licence which an absolute sovereign can allow to a contented people in time of peace. After the German outbreak had gathered headway the Church was in the face of the enemy ; it virtually proclaimed a state of siege and invoked martial law for the suppression of insub- ordination. As regards the mystics the situation is shown in the trial of Francisco Ortiz by the Inquisition in 1531, when he was called upon to retract the proposition that the greatest of truths is that he who eats with greater love is more worthy than he who fasts with less. This was qualified as not false in itself but as tending to the disregard of penitential works at a time when many heresies were arising against the. necessity of penance. 2 This sensitive opportunism was inevitable, and practices which had passed unchallenged for centuries were called in question when experience showed to what disagree- able results their development might lead. The extrava- gances of the Anabaptists in 1534-5 afforded a further warning as to the necessity of repressing mystic ardor before it should become uncontrollable and spread like a fierce con- tagion among the masses. Mystic writers like Hendrik Herp and Dionysius Rickel, who had long been regarded as models 1 Melgares Marim, Procedimientos de la Inquisicion, II. 86, 88, 90. 2 Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, p. 159. — " Propositio licet in se non falsa videtur dare occasionem cessandi ab operibus pcenitentiae occasione hujus temporis in quo multte haereses insurgunt contra actus pcenitentise." Another proposition of similar import is characterized as " male sonans, in his temporibus maxime, et periculosa'' (Ibid.). DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 245 for imitation, were either prohibited wholly or their books were only allowed after careful expurgation. 1 The process of repression was a slow and intermittent one, of which the most noteworthy characteristic was its incon- sistency. The Inquisition, in fact, had no easy task in the duty which was thus thrust upon it. The mystics were multi- plying rapidly ; they claimed to be obedient children of the Church and in general their tenets had long been accepted as orthodox ; their holiness of life and the miraculous powers ascribed to them won for them intense popular veneration. They could not be condemned in mass without including in the sentence a long line of saints who had taught the same principles and followed the same practices. Yet it was impossible that such a development of mystic ardor should occur without some of the devotees pushing their extrava- gance into new directions and affording opportunity for repression without incurring the appearance at least of con- demning orthodox doctrines. It was equally impossible that popular veneration, so easily aroused, should not stimulate impostors who by claiming peculiar graces traded upon the superstition of those around them. The first class became known as Alumbrados or Illuminati, the second as Embusteros or swindlers, and the Inquisition set vigorously to work to suppress the one and to detect the other. It is not easy at this distance of time and with imperfect records to formulate a principle which may have guided the Holy Office in its dealings with these offenders, except that it looked with suspicion upon them all ; that it was always ready to prose- cute them, and that it felt its duty to be the suppression of mysticism in general. If some eluded its. grasp and if others escaped from its hands after tribulations more or less severe, to be subsequently enrolled in the catalogue of saints, one cannot help thinking that sometimes more depended on the temperament of the judges and on their methods than on the 1 Reusch, Die Indices, pp. 233, 239, 486. 246 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. orthodoxy or good faith of the accused. When the inquisitor was resolved on conviction, the means at his disposal were adequate, as a rule, to accomplish the desired result. Accu- sation was easy from enemies and rivals, whose names were sacredly kept secret, and there were few who could resist the wearing torture of years of hopeless imprisonment or the persuasive application of the jarra de aqua in the water torture. When the annual Edict of Denunciations described the signs which the Inquisition had come to attribute to the Alumbrados everyone knew how to shape an accusation and the character of evidence requisite to support it. In the early trials the matters alleged against the accused take a wide range, showing how vague was the conception of the errors attributed to the dreaded mystics. Thus in the accusation drawn up against Maria Cazalla, in 1532, she was declared to disbelieve in transubstantiation ; that she ridi- culed those who sought God in temples of stone and not in men who are living temples, and those who ornamented churches thinking thereby to please God ; that she declared confession to be a waste of time and that but for public opinion she would take the sacrament without it ; that she laughed at those who heard mass frequently ; that she said there were much higher things than the Passion of Christ for the contemplation of the devout, and that prayers, fa-ting, scourging, visiting the churches, reverencing images and other such acts were imperfect things to be held in light esteem ; that she defended Luther and depreciated scholastic theology, saying that Christ was lost in its sophisms, while she exalted Erasmus as an evangelist who ought to be canonized ; that she attributed more authority to Isabel de la Cruz, a con- demned alumbrada, than to St. Paul ; that she denied free- will ; that she called religious ceremonies Judaism ; that she valued as naught the papal bulls and indulgences, stigma- tizing them as purchased Christianity; that she regarded the religious Orders as all flesh and ceremonial ; that she laughed at the sermons of the preachers ; that she regarded DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 247 exterior acts of worship as imperfections ; that she did not believe there had been such persons as Magdalen or the three Maries, or that St. Anna was married three times ; that it was a mortal sin to desire any worldly good for the love of God ; that when on her knees, at the elevation of the host, she kept her hands under her mantle and her eyes on the ground or looking at the entrance door ; that she held mar- riage to be a higher state than virginity, and said that she had conceived her children without pleasure and that she cared for them no more than for those of her neighbors ; that as a teacher and dogmatizer of the Alumbrados she had pub- licly taught these things, saying that exterior acts of adora- tion, prayer and humiliation are imperfect and to be rejected ; that she defamed the Holy Office, saying that it did not proceed rightly or understand the Alumbrados. 1 Francisco Ortiz, whose trial occurred at the same time, was called upon to retract a list of sixty-three errors. Many of these related to matters personal to his own case, but among those of more general significance may be enumerated his ascribing to a beata then under trial the power of working miracles and that she was the bride of Christ ; his claiming to be under divine guidance and that the grace and strength which God had bestowed upon him while in prison proved that he was not in mortal sin ; that he could not recant what his conscience told him to be true ; that he belittled externalities and ceremo- nies ; that he could have certainty from divine evidence that he was not under demonic illusion ; that the feelings of his conscience were sufficient to prove that he was not a heretic or a mortal sinner ; that the goodness of God would not permit him to fall into error while he prayed so earnestly to be preserved from it ; that God is in the souls of the righteous more completely than in the Eucharist. In the long enumer- ation of his errors the three noteworthy points are the under- estimate of external works, the assertion of the right of 1 Melgares Marin, II. 79-88. 248 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA IT. private judgment, springing from conviction of direct rela- tions with God and leading to disobedience, and the veneration, amounting almost to worship, paid to certain miracle-working women, in whom the mystics recognized special divine gifts and whom they characterized as brides of Christ — a feature which we shall see as a constant factor in Spanish belief, from the Beata of Piedrahita to the present time. 1 In these cases there is no allusion to the claim of impecca- bility. Of this, a dogma so peculiarly calculated to excite popular odium, we hear much but see little. It became, however, in the Inquisition, one of the chief characteristic signs whereby to distinguish between the orthodox, mystic and the Alumbrado. Occasionally, doubtless, it was em- ployed by an unchaste priest to seduce his spiritual daughters, but I am inclined to think that as a rule it was a figment of popular rumor and that its acknowledgment was extorted by in- tolerable torture. 2 Another distinguishing error related to the control of the thoughts while engaged in mental prayer. As to this the mystics were divided into two schools. One of these held, as we have seen above, that all thought was to be excluded, even pious thought, and this, although taught by the most orthodox mystics, was one of the errors specified in the final sentence of Francisco Ortiz. 3 The other practised a variety of recojimiento known as dejamiento or abandonment, in which the soul abandoned itself to God and allowed free course to whatever thoughts might suggest themselves to the mind — even if unhallowed the devotee was not to dismiss them, for the Lord sent them to purify the soul, if the will did not consent to them. 4 The two schools were at this time 1 Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, pp. 153-68. 2 In the trial of Ortiz there was hearsay evidence (lb. p. 28) that he had said that Francisca Hernandez had reached such a stage of perfection that chastity was unnecessary to her, but the Inquisition seems to have attached no weight to this. 3 Bohmer, p. 174. 4 Bohmer, pp. 17, 20. DANGERS OF MYSTICISM. 249 known as those of Guadalajara and Pastrana, the former being recojidos and the latter dejados} The quietism attributed to Molinos may be assumed to have found its origin in the dejados? About this time the Inquisitor General Manrique issued orders to the inquisitors to add to the annual Edict of Faith or of Denunciation whatever they thought best suited to lead to the detection of the Alumbrados. 11 This shows that as yet there was no generally accepted catalogue of errors and prac- tices attributed to them. When in 1568 the Edict assumed the perfected form which it long retained, there was a section devoted to the Alumbrados which was modified from time to time as new tenets were attributed to them. From its final shape we learn that they were considered to teach that men- tal prayer is of divine command and accomplishes all that is requisite ; that prayer is a sacrament hidden under the acci- dents ; that mental prayer alone is of value, while oral prayer is unimportant ; that the servants of God are not required to work or to perform manual labor, or to obey their superiors in anything that may interfere with mental prayer and con- templation ; that they speak ill of the sacrament of matri- mony ; that no one can attain virtue save their own disciples ; that no one can be saved without using their form of prayer and confessing to them ; that certain ardors and tremblings and faintings which they suffer are signs of God's love, by which they know themselves to be in a state of grace and to possess the Holy Ghost ; that the perfected have no need to perform virtuous works ; that on reaching a certain stage of 1 Melgares Marin, II. 53. 2 This question as to evil thoughts assumed an immense importance in the condemnation of Molinos. It was a doctrine handed down from the earlier mystics that such thoughts were a means of lifting the soul to God. Henry Suso says: " Quoties pie Domine teter hie spiritus aut alii quivis ex eorum numero ejusmodi nefarias ac execrandas cogitationes mini invito insusuraverint, toties deliberato animo jucundissima ac flagrantissima tibi ex me loco illorum laus exhibita sit in aevum sempiternum." — Susonis Dialogi cap. xxv. (Opp. Colon. Agripp. 1588, p. 158). 3 Llorente, Hist. Critique, II. 3. 250 MVS TICS AND ILL UMINA TI. perfection the Divine Essence and the mysteries of the Trinity can be seen ; that the Holy Ghost directly governs those who live in this fashion, and that this interior inspiration is to be followed in all things; that the worshipper is to close his eyes at the elevation of the host ; that the perfected ought not to look at holy images or to listen to sermons. 1 1 The French version in Llorente (Hist. Critique, II. 3) is carelessly rendered, and the date is given as 1558. The Spanish edition (III. 156) of his book is more correct. Paramo i,De Orig. Officii S. Inquis. pp. 626-7) gives a Latin version, showing that the same form was used at least to the close of the century. The earliest version of the Edict with which I have met is an original issued in Mexico, July 17, 1579, which I owe to the kindness of General Riva Palacio. This differs so greatly from the later recensions that I copy the portion devoted to the alumbrados. The whole edict is much more crude in form and lacks the arrangement of the subsequent ones. " O si sabeis que algunas personas vivas 6 difuntas ayan dicho y afirmado que sola la oracion mental esta en precepto divino y con ella se cumple con todo lo demas, y que la oracion bocal ymporta muy poco, y que los sierbos de dios no an de travajar ni ocuparse en exercicios corporales, y que no se a de obedecer d perlado ni a padre ni superior en quanto mandaren cosa que estorve las oras de su oracion mental y contemplacion, 6 que ayan dicho palabras sintiendo mal del Sacramento del matrimonio, y que los perfectos no tienen necesidad de hazer obras virtuosas, 6 que alguna 6 algunas personas ayan aconsejado generalmente a otras que hagan votos de no se casar, persuadiendoles que no entren en religion, sintiendo mal de las religiones, 6 diziendo que las siervas de dios an de resplandecer viviendo en el siglo fuera de religion, 6 que algunas personas ayan pedido a otras la obediencia y aviendosela dado ayan mandado a. las personas que la dieron que no hagan cosa alguna aunque sea obra pia y virtuosa y de precepto sin su licencia y mandado, y que algunas personas ayan dicho y afirmado que aviendo llegado a cierto punto de perfeccion no pueden ver ymagines santas ni oir sermones ni la palabra de dios, 6 que algunas personas ayan ensenado la dicha mala doctrina 6 parte della encomendando el secreto." This form must have been modified soon afterwards. A copy of the edict used in Mexico in 1588 (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.), one in Sardinia, without date (MSS. of Royal Library of Copenhagen, No. 214 fol.) and a printed copy in the Bodleian Library (Arch Seld. A. Subt. 15) are all sub- stantially in accord with each other, and agree nearly with the Spanish version of Llorente, though the language of the latter has apparently been revised to render it more elegant. The only difference in sense of any importance is in the clause concerning the guidance of the Holy Ghost, which in the MSS. is PERSECUTION. 251 In this enumeration of Alumbrado errors it is observable that there is no direct allusion to the doctrine of impecca- bility which was the most serious charge brought against Illu- minism, or to the indecency and licentiousness which subse- quently became the chief object of inquisitorial investigation in these cases. It is further noteworthy that much is included which was inseparable from orthodox mysticism, and that nearly all is at worst only an exaggeration of what had long been accepted as essential in mystical theology. Thus the demarcation between sanctity and heresy was left as obscure as ever, and all who sought to attain salvation through the raptures of the prayer of Union were placed within the grasp of the Inquisition. It remains for us to see what use the Holy Office made of the opportunities thus afforded. PERSECUTION. The earliest development of mysticism to attract animad- version appears to have been in the region lying to the east of Madrid. We have seen how Antonio of Pastrana disci- plined the eccentricities of a contemplative fraile of Ocana, and that the Inquisition recognized two schools of mystics as those of Pastrana and Guadalajara. Pastrana in fact was a mystic centre. Many of the mystics were conversos or New Christians, and Pastrana was a spot where hidden Judaism long continued to exist. In the great auto de fe of Madrid in 1680 no less than sixteen of those condemned for secret Jewish practices were natives or residents of Pastrana. 1 Ci- more absolute — " y que el spirito santo immediatamente gobierna a los que assi biben, y que solamente se ha de seguir su movimiento y inspiracion interior para hazer o dexar de hazer qualquier cossa." 1 Olmo, Relacion Historico del Auto general de Fe que se celebro en Madrid en presencia de sus Magestades el dia 30 de Junio de 1680, Madrid, 1680. For details as to the mystics of Pastrana and its neighborhood see Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, pp. 17 sqq. 252 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. fuentes, not far to the northeast, was another centre, while a little to the west lay Alcala de Henares with its university. In all these places we hear of so-called Alumbrados, mostly Franciscan, for the Seraphic Order naturally attracted the souls inclined to mystic contemplation, but one of the most prominent was Pedro Ruiz Alcaraz, a married layman. Chief among the most extreme of the visionaries was Isabel de la Cruz, a woman who earned her livelihood by teaching em- broidery, and whose eloquence in the exposition of Scripture was remarkable. 1 It was perhaps natural that the impression- able female nervous system should render women especially liable to the ecstasies which were the characteristic feature of this emotional form of religion ; we find them everywhere as its exponents and missionaries and as the object of the pro- foundest veneration of their disciples. Even the mystically inclined Carranza complains of the multitude of female ex- pounders in Spain and quotes St. Paul's prohibition. 2 The propaganda of these enthusiasts seems to have been carried on for some years without concealment. The earliest reference to a date in accessible documents is to a conversa- tion occurring in 15 17 concerning Alcaraz and Isabel. The development of Lutheranism probably directed attention to the potential danger involved in their unchecked zeal, and in 1525 there is an allusion to " la cuestion y suceso de los alum- brados" as having occurred three or four years before, which would seem to place in 15 21 or 1522 the first movement of the Inquisition against them. 3 In 1524 the prevalence of mystic practices among the Franciscans of the province of Toledo attracted attention ; the provincial himself, Juan de Olmillos, was given to ecstasies and inspiration. 4 The gen- eral of the Order, Francisco de Quihones, was making a vis- itation of Spain, and on May 22 he held a provincial chapter 1 Melgares Marin, II. 31, 53, 107. s Comentanos, Prologo al Lector. 3 Melgares Marin, II. 6, 9. ■* Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, p. 59. PERSECUTION. 253 in Toledo where he threatened imprisonment for all who persisted in walking in the path of Illumination. 1 Persecu- tion however did not fairly begin until the end of that year or the beginning of 1525, when there were a number of arrests, including Isabel and Alcaraz. The inquisitorial pro- cess rarely was speedy and it was not until 1529 that the cul- prits appeared in the auto de fe of Toledo. There were quite a number of them ; Isabel and Alcaraz were condemned to imprisonment for life, and other penalties, including banish- ment and scourging, were freely administered. 2 Apparently none of them were burnt, which would indicate that all con- fes.ed, recanted, and sought reconciliation with the Church. 3 Among those arrested in 1525 was Maria Cazalla, sister of Bishop Cazalla, a man much respected for learning and elo- quence, addicted to mysticism, and with a keen perception of the existing imperfections of the Church. Maria had been at Pastrana where she attended the meetings of the mystics and occasionally expounded Scripture. She was a wife and mother, evidently a clear-visioned woman who recog- nized the emptiness of mere outward formalities and yearned 1 Wadding, Annal. Minor, ann. 1524, No. 22. ! Melgares Marin, II. 87. 3 Menendez y Pelayo, II. 526-8. — Melgares Marin, II. 87. Menendez y Pelayo gives from a MS. chronicle of Alonzo de Santa Cruz u statement of the errors of the penitents in this auto which if correct would show that they had carried Illuminism to its farthest extent. It is stated that they held that by mental prayer or dejamiento man could attain perfection and become absolutely sinless ; that he was released from all obedience except to God, to whom he had given himself ; lhat all exterior acts of worship and pious works were useless ; that they called the Eucharist a lump of dough, the cross a stick and kneeling idolatry ; in their ecstasies they drove away good thoughts and welcomed evil ones ; oaths were unlawful and the petitions of the Lord's Prayer were selfish ; the existence of hell was denied ; they conversed with God as familiarly as with men ; the marital act they called Union con Dios. All this evidently only reflects popular gossip, as collected by a credulous chronicler. Had such beliefs existed among the Alumbrados other evidence would have reached us, and they would have found a place in the Edicts of Denunciation. I 2 254 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI for something loftier than she could find in the routine of the ecclesiastical system, without having formulated any distinct theories for herself. At one time she had been closely asso- ciated with Isabel de la Cruz and had employed her to teach her daughters embroidery, but had quarrelled with her in 1522 and had seen no more of her. There was considerable evi- dence against Maria, but for some reason she was discharged. 1 The case rested for six years, but meanwhile, as the trials went on, fresh testimony accumulated. The beatific inter- course of the mystics with God does not seem to have ele- vated them above human infirmities, and there were numerous spiteful quarrels among them which found vent in serious ac- cusations. Diego Hernandez, a priest who had been Maria's confessor, whom she had dismissed for seducing a nun and claiming that it was no sin, and who was now on trial for Illuminism, represented her as being in full accord with Isabel de la Cruz. 2 Then Francisca Hernandez, a beata of Valla- dolid, of whom we shall hear more hereafter, was now also on trial, on similar charges. They had been friends, but Maria had broken with her on account of her unrestricted intercourse with men, and Francisca now took her revenge by characterizing both Maria and her brother the bishop as fully imbued with all the errors of Illuminism ; the bishop had said that his sister was the maestro, of the Alumbrados of Pastrana and Guadalajara; a volume of her letters which was circulated among the elect was full of cosas de Alumbrados. Then also there was an old beata named Mari-Nunez, also a prisoner, who twenty years before had been ejected from his house by Lope de Rueda, Maria's husband, and who testified that Maria had exalted Isabel de la Cruz over St. Paul and all the saints ; unluckily for her, when called upon to ratify her testimony, she said it was Alcaraz and not Maria who had thus praised Isabel, so she was promptly tortured until she returned to her first assertion and declared in addition that Melgares Marin, II. 6-15. 2 Ibid. pp. 31, 35. PERSECUTION. 255 Maria was a worse heretic than either Isabel or Alcaraz. 1 In April, 1532, therefore Maria was again arrested and confined in the carceles secretas of the Inquisition ; her brother the bishop would doubtless also have been prosecuted had he not •opportunely died before 1530. Her trial dragged on until the end of 1533. The evidence against her was strong but she diminished its force by proving enmity on the part of the principal witnesses, whose identity she was fortunately able to guess, and she persistently and dauntlessly refused to con- fess. As a rule, confession was requisite to conviction, and the inquisitors necessarily had recourse to the universal solvent of all doubts — torture. She was cruelly tortured with two jarras de agua, without overcoming her resolution. According to the jurisprudence of the time this purged the adverse evi- dence, but the Inquisition was not in the habit of letting the people know of its failures. It simply declared that the prosecution had not proved its case, and, with its customary logic, condemned Maria to a fine and a public act of penitence for a crime of which she had not been convicted, and to ab- jure the heresy which she had not been proved to entertain. - The persecution spread extensively, for each prisoner was compelled to name all whom he knew or supposed to be in- fected with alumbrado errors, and the circle was constantly increasing. It bore hard upon the Erasmists, although it seems absurd to associate the name of the worldly-wise keen- witted scholar of Rotterdam with mysticism — the connecting- link apparently being a profound contempt for the perfunc- tory external manifestations which passed current as works of piety. Francisca Hernandez seems to have been specially conspicuous in thus compromising her friends. Maria Cazalla was an Erasmist, as well as her brother the bishop, and there was another brother, Pedro Cazalla, whom Francisca also accused. The learned Erasmist scholar, Juan de Vergara, one of the foremost names in Spanish contemporary letters, 1 Melgares Marin, II. 12-13, 94~6, 106-8, 120-22, 134, 136-8. - Ibid. pp. 142-54. 256 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. was another one of" her v ictims who was arrested and tried. 1 One of her special intimates was Bernardino de Tovar, a pro- nounced Erasmist, who was similarly seized and put on trial. - As the persecution spread, in 1534, the Venerable Juan de Avila, known as the Apostle of Andalusia, was arrested and imprisoned. It would have gone hard with him but for the Inquisitor General Manrique who greatly admired him and whose inclination to mysticism we have seen. Through this influence he was liberated, and his temper was shown in his remark that his incarceration was most fortunate as it had taught him more than all his previous years of study. Yet this acquittal and the subsequent effort to procure his canon- ization did not prevent his Aviso y Reglas Christianas from being condemned and placed on the Index.'' The general terror which these proceedings inspired, even in their earlier stages, among those who were sincerely desir- ous of leading a pious life without separating themselves from orthodoxy, is reflected by Juan de Valdes, in his Didlogo de Me r curio y Caron, where Mercury says that when anyone en- deavors to manifest the perfection of Christianity he is per- secuted, his words are misinterpreted, he is accused of saying what he never thought, and is condemned as a heretic, so that there is scarce anyone who dares to live as a true Chris- tian/ Maria Cazalla took the same ground in her defence 1 Melgares Marin, II. 154-55. * Ibid. pp. 54, 107. — Erasmi Epistt. Auctar. ex Ludovico Vive Ep. 22 (lid. 1642, p. j 14). When Tovar was arrested he was found in possession of Lutheran books, which told heavily against him (Melgares Marin, II. 54). :t Menendez y Pelayo, II. 532. — Llorente, II. 7. — Reusch, Der Index, I. 590. — Reusch, Die Indices, p. 232. After his death in 1569 an amended edition of his book appeared and was permitted (lb. p. 432). Juan's active life as a preacher ought to have saved him from the imputation of exaggerated mysticism. His advice to Pedro Guerrero, the Archbishop- elect of Granada, is thoroughly practical, and we find him urging a liberal distribution among the people of rosaries, crucifixes and images of the Virgin. — Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, T. I. pp. 295-7 (Madrid, 1872). 4 Dialogo de Mercurio y Caron, cap. lxv. — Juan de Valdes was inclined to mysticism. He tells us that the saint should wholly renounce his will and PERSECUTION. 257 when she said that the report of her being an Alumbrada did not make her one, except in so far as that name was custom- arily applied to anyone who was more self-contained (recojida) than others, or who avoided intercourse with the vicious; it was natural that it should be blindly attributed to her as it was to those who were better and more virtuous than she. 1 The accusation was one easy to bring. The Inquisition, by its atrocious system of encouraging secret denunciation and suppressing the names of the witnesses, stimulated envy and malignity to work their evil will. The assumption of superior sanctity by the mystics necessarily provoked enmity, especially in the forced intimacy of the cloisters ; careless words uttered in the heat of discussion could be trea ured up and exaggerated, and the unlucky devotee who was striving to win salvation by St. Bonaventura's path of illumination found that his orthodoxy had become heresy. A chance allusion in 1532 to " el libro y registro de los alumbrados" reason and abandon himself to the guidance of God. Yet he wholly rejects the theory of impeccability by showing, in the case of David and others, that God sometimes influences the will in wrath. — Ziento y diez Consideraciones, Cons. xxv. (Usoz y Rio, pp. 101-2). Even while a student in Alcala, Juan de Valdes wrote a little book entitled Doctrina Cristiana which excited much animadversion. Bernardino de Tovar scolded him for publishing it so hastily, without giving himself time for its revision. Maria Cazalla admitted that she was in the habit of reading it until, she heard the Franciscan, Pedro de Vitoria, preach against it, when she for- bade her daughters to read it and threw it into the bottom of a chest until the Inquisition should decide about it. In her sentence one of the criminating facts is that " alababa mucho el librillo Uamado Doctrina cristiana, habiendo en el como hay errores contra nuestra fe " (Melgares Marin, II. 55, 150). No such book is to be found in the Indexes of Valdes (1559), of Quiroga (1583), nor is it enumerated in any of the lists of the works of Juan de Valdes. He evidently never acknowledged it and it has disappeared from sight. Its existence thus made known is important as showing Juan de Valdes' early tendency to independence. Prof. B6hmer*s suggestion (Francisca Hernandez, p. 24) that it was a Spanish version of the Enchiridion of Erasmus is clearly incompatible with the evidence now furnished by Maria Cazalla's trial. Besides, she quotes the Spanish Enchiridion by name (Melgares Marin, II. 125). 1 Melgares Marin, II. j 20. Cf. pp. 122, 123. 258 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. shows that by this time the prosecutions had become suffi- ciently numerous to require separate classification in the in- quisitorial archives. 1 The trouble was not confined to the province of Toledo but spread throughout Spain. In 1533, from distant Aragon, a letter from Miguel de Galba, promoter fiscal in the diocese of Lerida, to the Inquisitor General Man- rique, assures him that only steady repression exercised by the Holy Office prevent i both kingdoms from being filled with the heresies of the accursed Martin Luther and of those who are known as illuminati but ought rather to be called blind." So sensitive had the authorities become that any en- thusiasm outside of the boundaries of rigid routine was re- garded with suspicion. In 1527, when Ignatius Loyola, in the flush of his early zeal, endeavored to call sinners to repentance, he was arrested and imprisoned at Alcala and again in Salamanca. Fortunately for him this was by the episcopal authorities and not by the Inquisition, and his incarceration in both cases was short, though he was forbid- den to discriminate between venial and mortal sins until he should have studied theology for four years, whereupon he betook himself to the Sorbonne. 3 ' Melgares Marin, II. 17. 2 " Para que publicamente se predicassen y guardassen las hereticas, erroneas, y falsas doctrinas y opinyones del heretico maldito martin luthero y de los llamados alumbrados que mas verdaderamente son dichos ciegos." (From the original in my possession.) In 1557 the Venetian envoy, Federigo Badoero, speaks of Illuminism existing in Aragon : " In Aragona e entrata 1' eresia degl' Illuminati " (Relazioni degli Ambasciatori Veneti, Serie I. T. III. p. 257). But if they were numerous there they had not the spirit of martyrdom, for there are none in the list of the victims burnt by the Inquisition of Saragossa from the begin- ning up to 1574 (Libro Verde de Aragon, Revista de Espaira, Tom. CVI. pp. 570-83). 3 Ribadeneira Vit. Ign. Loyolae, Lib. I. cap. xiv. xv. — Ochoa, Epretolario Esparto], Madrid, 1870, T. II. p. 103. — It did not take long for the legend of St. Ignatius to outgrow the prosaic details of his life. In 1645 Nieiemberg tells us (Honor del Gran Patriarcho San Ignacio, p. 12) that within the first year of his conversion in 1521 he suddenly received such illumination from PERSECUTION. .•One of the most instructive cases in this persecution is that which brings together the names of Francisca Hernandez and Francisco Ortiz — a trial which Professor Eduard Bohmer has with infinite labor brought into intelligible form and printed with abundant illustrations from other sources. Fran- cisca, though called a beata, was a curiously individual pro- duct of the spiritual excitement then pervading certain clashes in Spain. She belonged to no religious order, she wore the secular dress of a lady of gentle birth, she was unmarried and owned no property, but she lived with two maids in Valla- dolid in a house belonging to the Cazallas, apparently sup- ported in comfort by her disciples. Though she claimed to be the bride of Christ, she practised none of the austerities commonly deemed requisite to piety ; her house was largely frequented by her male devotees, she slept on a soft bed and was fastidious in her diet — in proof of which it is on record that she once boxed her maid's ears for spoiling a blancmange. Yet the veneration which she excited in a circle comprising some of the best intellects in Spain was extraordinary. Ber- nardino de Tovar was one of them, and so was Francisco de Osuna, who forms a connecting link between Francisca and Santa Teresa de Jesus, for his Abecedario was the guide which God that he at once was familiar with all the mysteries of the faith and the subtleties of philosophy. Loyola had a tendency to mysticism, though his shrewd penetration led him to distrust the claims of the beatas, as we shall see in the case of Mag- dalena de la Cruz. When in Rome, in 1553, the Dominican Rainaldo discoursed to him of a holy virgin in a convent under his charge at Bologna, who had ecstasies in which she was insensible to fire and pricking ; she could be aroused only by a single voice, when she arose as from sleep and com- ■ menced praying; her conception of the Passion was so strong that at times she had the Stigmata, which dropped blood. Subsequently Ribadeneira asked Loyola what he thought of it, when he replied that God could sanctify the souls of men and fill them with his gifts ; sometimes he does this so copiously that the plenitude of his grace, overflowing the soul, appears in the body and gives manifestations of what is within, but this is very rare, and the Demon often deludes mortals greedy of vanity and novelty by fictitious images of things. — Ribadeneira, Lib. V. c. x. 260 M YS TICS A A r D ILL UMINA TI. led the latter to her heights of spiritual perfection. 1 Fran- cisca was credited with the power of working miracles. She was said to have been a servant of God from childhood and never to have committed a mortal sin. She had never learned to read, yet she could tell the contents of a letter without opening it ; without having been taught Latin her expositions of Holy Writ filled with rapture the best preachers of Spain. A piece of cloth or a string given by her would cure disease ; indeed, as Ortiz declared before the Inquisition, it cost her but a single word to heal the sick. 2 Repeatedly she appeared to her disciples in visions, .resplendent with divine glory. Yet Alcaraz declared when on trial that she was completely under the influence of Bishop Cazalla. 3 She seems to have been already well known in 1517, at which time Ortiz said that he had vainly sought to make her acquaintance. Soon after this she was in trouble with the Inquisition and was brought before Cardinal Adrian, then inquisitor general. Though not punished she was not fully dis- charged but was kept under surveillance, in spite of which she made such an impression on Adrian that after he became pope, in 1522, he ordered his confessor Carmona to write to her, asking her prayers for him and for the whole church. Again 1 Albaii Butler, Vies des Saints, Ed. 1836, T. VII. p. 508. Yet I cannot help thinking that Osuna was disenchanted of Francisca as early as 1527 and that he had Ortiz in mind when, in describing the wiles of the demon to lead the devotee astray, he wrote : " Trouble not yourself about the advisers whom you cannot have. Those of your convent should suffice without running after little women (niugercillas) who are perhaps themselves deceived. Even if they are not, consider that the counsel of your superior is of more weight, for he can resolve your doubts and not those women whom you seek. When your spirit will subject itself only to this or that person who are reputed to be holy and to no others, think yourself deceived and that the Demon has per- suaded you that you are something special, when in truth your fancy has deceived you into making an idol of yourself." — Abecedario, P. III. Trat. xx cap vi. fol. 193a. 8 Bohmer, Francisca Hernandez, pp. 25-7, 32, 70, 102, 105-7, 134; 138, 153, i6t. 3 Melgares Marin, II. 10. PERSECUTION. 26l in 1525, we hear of her being in the hands of the Inquisi- tion, for she is described in a document of that year as "beata, prisoner in the inquisitorial prison." This time she seems to have been accused of improper relations with men and on her discharge she was made to swear that she would permit no improper familiarities. She was good-looking and attrac- tive ; she was not particularly reserved in her manners, and the suspicion not unnaturally continued that her relations with her disciples were carnal as well as spiritual. When Ortiz pleaded with the Inquisitor General Manrique to avert her arrest, the significant reply was "We know these lasciv- ious persons." 1 It is quite probable however that she might have been left undisturbed but for the fascination which she exercised over Ortiz. He was a young Franciscan of the greatest promise, to whom the Order looked for an increase of its influence and prestige. Though not precisely a mystic, he had a soul of exquisite sensibility and burning ardor, and his sermons, directed principally to developing the love of God, caused him to be at length reproved for preaching alumbramientos. When but nineteen years of age he had sought to make the acquaintance of Francisca, but the wish was not gratified till six years later, in 1523. He was then twenty-five and was rapidly acquiring the reputation of the foremost preacher in Spain. 2 In 1524 he was selected to preach the Lenten sermons before the court in Burgos, where he excited the 1 Bohmer, pp. 65, 102, 112, 113, 115, 120. — Melgares Marin, II. 12. 2 Francisco Gonzaga, who was general of the Order, in his " De Origine Seraphicae Religionis" (1587) describes Ortiz as " concionatorum sui temporis facile princeps quamobrem eorum monarcha ab omnibus communi titulo apellitabatur " (Bohmer, p. 224). This was doubtless the customary title bestowed upon him. The title-page of his posthumous De Ornatu Aninue (1548) characterizes him as "Omnium Prsedicantium facile suo tempore Monarcha." According to Azpilcueta, however, his pre-eminence was dis- puted by Fray Luis de Granada, who was " omnium qui sua aetate in Hispaniis concionati sunt aut primus aut cum primis mea sententia censendus " (Enchiridion rle Oratione, Romae, 1578, p. 16). 12* 262 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. greatest enthusiasm ; men would go to the church over night in order to secure places, and on Low Sunday, April 3, he preached at the special request of Charles V. Yet some of his utterances caused murmuring, especially the assertion that Christ was in the hearts of the righteous more perfectly than in the Eucharist. In spite of this his reputation grew. It was probably in 1526 that Charles offered him the envied position of court preacher ; he wrote to Francisca for advice, and on her telling him not to accept he refused. 1 Her influence over him had become absolute and his reverence for her boundless. Yet their intercourse had been restricted, for, as a friar, he could not visit her without permission from the guardian of his convent, and at one period several years elapsed between their meetings. Their intimacy excited animadversion and increasing efforts were made to prevent it. Fray Guinea, the guardian of the Franciscan convent at Valladolid repeatedly urged the inquisitor general to allow him to suppress the enthusiasm excited by Francisca. Man- rique thought of putting her into the convent of Santa Isabel, but the nuns objected to being disturbed by so unquiet an inmate, and the employment of force would have caused scandal. Finally Francisca left Valladolid for Castillo Tejeriego, about twenty miles distant, where" she was the guest of the wife of the commandant, Don Bernardino. Ortiz, unable to endure the separation longer, went there in May, 1528, with Fray Munatello, a fellow disciple, and remained until July. 2 1 Rohmer, pp. 31, 42, 65. 2 Bdhmer, pp. 47-8, 52. — A letter of Ortiz to Francisca, written shortly after this and produced during his trial, commences " O my lady ! O my purest love ! O my blessed inwardness and light of my soul and my heart and my eyes! " He asks among other things that she restore sight to his blind mother, for she has only to will it, and he signs himself " the little son and servant of your great grace, who desires to kiss your holy feet with the greatest reverence" (lb. p. 75). This worship of a human being by a man of unusual intellectual power is a curious illustration of the morbid spirituality of the period. 'It is impossible PERSECUTION. 263 This imprudent visit brought matters to a crisis. On the one hand the Inquisition commenced forthwith again to take testimony against Francisca. On the other, the Franciscans made such a stir over it that at the chapter held at Guadala- jara, October 1528, the vicar general sent a letter summarily ordering Ortiz no more to see or to write to Francisca. To this Ortiz replied defiantly that God was to be obeyed rather than man ; if he knew that by remaining in the Order he was to be debarred from seeing that beloved one of God, he would become a Carthusian — for it was always open to a member of an Order to transfer himself to one of stricter observance. Ortiz was then in the convent of San Juan de los Reyes of Toledo ; the guardian, Fray Bernabe, did not forward the letter, for the Franciscans did not wish to lose so distinguished a preacher, and it seemed more worldly-wise to urge forward the proceedings against Francisca, whose arrest it was hoped would disenchant him, when as a good Christian he would submit. About Christmas," 15 28, Bernabe arranged with the inquisitor general that the arrest should be made after Easter 1529, in order not to interfere with the Lenten sermons which Ortiz was to preach. The secret was not well kept, and it reached his ears. Twice he visited Cardinal Manrique to remonstrate, and the second time he was told that he had best take heed for himself, as his guardian would have imprisoned him but for needing his services as a preacher. 1 The plan was carried out. Francisca was arrested and brought to Toledo, arriving on the evening of Easter Mon- day, March 30, and was taken, not to the Inquisition but to a private house. There Ortiz saw her on Tuesday, but when Bernabe heard of the interview the next day he procured her transfer to the carceles secretas of the Inquisition. Ortiz speedily came to the desperate resolution of publicly rebuking however not to recognize in it the sexual influence, however little Ortiz him- self may have suspected it. 1 Bohmer, pp. 58-60, 62, 65. 264 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. the inquisitor general ; he argued to himself that he had given the latter two admonitions in private, and that it was his duty now to reprehend him in public. He was assigned to preach on April 6, which would afford him the oppor- tunity, and he awaited it with such inexpressible eagerness that he could scarce eat or sleep. The intervening days, he afterwards said, seemed to him longer than his whole previous life, while for fear of being prevented he was obliged to pre- serve perfect outward calmness. The day came at last. The Franciscan church was filled with the magnates and officials of the city, besides the brethren of the convent. Ortiz mounted the pulpit and announced his theme as the obedi- ence due to God rather than to man. After a brief introduc- tion he broke forth, saying that he was not a prophet or the son of a prophet and could not foretell whether God would inflict condign chastisement for a great sin recently committed in the city — the imprisonment of Francisca Hernandez. The friars interrupted him, but he imposed silence on them and proceeded to tell how he had visited Cardinal Manrique and had been received like an angel ; how he had gone to him again and found that the Guardian Bernabe had poisoned his mind. By this time Bernabe and his brethren had recovered themselves. They rushed to the pulpit and after a short struggle pulled Ortiz down ; to free the church from the pollution of his presence he was dragged to a neighboring house where he lay till evening without food. Then Ber- nabe came and announced that he was to be taken to the Inquisition ; Ortiz thanked him for the joyful news and hurried off, delighted to think that he was to be under the same roof as his beloved Francisca. 1 His insane freak had caused the wildest excitement. To beard publicly the terrible Holy Office was an offence so unexampled that it was difficult of credence. Men naturally argued that a belief ardent enough to lead to extravagance so ] Bohmer, pp. 73-80. PERSECUTION. 2 5^ reckless must have within it the possibilities of most dangerous development and thanked God that Francisca, who was the mother and source of the new sect, had been imprisoned, as it would strike terror among the disciples. Meanwhile Ortiz, with feverish ardor unabated, was bombarding Cardinal Man- rique and the inquisitors with letters in which he assured them that Francisca's imprisonment would arouse a great portion of Christendom. His own, he said, would resound in Portugal and France and Italy where he was well known, but what concerned him most was that it would resound in Paradise. He even threatened them with the opposition of a new and holy society, a society founded for the honor of God and his truth. So long as he has the grace of God, seven thousand years' imprisonment is nothing to him, for it is a holy confinement and brings him peace. To the reproach of undue affection for Francisca he replied " No word of love, however strong, is a hundredth part adequate to express the holy love, so pure and sweet and strong and great and full of God's blessing and melting of heart and soul, which God in his goodness has given me through his holy betrothed, my true Mother and Lady, through whom I hope, at the awful day of judgment, to be reckoned among the elect. I can call her my love, for in loving her I love nothing but God, and her grace, cooperating with God, makes me see the nothingness of this world." As for his sermon, he would not retract it, even to save Francisca from a thousand deaths, for to do so would be to deny God, and he suggested that Cardinal Manrique could readily purge himself of his wrong- doing by releasing Francisca with public announcement that there was no proof against her, by replacing him (Ortiz) in his functions, and by suppressing his persecutors. 1 The inquisitors might well deem him a monomaniac. It is not necessary to follow in detail the course of the trial. In his voluminous communications the defiant Ortiz said 1 Bohmer, pp. 83, 91, 95, 97, 101-2, 109, 110. 266 MYSTICS AND ILL UMIN A TL quite enough to compromise both of them as to the burning question of good works. Francisca had taught him, he said, to set little store by externals. In case of necessity he would eat meat even on Good Friday. Marriage might be a duty even to those under vows of continence, but they must have a dispensation from the pope, who would sin if he refused it. He argued at considerable length the unimportance of external observances and instanced the Jewish law which had ceased to be binding. He pointed out the varying customs of the Church at different times and argued that the one thing necessary is the love of God, whether one fasts or feasts, laughs or weeps, speaks or keeps silent. He declared that God will not suffer those who seek him with a pure heart to err in things necessary to salvation, which was erecting the standard of private judgment and making divine guidance superior to the mandates of the Church, especially as he applied it to himself to prove that he was justified in his course. 1 At the same time his denunciation of the pestilenzias de alumbrados shows that the doctrines of the mystics most dangerous to the established order of the Church were spreading among a class wholly averse to the follies of Illu- minism. It is true that he held mental prayer to be better than vocal, but the latter was not unnecessary, and he reduced recojimienio to a banishment of thought in order to become conscious of the invisible, while he ridiculed the ecstasies and trances and visions and revelations forming the stock in trade of the mystics who claimed to be specially favored of God. 2 We have no details of the trial of Francisca. We only know from the evidence in that of Maria Cazalla that she was a swift witness against her former associates, and that she seems to have won the favor of the inquisitors, for in 1532 she is no longer in the carceles secretas, but is simply detained, with her maid Maria Ramirez to wait upon her, in the house of Gutierre Perez de Montalvo, at Medina del Campo, where, 1 Bohmer, pp. 98-100, 123. 2 Ibid. pp. 122, 133-4. PERSECUTION. 267 September 11, both women ratified their evidence against Maria Cazalla. 1 The firm convictions of Ortiz exposed him to more prolonged imprisonment, but even in his case the Inquisition seems to have treated him with remarkable leni- ency, considering the grave nature of his offence in hold- ing it up to public reprobation from the pulpit. After he had been in prison for about a month, Doctor Luis Coro- nel, Cardinal Manrique's secretary, was sent to his cell to endeavor to win him over to a retraction of his injurious ex- pressions, but Ortiz could see nothing save the offence to God in Francisca's arrest. 2 He continued in the same mood, and though he formally submitted to the Church, he persisted in attributing to the grace of God the cheerfulness and serenity with which he endured his protracted incarceration. When more than two years had thus passed and he was told that this reasoning was illusory and arrogant, he suggested that the theologians who so characterized it should take his place for twenty-eight months and see how they liked it. He volun- tarily subjected himself to additional austerities, eating no meat, sleeping on a plank and often giving his bread to the poor that they might pray for the prisoners. 3 He evidently was a puzzling subject, and the inquisitors wisely concluded to trust to the influence of time. It was in vain that the Empress Isabel, who was regent during the absence of Charles V., interposed her good offices in his favor during the summer of 1530, and again wrote urgently, October 27, expressing her desire for his liberation, or at least that his case should be expedited. She was about to send his younger brother, Doctor Pedro Ortiz, to Rome on the matter of the divorce of Catherine of Aragon, and it was not fitting that Francisco should be a prisoner of the Inquisition at the time. 4 Even under this pressure the Inquisition was imperturbable. It was not until March 20, 1531, that the customary assembly 1 Melgares Marin, II. 94-5. 3 Bohmer, pp. 119, 124, 156. 2 Bohmer, pp. 85-6. 4 Ibid. p. 140. 268 M YS TICS A ND IL L UMIMA TI. of consulters was held to decide upon his case. They ap- pointed three of their number to draw up the heretical and erroneous propositions which he should be called upon to retract. This work was not accomplished until July, when Ortiz showed himself in a more complying mood and prom- ised to do so. When a copy of the sixty-three articles, how- ever, was given to him, he only retracted a few; some he bluntly refused to withdraw and others he argued. He main- tained all that was most offensive to the Inquisition and showed that his conviction -of his own righteousness was un- altered. When unconditional submission was demanded he positively refused it. Then he was left severely alone in his solitude for six months, until, February 3, 1532, he asked an audience. His feelings had undergone a complete revolution, and the same impulsiveness which had led him to defy the Holy Office now prompted him to the humblest submission in the desire to renounce himself wholly in obedience to the will of God. He asked to be allowed to take back in the pulpit what he had uttered in the pulpit and in secret what he had said in secret. This was still insufficient. On April 17 he was brought before the tribunal and told that submis- sion through humility and as a sacrifice to God would not answer. He must admit that he had erred ; the affair was important and the honor of the Inquisition was at stake. To this Ortiz heartily assented. God, he said, had given him grace to recognize his errors and he found great peace in retracting them. He had imagined himself called by God to preach that sermon, but he now admitted his error and was ready for the recantation. 1 Nothing more could be asked, and his sentence followed. He was to march in procession with a lighted taper from the prison to the cathedral, where he was to abjure for vehement suspicion of heresy. For five years he was suspended from his priestly functions and for two years he was confined in a cell in the convent of Torre- ' Bohmer, pp. 148-73. PERSECUTION. 2 fig laguna, having no intercourse with his brethren ; during this time he was to perform certain penances, which were kindly modified in consideration of his enfeebled health, and he was never to hold any intercourse, direct or indirect, with Fran- cisca Hernandez, or to live within five leagues of her place of residence, under pain of the stake as a relapsed heretic. 1 That his submission was the work of self-conquest and of profound Christian humility is seen in a passage of a letter written by him from Torrelaguna — " Whoso brings me to the way of the saints does me the greatest benefit. Whoso per- secutes, helps me to salvation. Whoso humiliates me favors me, though his aim may be to injure. What is done to insult or oppress me is an act of friendship. ' ' 2 Though the term of his confinement ended April 21, 1534, though papal briefs were obtained relieving him from restric- tions, though the Generals of the Order repeatedly urged him to leave his solitude and resume the functions which had promised so brilliantly, and though he had the most flattering invitations he would seem never afterwards to have set his foot outside of the convent of Torrelaguna. The retirement which had been prescribed to him as a penance, he said, had become too sweet for him to abandon it. There he lived, the object of overflowing honor on the part of his brethren inside and outside of the convent till his death in 1546. 3 1 Ibid. pp. 174-5. 2 Ochoa, Epistolario Espanol, T. I. p. 261. 3 Ochoa, I. 266, 269, 272, 287, 289. The year after his death, in 1547, his brother, Juan Ortiz, printed his work De Ornatu Animte, doubtless one of the products of his retreat. It is cast in a form suited to the fondness of the age for conceits. The soul is a bride arrayed for Christ, and in nineteen chapters he describes the garments and jewels requisite for its adornment. The chemise signifies faith, the tunic: charity, the shoes contempt for the world, the net for the hair prudence, the cloak patience, the ear-rings obedience, the necklace remembrance of the bonds of Christ, the bracelets zeal for work, the crown humility, and so forth. It is observable that none of the vestments are identified with prayer, but he does not neglect to urge the supreme excellence of meditation, which was the initiatory grade of mental prayer among the extreme mystics. There are M Ys TICS AND ILL UMINA TL I have dwelt at some length on this case because the- com- pleteness of its records render it especially instructive as to the spiritual movement then agitating so many pious souls in Spain, and also because it illustrates the extreme tenuity of the boundary line between heresy and orthodoxy in mysti- cism. From it, moreover, and from the trial of Maria Cazalla we see how the accusation of Illuminism was a most facile method of attacking anyone inclined to mystic dreams. This is a lesson still more sharply taught by one aspect of the cel- ebrated trial of Bartolome Carranza de Miranda, Archbishop of Toledo. Few men of the period had given more evidence of uncompromising devotion to the Church. Since early youth he had labored unsparingly in its interests while stead- ily declining its rewards. He had taught theology with distin- guished success in the renowned university of Valladolid. At the first and second convocations of the Council of Trent he had been a foremost representative of Spanish faith. He had long served as a calificador of the Holy Office, especially in the matter of examining suspected books. He had accom- panied Philip II. to England in 1554 and was the leading spirit in the Marian persecution, in forcing Cranmer to the stake, in exhuming the bones of Martin Bucer and of the wife of Peter Martyr of Vermigli, and in bringing about the restoration of Catholicism. Called to Flanders by Philip in passages (fol. 16, 30) which show thai he had not forgotten the raptures of mystic ardor, though in the main the work is not one of exalted fervor, but a learned treatise, filled with references to the Scriptures, the fathers, and the schoolmen. He teaches in it the same humility and yearning to suffer for Christ's sake that he himself felt. A long letter of instruction, written in 1535, to a sister who had embraced a celibate life without entering a religious order, is silent on the subject of mental prayer. The first condition of earning salvation is amendment of life, after which come an earnest seeking for the love of God, humility and con- tempt for the world. He recommends many formal religious exercises, and while the whole is pervaded with mysticism there is no illuminism. — Ochoa, Epistolario, I. 251-60. In another hortatory letter, written in 1536, he expressly says that faith is insufficient unless it shows itself in works. — lb. p. 293. PERSECUTION. 271 15-57 he showed himself equally zealous in stamping out heresy there, and when in that year Philip pressed upon him the fatal primacy of Toledo he thrice refused and only yielded in obedience to a peremptory royal order. So high was his reputation that his nomination was accepted by Paul IV. without the usual preliminary formalities of investigation. • He returned to Spain, August 8, 1558, to take possession of his see, and found himself at once involved in a struggle with the Inquisition which cost him seventeen years of imprison- ment and only ended with his condemnation and death. It might have seemed impossible to accuse such a man of doctrinal errors, but unluckily, just before his return to Spain, he had published in 1558 his Comentarios sobre el Cate- chismo, in which he necessarily discussed nearly all the points ' of faith. He had made many enemies, for he was keenly alive to the shortcomings of the Church and outspoken in their denunciation. Some ten years before he had published a work on the personal residence required of bishops, whiclv^ had given great offence. 1 His two most formidable antagonists now were the Inquisitor General Valdes, who had hoped for 1 The Council of Trent in January, 1547, denounced the abuse of episcopal non- residence in the strongest terms, deploring that the ancient canons had fallen into virtual desuetude and providing sharp remedies to bring bishops to a sense of their duties (Concil. Trident. Sess. VI. De Reform, c. 1). The cardinals who, at the request of Pius in. in 1538, drew up the celebrated Consilium de emendanda Ecclesia, had already spoken of this in even more decided fashion: "Nam, per Deum immortalem, quis miserabilior viro Christiano conspectus esse potest Christianum orbem peragranti quam hajc solitudo ecclesiarum ? Omnes fere pastores reeesserunt a suis gregibus, commissi sunt omnes fere mercenariis" (Le Plat, Monumenta ad Hist. Cone. Trident. II. 600-1). With these precedents before him it is not likely that Carranza measured the words with which he sought to enforce the reform. I have not seen his tract, but it probably was as plain-spoken as the contem- porary work on the same theme by the Doctor Girolamo Gigante, who does not hesitate to say of non-resident bishops "jam non amplius speculatores sed peculatores verbis dixerim," and that they are not the vicars of Christ, but of Antichrist. — Hieron. Gigantis Tract de Residcntia Episcoporum, Cap. t. No. 7; Cap. VI. No. 4 (Venet. 1548). 2 j 2 M YS TICS A ND IL L UMINA TJ. the archiepi-copal see of Toledo, and his fellow Dominican Melchor Cano, the foremost theologian of Spain, a man of keen intellect, boundless learning, and uncompromising tem- per. The Comentarios gave his enemies the wished-for op- portunity of attack. The book at once was diligently scru- tinized and there was little difficulty in finding in it a long list of errors. This is not the place to consider all the ele- ments which combined to precipitate Carranza's downfall, or to follow the interminable details of his memorable trial. What interests us here is merely the question which was raised as to his being an Alumbrado. His book is pervaded by a decided tendency to mysticism, and Melchor Cano had no difficulty in extracting from it passages by which he proved that Carranza held the Alum- brado doctrines of impeccability, of interior illumination by the Holy Ghost, of the supreme merits of a life of contem- plation, and of despising all exterior works and observances.' Unfortunately for Carranza he was a confused thinker, with an intolerably diffuse style, involving endless repetitions and contradictions, in a class of subjects specially requiring clear- ness. Propositions are enunciated in general terms, to be subsequently qualified and limited. A man like Melchor Cano wanted nothing better than such a book from which to extract compromising passages and omit their limitations. On the crucial point of the sufficing efficacy of mental 1 Censura de los Maestros Fr. Melchor Cano y Fr. Domingo clc Cuevas sobre los Comentarios y otros escritos de D. Fr. Bartolome de Carranza (Caballero, Vida de Melchor Cano, pp. 549-50, 557-9, 568-9, 572-7, 582-3, 592-3. 598, 601). In view of Melchor Cano's rabid hatred of mysticism, it is perhaps worth noting that he trained for a religious life the son of his cousin Ana Cano ; the vouth adopted the name of his distinguished kinsman, entered the Dominicnn Order and became one of the most prominent mystics of the day, earning the appellation of El Extaticohy his visions, trances and miracles. He died in 1607, and though he failed of canonization he is still venerated as a saint at Madrilejos, where he was prior of the convent of San Jacinto (Caballero, op. cit. pp. 209-13). PERSECUTION. 273 prayer, which was the distinguishing dogma of the advanced mystics, Carranza shows himself as orthodox as his slovenly habits of thought will permit. Mental prayer is superior, but vocal prayer is very useful, for the voice and movement of the body excite devotion whereby the heart is lifted to God. Still, if the voice distracts the mind it should be stopped. To be efficacious moreover prayer should be accompanied with fasting and thanksgiving. Church ceremonies and sing- ing are very useful, but the words should be clearly uttered and the music should not obscure them— an abuse which is very common in the Church. To assert that the saints are not to be prayed to is not only heresy but ignorance and folly. 1 More perilous was the assumption that prayer is not the mere mechanical repetition of words, for God must be sought with a purified heart. Many there are who read prayers but who do not pray. It is the same with all other exterior manifestations of zeal, the value of which depends on the interior spirit.' 2 Thoroughly orthodox, however, is his appreciation of the good works of mortification and char- ity. The soul is purer and freer the more the flesh is afflicted and subjected. By fasting we approach God and resist the devil ; fasting converts men into angels, gives satisfaction for sins and earns eternal life in heaven. So almsgiving, taken in its widest sense, is a sacrifice offered to God, a work of penitence as affording satisfaction for sins. Prayer, fasting, and charity are works of satisfaction ; but, as we have already seen, if performed without faith and love they are not pleas- ing to God, and the only efficient fasting is that which com- prises abstinence from evil passions, so that both the interior and the exterior man participate in it. 3 Images and relics 1 Comentarios, fol. 374, 375a, 376a, 379a. 2 Comentarios, fol. 380. " De manera que la oracion vocal y los otros gestos y ceremonios que se hazen de fuera, como herir los pechos, y levantar los manos y los ojos al cielo, poner las rodillas en tierra, todos an de nacer del corazon." 3 Ibid. fol. 418, 419, 420, 429a. MYS TICS AND ILL UMINA 7Y. and pilgrimages, the rejection of which was a tenet attrib- uted to the Alumbrados, he argued were aids to devotion and deserving of veneration, but he criticized the abuses which had arisen respecting them, through the negligence of prelates, with a freedom which gave great offence. 1 The sign of the cross, conjoined with faith, he tells us is the most efficacious means of putting the devil to flight. With it the Christian can defend himself against all enemies. 2 All this was directly antagonistic to the views of the advanced mystics, except in so far as he made the value of works dependent upon faith, and this limitation the Inquisition was not as yet prepared to condemn. But Carranza gave a fair opening for attack, of which Mel- chor Cano did not neglect to avail himself, when he descanted upon the perpetual Sabbath of God. The distinction be- tween holy days and working days is instituted for the rude and imperfect Christian; the spiritual and perfected man enjoys a perpetual Sabbath. It would not be easy to express the views of the Quietists more clearly than he does in a pas sage where he describes the supreme state of Quietism — the abandonment of the soul to God who operates it at his pleas- ure. External works have done their part and have been left behind, the devotee enjoys a perpetual spiritual Sabbath on earth which is but the commencement of the eternal Sab- bath of heaven. 3 Man is perfected here and of course need 1 Ibid. fol. 169-72. a Ibid. fol. 163. " La serial de la cruz, acompanada con fe, es la cosa que mas huyen los diablos Con este baculo de la cruz y con esta arma se defendera el hombre Christiano de todos sus enemigos. Esto con fe firma es un torre inexpugnable contra torio el poder del infierno." 3 Ibid. fol. 207. "Assi nosotros despues que uvieremos trabajado en las obras exteriores y en la mortificacion de nuestra came, dando obediencia a. Dios, dexaremos de obrar nuestras obras y haremos holganga y sabado en Dios, dexando que su espiritu obre en nosotros y estando quietos y atentos k lo que Dios dixere en nosotros, y obedientes para recebir lo que su espiritu quisiere obrar, y obrando nosotros con el, no siguiendo nosotros afectos humanos sino sus sanctas inspiraciones. Este es el Sabado interior y espiritual PERSECUTION. 275 fear neither hell nor purgatory. From such premises it would not be difficult to draw the conclusion of impeccability — that the soul thus wholly under the direct influence of God can do no sin, while the self-deception of those who imagined themselves to have attained this supreme perfection might readily lead them to attribute to God the suggestions of their own passions. This Carranza seeks to elude by describing the perpetual Sabbath as an unremitting mortification of the flesh, a crucifying of all human passions and affections and a total renunciation of the things of this life. 1 Besides, even the perfect should observe the exterior Sabbath, in order to avoid scandal, although they have no need for it, for to them all days are the same. 2 There was one unfortunate passage of which Melchor Cano made the most, as bearing upon the illuminist doctrine of impeccability — -that if the reason is maintained at its due elevation and does not stoop to the level of the flesh, man may remain without sin although sensuality burns in his pas- sions as in living flames. Molinos uttered nothing more reckless, especially as it was the culmination of an elaborate argument to prove that there is no sin in sensual and evil thoughts to which the will does not consent. Desire to commit sin is sin, even without the act, but mere sensual movements, natural to man since the Fall, are no sin if they are rejected by the will. Yet in this Carranza, no more than Molinos, meant to open the door to the insidious approaches of evil. It is the office of the reason (apetito rational), he continues, to govern the senses {apetito sensitivd). A man conceives sin when he takes pleasure in thinking of it ; he que nos ensena S. Pablo a hazer, no de ocho a ocho dias, como se haze el sabado ceremonial, sino toda la seraana y todo el mes, y todo el ano, y toda la vida. A este sabado sueede el otro Sabado perpetua que celebran los sanctos en el cielo." 1 Comentarios, fol. 207-8. 2 Ibid. fol. 208. In this, as well as in the interior illumination by the Holy Spirit, there is a curious anticipation of Quaker tenets. 2^6 MYS TICS AND ILL UMINA TI. brings it forth when he consents to it ; but if his reason dis- sents there is no sin ; and he concludes " God desires in man not only pure words and works but above all a pure heart, and the heart is pure when it is purged of all worldly passions and affections and is filled with the love of God and of its neighbor." 1 Nothing, in fact, can be more opposed to the dejamiento or self-abandonment attributed to the Alumbrados and Quietists than the advice which he adds that the best way to extinguish the flames of passion is to pray to God with faith and fervor, for no water will subdue material fire so surely as will prayer the passions of the flesh. 2 If to this be added fasting we are armed from head to foot against the enemy. 3 Another unlucky phrase seized upon by Melchor Cano was that living faith permits no evil works, which affirms impecca- bility. Yet this occurs in a description of two kinds of faith. One of these is dead-^/teban, a Jeronymite, aged 74, appeared in an auto de fe with Luisa Antonia de Enzinas, known as the Beata de Torroz, as his accomplice. They were con- demned for Molinism and impurity, and as he is spoken of as a heresiarch he probably had been engaged in propagating his opinions. 3 Santa Teresa's Order of Barefooted Carmelites did not 1 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 94. 2 Barrantes, Aparato, II. 357-60. 3 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 95. 392 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. escape and became the scene of a fearful scandal. Based on ascetic mysticism, the traditions of the Order doubtless ren- dered its members zealous in the practices which had won for its founder the honor of canonization, and when mysti- cism had become Molinism we can readily imagine that the Inquisition eagerly took advantage of any opportunity to discredit them. The tragedy of Dona Agueda de Luna, commonly known as Madre Agueda, is excedingly obscure and the truth will probably never be ascertained, but the ferocity with which the inquisitors of Logrono pursued their investigations and the character of the evidence adduced cast an unpleasant doubt upon the guilt which was so severely punished. There evidently was fraud and there may have been licentiousness, but there was also vindictive exaggera- tion and stupid cruelty. In 1 71 2 Madre Agueda entered the Carmelite convent of Lerma with a reputation for sanctity already acquired. For twenty years she lived there with that reputation constantly growing through the reports of her ecstasies and miracles, which are said to have been adroitly spread by those who were discovered to be her confederates. One of these was Fray Juan de Longas, Carmelite prior of Lerma, a nephew of the Canon Juan de Causadas burnt at Logrono as a Molinist, and an ardent propagator of the same errors throughout Navarre, Rioja, Burgos and Soria. His career was cut short in 1729 when the Inquisition of Logrono condemned him to the severe punishment of two hundred lashes, ten years in the galleys and then to perpetual imprisonment. Another of Madre Agueda's so-called confederates was Fray Juan de la Vega, Provincial of the Carmelites, who had been her spiritual director since 1 7 1 5 . His reputation for sanctity was such that he was known as El Ecstdtico, and it was said that there had been none like him in Spain since San Juan de la Cruz. He wrote a life of Madre Agueda in which her numerous miracles were fully set forth. About 1732 a new Carmelite convent was founded at Cor- MOLINISTAS. 393 ella and Madre Agueda was made prioress. Soon the whole country around was accustomed to flock to her for succor and intercession with God, and her reputation for holiness was constantly spreading. The most damning fact in her case is that she was wont to cure the sick by giving out small flat stones marked with a cross on one side and a star on the other, made of pounded brick. These she pretended to pass from the bladder with all the pains of childbirth and they were eagerly sought as precious health-giving relics. It is the one positively ascertainable fact concerning her, for Llorente tells us that his parents, who lived a couple of leagues from Corella, carried to her a sick child, when she gave them one of these stones, in spite of which the child soon died. At last, after a long career of reputed sanctity, Madre Agueda was denounced to the Inquisition of Logrono as a Molinist. She was arrested with her nuns, as well as Juan de la Vega, his successor in the provincialate, the secretary of the Carmelites and two frailes. It looked as though the heresy was penetrating throughout Santa Teresa's Order. If this was so the inquisitors were determined to root it out at any cost and their methods were at least effective if cruel. Torture was employed unsparingly. Madre Agueda perished under it in her preliminary examinations, before her case was prepared for trial, but she had been made to confess all that was wanted of her. It casts some doubt upon the extent of her real delinquency to find that among other crimes she admitted invoking the demon and signing a written pact with him, in which she adored him as the Almighty and renounced Christ. That she had led a dissolute life with Fray Juan de Vega may be true if the evidence is to be believed that she bore him five children and that their bones were found in the spot indicated as their burial-place ; but incredulity is a duty with regard to the testimony of her niece, Dona Vicente de Loya, who had been admitted to the convent at the age of nine and who swore that her aunt had trained her to evil and had held her while Juan de la Vega violated her, in 394 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. order, as she said, that the act might be more meritorious in the eyes of God. Juan de la Vega, in spite of his advanced age, heroically endured the extremity of torture and de- nied all these allegations, although he candidly admitted that he had, as provincial, received payment for 11,800 masses which had never been celebrated. All the other Car- melite frailes and officials likewise underwent torture without confession, nor is it likely, in view of the fate of Madre Agueda, that it was sparingly applied. Four sisters of the convent were also tortured, of whom only one could be brought to confess, and she said that she had been taught the evil doc- trines by Fray Juan de Longas. Against this may be set the other nuns, who had formed an antagonistic fa.tion in the convent, and who, as Llorente tells us, deposed to a mass of incredible things, unnecessary to repeat. Many witnesses moreover were found to swear that Fray Juan de la Vega had entered into a pact with the demon. At the auto de fe held at Logrono in" 1743, Fray Juan de la Vega was relegated to the desert convent of Duruelo, where he soon died. The other frailes were sent to convents in Majorca, Bilbao, Valladolid and Osma. The annalist of the Order was the only one who confessed, and he thus es- caped the shame of wearing the sanbenito, as did likewise Dona Vicente de Loya, for the same reason. The inculpated nuns were distributed among other convents, and the house of Corella was filled with sisters from other places. Llorente adds that the archives of the Inquisition were filled with cases of similar disorders in convents too indecent to be made public. 1 This I can well believe from the character of some of those occurring in Mexico which I have consulted. It was probably the affair of Madre Agueda which led the Inquisition in 1745 to issue a special edict directed against five Molinist errors. 2 By this time, however, the definition 1 Llorente, IV. 33-9. 2 There is an allusion to this edict in the Relacion de la causa de don Pedro Fernandez Ybarraran (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.), but the only error MOLINISTAS. 295 of Molinism had become so elastic that it could be applied to almost any aberration. In the trial of Dr. Agustin Tam- arit, before the Inquisition of Barcelona in 1757, for heretical speeches, one of the charges was that he had said that " the M oors were wealthy, prosperous and in the enjoyment of plentiful rain, directly the reverse of us Christians, and concluded by saying ' What remains for us but to join the Moors ? ' On another he asserted that it was better to be bad than good, as good people were generally poor and bad ones rich." On this the decision of the calificadores was " The first part of this proposition is scandalous, savoring of Molinism and apostasy. The last is heretical." 1 There probably was Molinism involved in the case of Maria de Lara, penanced at Cordova in the auto of July 13, 1749. Her errors were so numerous that the sentence consumed four hours and a half, in the reading, but the only one speci- fically mentioned in the account'which has reached us is that she conceived and gave birth to Christ a second time, in the same way as the Virgin. Even her confessors believed in her and one of them was penanced in a private auto. She was condemned to two hundred lashes (which were subsequently spared her), to three years in the hospital of Jesus Nazarene of Cordova, and to seven subsequent years of exile from Cordova, Madrid, and her birth-place, Montoro. 2 We again hear of Alumbrados in an auto de ft held in 1770 in the church of San Francisco de Murcia, where Miguel Cano, cura of Algezares, abjured de vehementi, Ana Garcia, the madre espiritual of the sect, abjured de formali, together there specifically quoted does not differ much from those condemned in the bull Cozlestis Pastor. It is "que Dios en la presente providencia permite a los Demonios que violenten a algunas almas santas a acciones externas intrinsicamente malas para purgarlas por este medio pasivamente el sentido." 1 Records of the Spanish Inquisition translated from the Original MSS , Boston, 1828, p. 179. 1 take this opportunity of thanking the unknown friend to whom I owe the possession of this scarce volume. 2 Matute y Luquin, p. 292. 2^6 mystics and illuminati. with two hermits and various women of the town of Mula. When we are told that they styled kisses passes del alma or steps of the soul, that they asserted themselves to be united in the essence of Jesus and transformed into the Holy Trinity, we recognize that the old leaven was still working and are reminded that the mystic rhapsodies of Santa Teresa and San Juan de la Cruz were still classics. 1 These were too firmly established to be eradicated, but new literature of the kind was not allowed. When the learned Canon Vicente Pastor de los Cobos, who was himself a consultor of the Inqui- sition and who died in the odor of sanctity, wrote his Libro Grande de Mistica, although it never was printed, a MS. copy was denounced to the Holy Office and was duly con- demned. 2 In spite of these efforts the impostors, so rife in the six- teenth and seventeenth centuries, continued to flourish on the boundless credulity of the people. At an auto de fe in Granada in 1778 there was punished a woman named Man- uela Lopez, a ribbon weaver, aged 33, as guilty of the old fictions of revelations, visions and miracles; she had the wound of the lance on the side, she possessed prophetic power, she could withdraw souls from purgatory and read the interior of consciences. Yet her offences were visited with a leniency in marked contrast with the severity directed against Molinism. She appeared at the auto with a halter around the neck and the mitre of an impostor, and her sen- tence was merely a year in a house of correction and four years' exile from Granada, Illescas and all royal residences. 1 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 94. The sister kingdom of Portugal was troubled with similar manifestations. At the auto de fe of 1761, in which perished the unfortunate Malagrida, no less than eight women were condemned to various penances for imposture, feigning diabolical possession, trances, visions, etc. — Liste des personnes qui ont ete condamnees a 1' Acte publique de Foi, le 20 Septembre, 1761. Lisbonne, 1761, pp. 21-24. 2 Lopez, El Sacro-Monte de Granada, Madrid, 1883, p. 139. MOLINISTAS. 297 Her confessor, who was doubtless an accomplice, was pen- anced at a private auto to avoid scandal. 1 More remarkable in every respect was the case of Maria de los Dolores Lopez, known as the Beata Dolores, who suf- fered as a Molinist, in 1 78 1 , at Seville. She was, or pretended to be, blind and ascribed her ability to read and write and embroider to miraculous interposition. At the age of twelve she left her father's house to live as a concubine with her confessor. Four years later he died, when she went to Mar- chena and assumed the habit of a beata which she continued to wear. Her quick intelligence gained for her a high rep- utation among the people, who imagined that only supernat- ural gifts could enable a blind person to divine things so readily. The fame of her sanctity and of the special graces enjoyed by her spread far and wide ; she held long conversa- tions with her guardian angel, after the fashion of Josepha de San Luis Beltran, but her career at Marchena was brought to an end by her corrupting her confessor. He was relegated to a convent of rigid observance and she went to Seville, where she followed the same hypocritical life for twelve years till, in July, 1 779, one of her confessors, pricked by conscience, denounced both herself and himself to the Inquisition, and abundant evidence as to her scandals was easily obtained. The trial lasted for two years, for she resolutely maintained the truth of her pretensions ; since the age of four she had been the object of special grace, she had continual and famil- iar intercourse with the Virgin, she had been married in heaven to the child Jesus with St. Joseph and St. Augustin as witnesses, she had liberated millions of souls from purga- tory, and much more of the same sort. Had she been con- tent to confess herself an impostor she would have escaped with the customary moderate punishment of reclusion, but she rendered herself guilty of formal and ob-.tinate heresy by maintaining the so-called Molinist doctrine that evil ac- 1 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 94. IS 2q8 mystics and illuminati. tions cease to be sinful when God so wills it. Every effort was made to convert her. The most eminent theologians were summoned and vainly exhausted their learning and elo- quence ; Fray Diego de Cadiz preached to her constantly for two months. She was equally unmoved by the threat of burning ; God, she said, had revealed to her that she would die a martyr, after which he would in three days prove her innocence. Burning was going out of fashion, and the In- quisition honestly endeavored to escape its necessity, but her obstinacy admitted of no alternative, and on August 22, 1 781, she was finally condemned and abandoned to the sec- ular arm. She listened unmoved to the sentence, after which, in place of being as usual hurried at once to the stake, she was, as a supreme effort, kept for three days in the chapel with holy men exhorting her to no purpose. Then at the auto de fe every one was melted to pity on seeing her with the mitre of flames and demons, while she alone remained impassible during the sermon and ceremony — in fact she had to be gagged to suppress her blasphemy. Finally however on her way to the stake she weakened, she burst into tears and asked for a confessor. The execution was postponed for some hours and her punishment was mitigated, according to rule, with preliminary strangulation. 1 It mattered little that the Inquisition did good work in exposing these impostures. Popular superstition was ready to believe anything, and ingenuity was never at a loss in devising means to gratify it. Isabel Maria Herraiz, known as the Beata de Cuenca, was a woman of the lowest class, the wife of a laborer of Villar del Aguila. She Obtained the reputation of sanctity and, in order to increase the devotion of her disciples, she announced that Christ had revealed to her that, with the object of being more perfectly united to 1 This account of Maria de los Dolores is, for the mosi part, based upon Menendez y Pelayo (III. 405). In the Municipal Archives of Seville, how- ever, there is a brief statement of the auto by an eyewitness, which differs from the above in some particulars. It will be found in the Appendix. M0LIN1STAS. 299 her in love, he had transfused his body and blood into hers. This novel proposition gave rise to a lively theological dis- cussion. Some learned doctors maintained that it was im- possible, as it would render her more holy than the Virgin and would deprive the sacrament of the exclusive distinction of being the body and blood of the Lord. Others argued that it was possible, but that in the existing case the proofs were insufficient. Others again accepted it as true and urged in defence the acknowledged virtues of the beata and the absence of motives for lying. Her disciples worshipped her, carrying her in procession through the streets with lighted tapers, and prostrating themselves before her in adoration. At last the Inquisition interposed and put an end to the blasphemous farce by imprisoning her and her accomplices. Possibly she may have been roughly handled in the examina- tions for she died in the carceles secretas without confession. In the auto de fe which followed she was burnt in effigy, while the cura of Villar and two confederate monks followed with halters around their necks and were banished for life to the Philippines. The cura of Casasimarro was suspended for six years ; two laymen received two hundred lashes apiece, with banishment for life to the Presidios or African garrisons, and the beata' s maid was consigned to a house of correction for ten years. 1 By this time in Spain we hear little of so-called Molinism, but in the New World it continued to give occupation to the Holy Office. In 1790, in New Granada, a Capuchin whose name Llorente kindly suppresses, and who had been pro- vincial and guardian, seduced thirteen beguines in a house under his spiritual direction by telling them that Christ had appeared to him and commanded him to have commerce with them in order to lead them to perfect union with the Divine Essence. To prevent scandal he was sent with the evidences of his crime to Spain for trial. Before the Inquisition of 1 Llorente, IV. 123. 400 MYSTICS AND ILL VMINA TI. Madrid he obstinately maintained the truth of the vision until the Inquisitor, kindly violating the established rule of pro- cedure, hinted to him that if he persisted there would be no alternative but to burn him as an unrepentant heretic. Then he confessed and was sentenced to a circular scourging by the friars of the Capuchin convent of Madrid, to be followed by five years' confinement in a college of his Order in Valencia. He begged to be kept in the inquisitorial prison, saying that he knew what his fate would be among his fellows, but his prayer was refused and his prescience was verified, for he died before three years of his penance were completed. 1 While this case was in progress the Mexican Inquisition was busy with one, reminding us in some of its features of those of Francisco Ortiz and Joseph Brunon de Vertiz. It is worth considering in some detail as illustrating inquisitorial methods and the intricacy of the questions raised by the Molinist controversy. Fray Eusebio de Villaroja was a Fran- ciscan of the strictest observance, learned, eloquent, austere in life, and of irreproachable conduct. In Spain he had twice endeavored to undertake a mission to the Philippines but had been told that his services as a preacher could not be spared, but the Guardian of the Franciscan mission college at Pachuca in Mexico finally made interest to obtain his assign- ment there, and in 1783 he reached the New World, at the age of thirty-eight. He was promptly appointed lector in morals and resolutor de cctsos ; his brethren regarded him as an oracle, and his kindly earnestness made him a universal favorite. He was strongly inclined to mysticism, and wrote a little work entitled Oracion de Fe interior, which the Inqui- sition subsequently pronounced to contain no reprobated doctrines, but to be dangerous because it dismissed as useless all reading and meditation and inducted the neophyte at once into the mysteries of mental prayer. Two or three years after reaching Pachuca Fray Eusebio 1 Llorente, III. 44. MOLINISTAS. 401 undertook the spiritual direction of two girls, Gertrudis and Josepha Palacios, who represented themselves as subject to demoniacal possession and were adepts in all the mystic arts — ecstasies, visions, revelations and prophecies. In less than a year Gertrudis died and Josepha so completely engrossed the attention of Fray Eusebio that he gave himself up almost entirely to her. She took communion daily at his hand, she spent morning and afternoon at his confessional, and at night he would frequently be sent for to exorcise her. She was then about twenty years of age, and on her trial she confessed that since the age of twelve she had been aban- doned to the most degrading form of sensuality against which she said she vainly struggled. Something of this she confided to Fray Eusebio in the confessional, attributing it to the violence of the demons who possessed her, and his theory that this was allowed by God to cure her of the sin of pride formed the principal charge against him, as the inquisitors argued that this was rank Molinism. Fray Eusebio became so completely subjugated by these girls that his credulity was boundless. He even announced a prophecy that on a given day they would rise from the floor of the church, soar through the windows and ascend to glory, and when the allotted time passed he explained that the prophecy had been conditional and that the conditions had not occurred. He reduced to writing all their visions and revelations with untiring industry until he had filled seventy- six books in his remarkably condensed chirography. He made no secret of all this and his guileless simplicity was shared by a number of his brethren. In fact, as a disbeliever said, when any one remonstrated with him he defended his position with, so much eloquence and learning that any one not cognizant of the facts would have been convinced. One of the revelations obtained through Josepha was that God sent demons to instruct the faithful in piety and virtue and Christian observances ; thus they frequented churches in human form, presented themselves at the confessional and 402 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. took the Eucharist, which they could not swallow but which nevertheless disappeared. This notion led to an aggressive demonstration about June, 1788, when on several occasions Eusebio suddenly sprang from his confessional and assailed harmless penitents awaiting their turn, stigmatizing them as demons, beating them with his cord and pulling them by the hair or ears. He also chased dogs out of the church, crying out that they were devils. This created no little talk and scandal, which were aggravated by a fainting-fit of Josepha after receiving communion. The convent physician, who had treated him for dyspepsia, thought that undue austerity and too ardent study had engendered hypochondriac humors and the Guardian felt that it was time to interfere. He ordered Eusebio to attend to his other duties, to give Josepha not more than an hour in the confessional and never to go to her house. Eusebio promptly obeyed ; he ceased to talk of her visions and prophecies and she naturally ceased to have them. This affair quieted down, and when, more than a year afterwards, Fray Juan Sanchez, as official inspector of the province, questioned him, he admitted that he had erred; that as the Guardian had been cognizant of it throughout he had supposed it to be right, but as soon as the Guardian reproved him, by the grace of God he recognized his error ; he now understood the matter and would not relapse into belief and he had so told Josepha. A man of such Christian humility and so true to his vows of obedience was easily managed : it required inquisitorial ingenuity to make a heretic and a martyr of him, and if the Inquisition had withheld its hand the affair would have been no more thought of. Unluckily the Guardian, apparently not knowing whether Eusebio would prove tractable and dreading his influence with the brethren, had at the same time taken the further precaution of sending two friars to Mexico to denounce him to the Inquisition. Their testimony was duly taken down, and the fiscal or prosecuting officer was entrusted with the case. In November the Guardian was in Mexico and was MOLINISTAS. 403 summoned as a witness, when he told the whole story, adding that Eusebio's eccentricities had ceased on being reprehended, and he evidently considered the incident as closed. Not so the Inquisition, which in its deliberate fashion continued to accumulate a formidable mass of testimony, all bearing wit- ness however to the culprit's eminent piety and virtue and the blamelessness of his life. So on the inspector's visit to Pachuca in July, 1789, he was ordered to inquire into the matter and to secure the diaries kept by Eusebio ; they were at once cheerfully surrendered and his report of August 7 in transmitting them was wholly favorable to the accused. In fact, the last entry in the diary, under date of August 5, was one in which Eusebio humbly submitted to the judgment of the Church not only himself but the authenticity of all the wonders which he had narrated. In spite of all this the Inquisition continued its prepara- tions and in July, 1790, it sent for Eusebio to present himself. The somewhat unusual favor of an audiencia de cargos was granted him before arrest, unfortunately for him, as it proved, for he did not understand that he was virtually on trial. The audience lasted from the 3d to the i8thof August and turned principally on the question whether God, for the greater perfection of the creature, will permit the demon to lead her into foul and obscene actions ; the position taken by Eusebio being that God, for hidden reasons, may do so and that con- sequently penance may not be necessary — a conclusion which he said he had derived from cases cited by Liguori. Over this there was a prolonged and subtle disputation. It was not, as we have seen, the practice of the Inquisition to formulate definite charges or to reveal the evidence in its possession until immediately before the close of a trial, meanwhile allowing the accused to flounder in helpless ignor- ance and to entangle himself in the snares cunningly spread before him. Eusebio repeatedly declared afterwards that if he had known that this audience was anything more than an effort to ascertain his opinions he would at once have sub 404 MYSTICS AND ILLUMTNATI. mitted himself to the correction of the Inquisition, have abjured and detested any errors which it might condemn, and have asked for appropriate penance. No intimation of the kind, however, was given ; he was allowed to involve himselt inextricably in the subtleties of theological disputation ; the controversial pride of the inquisitor, Prado y Obejero, was fairly aroused, and Eusebio' s efforts to distinguish between his doctrine and that of Molinos, which he heartily abhorred, were pronounced futile. It is not worth while to follow in detail the steps of the prolonged trial. After three years of preliminary work the Inquisition was ready to proceed; on October 13, 1791, Eusebio was thrown into the secret prison and the case went through its regular stages. Wholly superfluous were the cus- tomary threats that torture would be resorted to and that obstinacy would bring him to the stake, for never was there a less defiant culprit. On every fitting occasion he protested that he had been miserably led into error by ignorance and had sustained as Catholic a doctrine deserving condemnation. The lights now given to him respecting violence exercised by demons had caused him to reflect ; though his opinions had been based on Arbiol and Liguori he did not wish to be obstinate and he was ready to reform his belief wherever he had wandered from Christian doctrine. He begged to be undeceived as to anything in which he might have erred ; he wished promptly to retract whatever was inconsistent with Catholic dogma and to submit himself to the correction of the Holy Office, for he earnestly sought the discharge of his conscience and the salvation of his soul. Nothing, in fact, could exceed the humility of his gentle spirit, but nothing could appease the implacability of his judges. Yet when, in the trial of Josepha, the fiscal drew up her accusation, he heightened her crime by describing her as a liar capable of forging another Alcoran ; as the cause and origin of the suf- ferings of Eusebio, both the corporal ones which he bears with such resignation and the spiritual ones which harrow MOLINISTAS. 405 him with the clear knowledge which he has acquired of her sacrilegious impositions on his credulity. Although the situation was thus clearly understood by the tribunal it brought him no alleviation. On April 26, 1793, he appeared as a penitent in an auto particular in the hall of the Inquisition where only the ecclesiastics of the city were present. His sentence was read, in which was em- bodied as proved the enormously long accusation reciting all his follies and describing him as hardened and obstinate in his errors as an alumbrado and Molinist. Though he had deserved great and heavy penalties, the sentence went on to say, he would be treated with mercy. He was to be sharply and severely reproved, to abjure de vehementi, to be forever deprived of the function of confessing, and to be banished to the distance of twenty leagues from the city of Mexico, Pachuca and Madrid for ten years, of which the first three were to be passed in reclusion in the Franciscan college of San Fernando in the city, where he was to be subjected to certain humiliations, penances and austerities, and finally he was to be sent to Spain whenever the inquisitors might see fit. The fate of a friar condemned by the Inquisition to reclu- sion among his brethren was usually unendurable, and it is a singular testimony to the purity and sweetness of Eusebio's character, that, like Francisco Ortiz, he won the veneration of those among whom he was thus thrown, to whom, as they declared, his daily life was an edification. Even those of the college of Pachuca, whose poverty was increased by being forced to pay the expenses of his trial and of his subsequent deportation, seem to have regarded him with unabated affec- tion. He duly performed his penances, but his severest affliction was an indirect result of his prosecution. In youth he had suffered from rheumatism ; during his eighteen months of incarceration the dampness of his cell had brought this back with redoubled force and he was crippled. After a year's reclusion, in May, 1794, he addressed an humble peti- 18* 406 MYSTICS AND ILL UAIINA TI. tion to the Inquisition thanking it for the benefits conferred, stating his condition, scarce able to walk and with a chronic rheum of the eyes, and begging to be remanded to the dryer atmosphere of Pachuca as the moist climate of the city was destroying him. After a perfunctory visit from the official physician this was refused, but he was offered the alternative of a transfer to Tacubaya which he declined. Another year passed away without alleviation and in March, 1795, he ad- dressed an appeal to the Archbishop of Toledo, the inquisitor general. The document is a curious one, written in the closest handwriting with great economy of paper, evidently to enable it to be smuggled to Spain, for the proceeding was most irregular. In it he states as the cause of his condemna- tion that he had maintained that God might permit the temp- tation of the flesh to cure the pride of the soul, by which he understood that of the vice and not of the guilt or fault, while the Inquisitor Prado y Obejero insisted that the cure of pride without virtue was false doctrine. The question, he added, had been publicly discussed at Toledo sixteen years before, when he was teacher in the Franci can convent there, when neither the archbishop nor the Inquisition had objected to the doctrine, and he proceeded to set forth the argument in its favor at much length and with great learning. He declared his readiness to perish in the flames for the faith as he held it. His sufferings, he added, were on the increase and with prophetic spirit he said that if kept in the city of Mexico or sent to Spain he would surely die. Another year passed away, and in March, 1796, the Guar- dian of San Fernando appealed to the Inquisition to save him, describing him as continually growing worse and liable to be permanently disabled if he had not speedy relief. Eusebio was becoming desperate ; in the unstable fancies of the sick man any change must be for the better, and when his three years of reclusion were past, about May 1, 1796, he begged to be sent to Spain. Meanwhile his appeal to the inquisitor general had been forwarded by the Supreme Coun- MOLINISTAS. 407 cil to Mexico with orders for the transmission of the papers ; copies of these had been dispatched, and the result was a command to transmit him to Spain as provided in the sen- tence. This reached Mexico in June, 1796, and instructions were immediately issued to the college of Pachuca to make provision for his conveyance. When the news was brought to Eusebio he protested that his condition was such that it would kill him, but without avail. The Guardian of Pachuca kindly arranged to postpone the voyage until after October and meanwhile to carry him to Tacubaya in hopes that he might improve during the interval. Towards the close of October he was conveyed by easy stages to Vera Cruz, and one of the documents in the records is a bill of lading by which the master of the good ship Aurora acknowledges the receipt, November 8, 1796, of one convict named Fray Euse- bio de Villarejo, shipped by the Inquisition of Mexico, to be delivered to the commissioner of the Inquisition at Cadiz. The Aurora sailed November 9 ; she touched at Havana and news was brought thence that on the ninth day out Eusebio had rendered his gentle spirit to his Creator — not the only innocent victim of the insane fury excited by the errors attributed to Molinos. Of the fate of Josepha we know nothing. 1 Contemporary with this was a case which to some extent explains the prevalent suspicion felt towards the ardor of mysticism in the dangerous relations of the confessional, when the recital of past sins by female lips was rendered sug- gestively infectious by the passion which might lurk under the aspirations of divine love. Pedro Fernandez Ybarraran was a Spanish priest who had studied for thirteen years at Alcala and subsequently at Toledo. He had led a somewhat roving life, he had drifted to the Pacific coast around Cape Horn and after many wanderings, in 1784, at the age of 36, had settled at Puebla, where he won a high character for the fervor and 1 Proceso de Fray Eusebio de Villaroja (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq. 4o8 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. zeal with which he discharged his duties. He was, however, inconsiderate and impulsive and, under an exterior of piety, as he confessed during his trial, he had from youth upwards been guilty of innumerable sins with women. The other actor in the drama was a woman 34 years old, named Maria Barbara Echagaray, who had led an unsettled existence apart from her family. She seems to have been a person of con- siderable attractions, with quick intelligence and lively imagi- nation, but subject to epileptic attacks. Although Mexico boasted that, through the influence of its patroness, Our Lady of Guadalupe, it was singularly free from demoniacal pos- session, all nervous affections of this nature were attributed to that cause and she had been frequently exorcised. Accord- ing to her own story, in August, 1792, she was aroused to a sense of her depravity by an internal voice saying to her " how long? " and she sought a confessor. Evil fate led her to Ybarraran, and after some preliminary partial confessions she commenced a general confession, September 24, which lasted until October 9. For twenty years she had led a most abandoned life, the details of which as faithfully set down by her confessor, transcend belief in their vileness. She had procured numerous abortions on herself, she had twice signed pacts with the devil written in her blood, she had had more than one incubus, and she had committed with the host and the image of Christ the sacrileges usually ascribed to Jews. 1 A creature more wholly lost to grace and destined to perdition it would be impossible to conceive. Yet Barbara's fervor of conversion and yearning for reunion with God were so ardent that Ybarraran speedily came to believe that God had selected her as a shining example of divine mercy and that she was destined, as he said, to be the St. Magdalen of Mexico. He might also have instanced the 1 It illustrates the condition of intelligence at the close of the eighteenth century that in a discussion between Ybarraran and the inquisitor concerning the various incubi of Barbara neither of them entertain the slightest doubt as to the existence of such relations between demons and human beings. MOLINISTAS. 4 0 9 Blessed Angela of Foligno as a similar case. He applied to the Inquisition for a licence to absolve her, and then, without awaiting it, when she seemed to be dying of a hemorrhage to which she was subject, he absolved her conditionally and subsequently admitted her to communion. From childhood she had been given to visions ; these now came frequently and were mostly allegorical, displaying considerable powers of invention. One of them, about a strayed sheep, so affected Ybarraran that it converted him ; he repented of his past sins, he thenceforth led a virtuous life and he redoubled his ardor in his religious duties. His attention was directed to mysticism ; he procured some mystic books and studied them diligently, acquiring sufficient knowledge to lead him fatally astray. In place of advancing the beata in due course through the via purgativa activa, the via purgativa pasiva and the via iluminativa to the via unitiva, he allowed her to ascend at once from the depths of sin to union with God and a state of perfection in which her virginity was restored. So thoroughly was he convinced of her saintliness that he committed the ruinous indiscretion of keeping a minute diary of his intercourse with her. It is this which, amid all his indiscretions and the glaring impostures of his beata, con- vinces me of his sincerity. Had he been merely a licentious priest engaged in an amour with an abandoned woman he would no more have kept a record of it than of his innumer- able similar adventures in the past, but in this curious document every detail, even of seemingly the most compro- mising character, was set forth minutely and accompanied with a mystical commentary which could not fail to convict him of heresy and "solicitation " in case it should see the light. Yet he read it, or portions of it, to learned theolo- gians whom he consulted, and who warned him of the dangers which he was incurring ; and a passage in it shows that he honestly believed himself to be earning the gratitude of all future spiritual directors by leaving to them an imperish- MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. able guide of the greatest value in the conduct of mystical souls. 1 The demoniacal possession of his beata continued and alternated in the most abrupt manner with revelations and visions of heaven and hell. In these states she apparently was insensible and spoke mechanically as though God or the demon was using her tongue as an instrument. Sometimes her utterances were of the most vulgar obscenity ; she declared herself burning with lust and entreated Ybarraran to gratify her, and his description of these passages and of his expedients to preserve her virtue and his own is of incon- ceivable plainness, impossible of transcription. Then on her awakening from the trance they would hug and kiss each other, as he declared, for the greater glory of God and in mockery of the baffled demons who had vainly sought to seduce them from the path of virtue. He frequently passed the night in her house and finally took up his residence there, which does not seem to have been regarded as unusual or as interfering with his usefulness as director of the Christian schools. Yet he mingled austerity with affection and often administered the discipline to her while chanting the Miserere, on one occasion giving her 234 blows, which he is careful to explain were not on the bare skin. Barbara meanwhile was endeavoring to earn an honest support as a sempstress, but the boldness of her imposture is seen in the incident that, after a course of mortifications and severe spiritual and bodily suffering, she succeeded in winning back at least one of her blood-written compacts with the fiend, which mysteriously appeared upon her bed during a trance and was solemnly burnt by Ybarraran, who scattered the ashes with his breath. He made the fatal plunge into Molinism by maintaining that she was not responsible for her fits of lustful longing, for 1 " El que tubiere la dicha de poner este en limpio despues de mi muerte dara gracias a Dios, extendera esta doctrina en castellano y me hechera un requiescat in pace," MOLINISTAS. 411 that these were the work of demons commissioned by God to purify her soul in the via purgativa pasiva ; but he sought to establish the distinction that the condemned doctrine of Molinos related to sins committed by the soul in possession of its faculties, while the case of his beata was an unexampled one, in which the sinning soul was unconscious and was merely the passive instrument of the divine operation through dia- bolical agents empowered to control both body and soul. Another serious error was that he disregarded the received rules of spiritual directorship, considering the case to be an exceptional one, and he followed, as he said, the dictates of his own heart in the conduct of his penitent, believing that they were both under the immediate inspiration of God. This could not go on without attracting attention and leading to the interposition of the Inquisition, which com- menced, in its usual mode, to make secret investigations concerning him. It soon heard of his diary and in November, 1794, orders were sent to seize it. Ybarraran surrendered it without resistance but forthwith had the imprudence to address a letter to Pius VI. complaining of the act as a viola- tion of the seal of the confessional ; he had been taken, he said, by surprise ; had he had time for reflection he would have braved prison and death rather than give it up ; he asked papal instructions as to what he should do and that the Inquisition be ordered to treat him mildly. This missive naturally received no attention, and the Inquisition proceeded with its customary deliberation. It was not till December 23, 1795, that the fiscal made his official demand for the arrest and prosecution of Ybarraran and his beata. The order was issued January 21, 1796, and on the night of February 15 he was consigned to the secret prison in Mexico. His case at first was pushed with unusual despatch, and already by April 19 commenced the formal Audiencia de ■Acusacion, which occupied thirty-one days and was not con- cluded until August was well advanced. The accusation was a most formidable affair, consisting of 146 articles on all of 412 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. which he was exhausively examined. He had manifested no obstinate longing for martyrdom, and from the first had declared that he had been deceived by his beata, that he was ready to retract any errors into which he might have fallen and to accept whatever penance might be imposed on him, for his only desire was to save his soul by living and dying in the orthodox Catholic faith. In this frame of mind his case could have been summarily disposed of, but the inquisitors as usual were determined to follow the routine and to prove him guilty. He was forced into endless disputations on the most subtle points of mystic theology, in which the practised skill of his judges, with all his writings and answers before them, easily involved him in the most complicated mazes of heresy. In the several calificaciones which took place in the course of the trial he is pronounced guilty of the errors of the Millen- arians, Beghards, Gnostics, Alumbrados, Molinists, Luther- ans, Quesnellists, Waldenses, Pelagians, Fraticelli and even of the Quakers. He had not toughness of body or mind to resist this tremendous strain, in the solitude of his cell and under the pressure of awful suspense. Before he had been a month in prison he complained that the deprivation of exercise had caused a trembling of the legs and the recurrence of an old disease which threatened him with suffocation. No attention was paid to his sufferings, and in September soon after the conclusion of his Audiencia de Acusacion\ie could endure the situation no longer. He asked for an audience in which he formally renounced all defence. His health, he said, was destroyed, he was infested with visions and tempta- tions to despair, leading him to expect madness or sudden death. All that he wanted was that his case should be con- cluded, and he would willingly submit to whatever the Inqui- sition might prescribe. He protested that he had acted in good faith with his beata, but he submitted in all things his belief to the Holy Office. The imperturbable and implacable tribunal was too much MOLINISTAS. ^! ^ accustomed to such ejaculations of despair to pay heed to them. The trial dragged along in the customary deliberate routine. It was not until the spring of 1797 that the "pub- lication of proof" took place, in which all the evidence was read over to him, including his own writings, and he was allowed or required to explain or argue against it. This occupied sixteen days and must have exhausted his failing powers. In July he had an interview with the advocate allotted to him, who took six months to draw up a simulacrum of defence, presented January 12, 1798. On July 4 the case was finally submitted to the calificadores, who, in view of the voluminousness of the records, were unable to render their decision until November, when they reported that in view of his Catholic protests they pronounced him only subjectively suspect de vehementi of Molinism. Here the record before me ends, with no indication that a sentence was rendered. From its form as a relacion it must evidently have been drawn up for submission, to the Supreme Council in Spain, which indicates that there must have been a discordia between the inquisitors — a difference of opinion as to the punishment to be inflicted. In view of the habitual delays under such circumstances it is tolerably safe to assume that Ybarraran was either dead or hopelessly mad before the termination of his trial. I have no means of knowing what became of Bar- bara Echegaray. 1 An auto de fe at Madrid, celebrated by the Inquisition in 1802, was graced by a penitent who had imposed upon the highest social class and even upon the Holy See itself. The Beata Clara of Madrid had acquired great reputation by her visions and revelations and miracles. She pretended to be paralyzed and unable to leave her bed, and when she an- nounced ' that by the special command of the Holy Ghost she was destined to become a Capuchin but was unable to 1 Relacion de la Causa de don Pedro Fernandez Ybarraran (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). 4H MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. live in a convent, Pius VI. gave her a dispensation author- izing her to take the vows outside of the community and without residence. Atanasio de Puyal, coadjutor of the Archbishop of Toledo, and subsequently Bishop of Calahorra, administered the vows and obtained permission to erect a private altar in her room at which mass was celebrated and she received the sacrament daily, pretending to take no other food. All the great ladies of the court flocked around her and implored her intercession in every kind of trouble, giving her large sums to be expended in charity. The comedy lasted for several years until in 1801 the Inquisition laid hands on her, and she was thrown into prison, with her mother and spiritual director as confederates. The imposture was proved and all three were sentenced to incarceration. 1 In spite of this example a somewhat similar case occurred the next year. A girl aged 22, named Maria Bermeja entered the hospital of Madrid. Her disease was epilepsy, which rendered her a favorable instrument for superstitious impos- ture, and the sub-director, Joseph Cebrian, with the aid of the chaplain, Inigo Acero, made a saint of her with a number of ingenious devices to excite popular veneration, until the Inquisition interposed and punished them all. 3 Human nature changes slowly and the nineteenth century still offers an ample field for exploitation by enthusiasts and impostors — enthusiasts who seek a higher life in mystical as- pirations towards the Creator, and knaves of either sex who speculate upon the credulity of the people. The last pris- oners of the Inquisition of Cordoba were two beatas, whose trial was still pending when the Holy Office was finally sup- pressed in 1820, and they were set free. 3 The absence of the Inquisition seems to have produced little change except relegating these cases to different tribunals. In 1836 a sect 1 Llorente, IV. 125. s Matute y Luquin, p. 296. - Llorente, IV. 127. MOLINISTAS. 4! 5 accused of entertaining the doctrine of Molinos and the alumbrados was formed in the province of Tarragona by a laborer named Miguel Ribas and a cleric, Don Jose Suaso — the latter a man of education as he had been professor of Latin in the diocesan seminary. For a number of years they seem to have propagated their errors without opposition, but at length, although the Inquisition had long been extinct, machinery was set in motion for the vindication of the faith. The governor of the province denounced them and in 1851 they were duly tried by the episcopal court — -the original tri- bunal for heretical offences. From the condemnation pro- nounced on the propositions uttered by Miguel Ribas and the beatas of Alforja it would seem that their errors were virtually the same as those we have followed since the six- teenth century, for their doctrine was declared to be errone- ous, audacious, scandalous, blasphemous, dangerous to the faith, heretical, insulting to the dignity of the sacraments, contrary to the sixth commandment, destructive of purity and of morality and of the sanctity of marriage, and openly adverse to the Catholic dogma of the necessity of the sacra- ment of penitence. Ribas was banished to Urgel, whence he returned in 1863 to die at his home at Alforja, reconciled to the Church. Shortly afterwards in Valencia a priest named Aparisi commenced to disseminate similar errors, but his career was cut short by banishment to Majorca. 1 Another sect connected with our subject by its being founded on visions and revelations assumed the specious title of la Obra de Misericordia. This took its origin in France, with a man named Elias, claiming to be a prophet and to hold frequent communication with the Archangel Michael. Sub- sequent to the Restoration the sect made itself busy in poli- tics by supporting the claims of one of the fictitious Louis XVII., and Elias had the audacity to present himself to Charles X. and to demand the surrender of the crown to the 1 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 688-9. 416 M YS TICS AND ILL UMINA TI. rightful heir. Some legitimists associated themselves with him, and the sect founded in Lyons a sort of lay church of which Elias was high pontiff, officiating in a priestly cope with a gold ring on his right forefinger and read- ing the service from the Golden Book of the community. They administered communion in both elements, the priestly functions were performed by laymen, and at the close of the service men and women exchanged the fraternal kiss. The sect had proselytes in Madrid, where its conventicles were held in a house in the Calle del Soldado. Senor Menendez y Pelayo possesses a letter written by Elias to one of the Spanish devotees known as Maria de Pura Llama, an apoca- lyptic composition in which the writer converses directly with the angels and with God. 1 The notorious case of Sor Patrocinio affords a more signi- ficant instance of the strength of old superstitions. Maria Rafaela Quiroga, known in religion as Sor Maria Cipriana del Patrocinio de San Jose, was born about 1810. When thirteen or fourteen years of age, after the death of her father and brother, her mother placed her in a convent. In January, 1829, she took the veil in the house of San Jose, commonly known as del Caballero de "Gracia in Madrid, where she soon commenced to have ecstasies and revelations, followed by the appearance of the stigmata. The fame of her sanctity spread, noble ladies went to see her, and the cloths stained with blood from her wounds were in request as curative relics. In the fierce struggle caused by the rebellion of Don Carlos, the clericals who secretly favored the pretender saw in Sor Patrocinio a useful instrument. Rumors were spread by friars of her prophecies of victories for Don Carlos and of the final overthrow of Isabel, and a story was circulated that on one occasion the demon had carried her through the air to Aranjuez where she witnessed convincing proof of the 1 Menendez y Pelayo, III. 689. MOLINISTAS. 417 immorality of the Queen-regent Maria Cristina and of the illegitimacy of her daughter Isabel. This was a matter of high public import ; in the doubtful condition of affairs the visions of the nun were becoming dangerous and the govern- ment felt it necessary to interfere. Process was publicly commenced, testimony was taken, and early in November, 1835, a judge was sent to the convent to interrogate the Sor and the other members of the community. They unanimously denied responsibility for the political rumors, but, with the exception of one young sister, they all, including the Sor herself, attested the reality of the ecsta- sies and stigmata — on one occasion the wounds in the hands bled so freely that the blood filled two coffee cups. As for the adventure with the demon, it was testified that about half- past ten one morning she had disappeared and between twelve and one was found lying insensible on the roof of one of the convent buildings, with her dress covered with dust and frag- ments of vegetation, as though she had been dragged through the fields. It appeared however that the roof was nearly flat, with a large window opening upon it from a room in the second story of the main building. The case turned on the question whether the stigmata were supernatural or artificial, and the judge ordered her removed to a place where she could be examined and guarded, but the prioress and sisters offered so violent a resistance that for the avoidance of scan- dal he yielded. Then the government intervened and caused her to be taken to a private house where she was kept under the charge of her mother and of an intelligent priest. Three physicians, Diego Argumosa, Mateo Seaone and Maximiano Gonzalez examined the wounds, and their minutely scientific report, November 9, 1835, is a curiosity of medical jurispru- dence. On the backs of the hands were ulcers, produced by a mild caustic, and on the palms were scratc hes ; there was no sign of bleeding, but they were covered with a dark red sub- stance, insoluble in water, which was removed with difficulty. On the left side was a nearly healed sore, apparently pro 4i8 MYSTICS AND ILL UMINA TI. duced by friction ; the cloth which covered this was stained with the same red substance, although the Sor declared it had been clean when put on the night before. On the top of the feet were cicatrices nearly well, while the soles bore no mark of any kind. Around the forehead were three series of spots, each about fifteen in number, produced by a cutting instrument ; the first were old scars, whitish and thor- oughly healed, the second were of about the same date as the cicatrices on the feet, and the third were six or eight days old. If interference could be prevented the physicians promised that all could be cured in from fifteen to fifty days. Nature was allowed to have her way ; every other day a bulle- tin reported progressive healing of the stigmata, except on November 27, when the right hand ulcer was found bleeding in consequence of the scab having been torn off, and on December 17 she was reported as entirely well. On January 21, 1836, an inspection was made by a number of dignitaries, lay and clerical ; the physicians' reports were read to Sor Patrocinio, who confirmed their correctness and declared her- self satisfactorily cured. After this she was removed to the convent of Santa Maria Magdalena, commonly known as the Recojidas, where, on February 7, she made a confession under oath, after due warning of the penalties of perjury. She had been brought up, she said, under the discipline of blind obedience to her superiors, leading her to become their victim, and depriving her of liberty in thought, word and act. A Capuchin, Padre Fermin de Alcaraz — subsequently de- scribed by her advocate in her defence as fandtico e ignorante en sumo grado — who was called in to see a sick nun, had given her what he called a relic and commanded her on her salvation to apply it to hands, feet, side and head, telling her that the sufferings it would cause would be salutary penance ; she had done so, and in further obedience had never revealed it to any one, even to her confessor. As to her being found on the roof, she had no knowledge how she got there ; when she recovered her senses two of the sisters were leading her to MOLINISTAS. 419 the refectory. Padre Fermin de Alcaraz was vainly searched for ; he had disappeared and was supposed to have fled the kingdom. His trial was duly commenced and he apparently was condemned in contumaciam. The case of Sor Patrocinio and of the Vicar, Prioress and Vicaress of the convent as accessories, took the usual course. It was argued by the prosecuting officer and by counsel for the accused. The advocate of the Sor took the ground that she was a victim and the innocent instrument of those who devised the frauds ; as to the adventure with the demon, the evidence pointed to her having been drugged and carried out on the roof. There was no undue haste, and sentence was not rendered until November 25, 1836. Then an appeal was taken, with little benefit to the accused, for the final sentence was somewhat more severe than the first one. The convent was suppressed ; the vicar, Andres Rivas, was banished for eight years from within twenty leagues of Madrid and all royal resi- dences. Sor Patrocinio, the Prioress and the Vicaress were ordered to be transferred to convents of rigorous observance of their own Order, not less than fifteen leagues from Madrid, and to live under surveillance to be provided by the Arch- bishop of Toledo. It was not till April 27, 1837, that this was executed. To avoid public excitement, at five o'clock a. m. a chaplain took Sor Patrocinio from the Recojidas in a carriage ; she wore a secular dress and travelled under her own name of Maria Rafaela Quiroga, and at eight p. m. on the next day she was duly received in the convent of Madre de Dios at Talavera. 1 After exposure so complete it would seem impossible for fanaticism to revive the delusion or to rehabilitate the sanc- tity of the impostor, but there are some superstitions so absolute as to be impervious to reason. Years passed away and Sor Patrocinio seemed to be forgotten in her retreat. Yet in the desperate struggle between Church and State, 1 Estracto de la Causa seguida a Sor Patrocinio, Madrid, 1865. 420 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. between conservatism and innovation, the vicissitudes of the conflict recalled her to memory and it was felt that she could again be useful. In 1845 tne convent of Jesus was built for her in Madrid ; she returned with her stigmata freshened and her reputation as a saint strengthened. Imposing ceremonies were performed to render her entrance as impressive as possible, and she was conveyed to her convent under a canopy, like a royal personage. She held secret relations with persons of the highest rank until, in 1849, under the dictatorship of General Narvaez, her influence became obnoxious to him. On the morning of October 31, when about to celebrate the feast of the eleven thousand virgins, she was seized by his order, placed in a postchaise, and hurried off to a convent in Badajoz. Impor- tant political documents were found among her papers, and when the decree of banishment was published it was accompa- nied with a reprint of the account of her former trial, which had appeared in 1837. Yet like Antaeus she gathered new strength from her falls. It was not long before she returned from Badajoz to occupy a new and vast convent prepared for her by the royal consort, Don Francisco de Asis, who also gave her brother an honorable office with apartments in the royal palace. Dr. Argumosa, who had cured her stigmata, was persecuted, while Fray Fermin Alcaraz, who had emerged from his hiding-place, became Bishop of Cuenca. She long remained the power behind the throne, acting through the camarilla which governed the queen, and herself the tool of the papal nuncios. 1 1 Usoz y Rio, Notas a los dos Tratados de Cipriano de Valera ( Reformistas antiguos Espanoles, Madrid, 1851). Sor Patrocinio has been by no means the only ecstatic of the nineteenth century to whom the distinguishing grace of the stigmata has been vouchsafed. She was preceded by Katherine Emmerich, the nun of Diilmen, and con- temporary with her were three girls of the Tyrol, Maria von Mori, Domenica Lazzari and Crescenzia Nicklutsch, all of whom had the customary series of visions and raptures and trances (Die Tyroler ekstatischen Jungfrauen, Regensburg, 1843.— Ennemoser's History of Magic, Howitt's Translation, Vol. I. p. 100.— Howitt's History of the Supernatural, Vol. I. p. 480.— MOLINISTAS. 421 A still more recent example of the morbid excitability which we have been considering is recorded in the journals of 1887. At Torrox, a seaport near Malaga, a woman announced that the Virgin had appeared to her in a vision and commanded her to preach a new evangel requiring the abandonment of all property and a return to a primitive state of existence. The belief spread until it embraced a consider- able number of the inhabitants. Clothing was discarded by both sexes ; a large fire was built around which they danced while throwing into it their worldly effects. It is said that their children would have followed and the torch would have been applied to ' their houses had not the guarda civil been summoned by some of their saner neighbors. They were arraigned before court and their mental condition was shown when they were subjected to the experiment of hypnotization and proved to be facile subjects. Impostors may be found everywhere and may everywhere attract the ignorant and the credulous. Superstition is con- fined to no Church and to no race. It ill becomes a genera- tion which has furnished believers in Madame Blavatsky's Mahatmas, which sees in its midst the so-called Christian Scientists, and which has watched the growth of faith in the Book of Mormon, to cast a stone at those which, during the four centuries here reviewed, have reverenced the Beatas as gifted with a portion of the power of God. Still, the impar- tial student of human development can scarce fail to recog- nize as one of the causes of Spanish decadence the blind faith which led Philip IV. to regulate his cabinet by revela- Nicholas, L'extatique et les Stigmatisees du Tyrol, Paris, 1844. — Bore, Les Stigmatisees du Tyrol, 2. Ed. Paris, 1846). — The more recent instance of Louise Lateau has given rise to quite a literature of controversy. The orthodox account may be found in Rohling's " Louise Lateau, her Stigmas and Ecstasy," New York, 1884. In the early part of the last century the celebrated case of La Cadiere. who barely escaped being burnt alive, is fully described by Michelet, La Sorciere, ch. X.-XII. 19 422 MYSTICS AND ILLUMINATI. tions reported through crafty monks and which suggested to Isabel II. the use of a fraudulent nun like Sor Patrocinio as a political agency. In the fierce competition of modern civil- ization no nation can afford to waste its energies. It was the misfortune of Spain that, at the critical moment when the new Europe was developing out of the old., when militarism commenced to give place to industrialism, her rulers sought to bind her irrevocably to the past and to close the gates which opened on the promise of the future. Thenceforth her energies, in place of expanding to meet the new exigencies ot the new era, concentrated themselves more than ever on the dreams of mystic contemplation, and blind belief in super- natural forces sapped the self-reliant manhood which had made the name of Spaniard a terror to both hemispheres. It is true that the Inquisition was untiring in its efforts to detect and punish imposture and to limit mysticism within the bounds of obedience, but at the same time it encouraged the spirit of which these were only erratic manifestations. National development is slow, and the temperament which has been formed and hardened through many generations cannot be changed in one or two. The turning-point has been reached, however, and all lovers of humanity will watch with interest the process of emancipation which in due time will aid in restoring a noble and vigorous race to its due position in the great assembly of modern nations. ENDEMONIADAS. In the preceding essay we have seen how frequently demo niacal possession was associated with the extravagances of mys- ticism, and how readily it was assumed as an adjunct to impos- ture. A brief account of one or two cases, uncomplicated with visions and ecstasies, may therefore not be out of place in supplementing our survey of these erratic manifestations of nervous exaltation, although the subject of possession is far too large a one to be treated here with any approach to completeness. It was a grave misfortune for humanity that so many varie- ties of cerebral disturbance were attributed to demonic in- fluence, but this was a belief handed down from the origin of Christianity, and to doubt its truth was heresy. The casting out of devils was a function eagerly claimed and largely performed by the early Christians, who regarded their control over evil spirits as one of the most efficient proofs of the truth of their religion. 1 As faith grew in the intercessory functions of the saints, this power was supposed to be greatly more efficient when exercised at the tombs of the martyrs, whither the energumens were brought for the purpose of cure, and the custom of pilgrimages to shrines may be assumed to have found its origin in this.' 2 There can be little doubt, 1 Edatur hie aliquis sub tribunalibus vestris quem dsemone agi constet. Jussus a quolibet Christiano loqui spiritus ille, tam se dsemonem confitebitur de vero, quam alibi deum de falso. — Tertulliani Apol. adv. Gentes, cap. xxiii. 2 Hieron. Epist. XLVI. 8, g— Augustin. de Civitate Dei XXII. 8. 4 2 4 ENDEM0N1ADAS. indeed, that in cases depending upon the imagination, the ceremonies of exorcism and the awe with which the relics of a saint were regarded had a powerful influence which was fre- quently beneficial, though sometimes otherwise. Anciently, as is shown in the pas age of Tertullian just quoted, any Christian could exorcise demons ; the invocation of Christ sufficed, and no priestly ordination was requisite to give it effect. With the development of sacerdotalism, how- ever, it was felt that this was a function to be reserved to those in holy orders, and the Council of Laodicsea, in the fourth century, laid down the rule that exorcism, whether in churches or in private houses, should be performed only by those ordained by the bishops. 1 Still the exorcista was one of the lowest orders of the clergy, below the acolyte, and supe- rior only to the lector. Doubtless abuses had sprung up in the treatment of unfortunate patients by the ignorant, which the Laodicsean canon was intended to remove, but it proved insufficient, and early in the fifth century Innocent I. forbade the laying-on of hands upon the possessed, even by priests, without a special mandate from the bishop. 2 The subject was one which was difficult to control within proper bounds. It was naturally provocative of scandals and disorder, the remedy for which was sought in limiting still more the power of exorcism. The decree of Innocent I. had been forgotten, when in 1625 the synod of Florence ordered that no one should presume to exorcise who did not hold a special faculty from the episcopal ordinary, and bishops were ordered to be discreet in granting such powers. This proved ineffectual, and in 1710 Clement XI. issued an encyclical letter, reciting the troubles arising from the multiplicity of exorcisms invented and used by exorcisers, and ordering that no priest should be admitted to practise exorcism unless known to possess the piety, integrity, prudence, and other 1 Concil. Laodicens. c. xxvi. ? S. Innocent. PP. I. Epist. xxv. c. 6. END EM ONI A DA S. 425 qualities required by the Roman ritual, the rules of which were to be strictly observed for the future. 1 Yet notwith- standing all this the most eminent modern theologians still hold that all Christians possess the power, as they did of old. 2 Clement XI. might well object to many of the exorcisms in current use, for it was an accepted maxim that they must not be precatory, but be imperative and abusive in order to confound the pride of the demons. 3 Some of the formulas, in fact, were coarsely vituperative in the highest degree. The demons were addressed as infernal beasts, vile filth of hell, stinking dung and other contemptuous epithets, and were threatened that their meat and drink should be fire, hail, snow, ice, sulphur, pitch, absinth, rosin, lead, the venom of serpents, etc. 4 A more serious method of con- founding them, admitted by exorcists to be efficacious, was to administer stripes and blows to the unfortunate energu- men. 5 Winding a blessed stole around the neck of the pa- tient, and tying it in a triple knot was a very efficacious procedure, 6 and contempt for the demon might advantage- ously be shown by writing his name on a piece of paper and burning it. 7 1 Ferraris, Prompta Bibliotheca, s.v. Exorcizare. 2 S. Alphons. de Liguori Theol. Moralis Lib. VI. No. 805. 3 Ferraris, loc. cit. 4 Gelasii de Cilia Locupletissimus Thesaurus continens Benedictiones etc. Editio Sexta, August. Vindel. 1744, pp. 449-5 r. 5 Caroli de Brancio Modus interrogandi Daemonem, Venetiis, 1643, p. 8. Neither of these works was placed on the Index, a fate which befell some of the more extravagant ones. That of Fra Zacaria Visconti (Complementum Artis Exorcisticce). after a long career from 1537, was finally condemned by- Clement XI. by decree of March 4, 1709 (Index Clementis XI. p. 94). He tells us that the pride of demons is to be overcome by opprobrious and derisive words, spitting, kicking, beating and other similar methods (Ed. Venetiis, 1643, p. 38). Menghi's well-known Flagellum Dcemonum and his Compendio dell' Arte Esorcistica were condemned in the same decree of 1709. 6 Gelasius de Cilia, op. cit. p. 440. 7 Carolus de Brancio, op. cit. p. 9. 42 5 END EM ONI AD A S There were two questions connected with diabolical pos- session which gave the Church much concern— fictitious cases and those of nuns. With regard to the latter, we have seen in the affair of the convent of San Placido how the matter was complicated by the intrusion of Calderon within the sacred limits. Nunneries were naturally specially afflicted with epidemics of the affection, and scandal was caused by frequent visits of the exorciser within the cloister. Numerous regulations were issued during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to guard against this. The episcopal ordinaries were forbidden to grant licences to anyone to enter the cloister, except for the purpose of blessing cells suspected of infection. In cases of possession a special licence was re- quired, which was limited to a term of three, or at most six months, and only to be granted to an aged priest of high repute. The patient was to be brought into the exterior church or chapel, accompanied by female relatives or women of mature age and approved virtue ; the church was to be closed, the ceremony performed with as little notoriety as possible, and on its conclusion the sufferer was to be con- veyed immediately back. 1 Even more troublesome was the question as to the reality of the possession. Imposture was easy, and, from various 1 Ferraris, he. cit. An epidemic of possession which afflicted the Augustinian convent at Quesnoy le Conte in Flanders, in 1491, was peculiarly obstinate, lasting, according to one account, for four years and four months, and according to another, for seven years. It commenced with a nun named Jeanne Potiere, who confessed to having long had intercourse with an incubus, for which she was condemned to imprisonment in the chateau de Selles in such strict con- finement that she speedily died. Exorcisms by the most holy men were unavailing, and we are told that the nuns ran about the fields like dogs, flew through the air like birds and scampered up trees like cats. The names of the afflicted were sent to Rome and were read in the mass by Alexander VI. himself on Holy Thursday, but to no effect, and the trouble finally ceased only by the grace of God (Paul Fredericq, Corpus Documentt. Inquis. Neerlandicae, I. 483-6). ENDEMONIADAS. motives, it was of frequent occurrence. Exorcists were warned that in the majority of cases the affliction was feigned and that their first duty was to examine with the utmost care whether the possession was genuine or not. The diagnostic rules laid for their guidance reveal a curious simplicity of belief in the stupidity of the demons who could allow themselves to be thus betrayed, for their effort of course was to avert from themselves the torment of the exorcism by misleading the exorciser and inducing him to abandon his holy efforts. The sign of genuine possession most generally relied upon was the ability of the patient to understand and speak lan- guages of which she was ignorant. Others were her famil- iarity with sciences previously unknown ; her avoiding relig- ious services ; exposing herself to falls from a height ; swelling suddenly and then returning to her natural condition ; an- swering mental questions and obeying mental commands; remaining stiff and immovable in spite of the efforts of several men ; suffering from epilepsy ; refusing to utter sacred phrases ; shunning the priest and exorcist; objecting to enter the church and endeavoring to leave it; refusing to look on sacred objects, casting them down and spitting on them, or, when relics were secretly placed upon her head, saying they smelt badly or were heavy, and asking to have them removed. When efforts to deceive by feigned possession were detected, the punishment to be inflicted was fasting, scourging and imprisonment in chains. 1 In spite of these precautions imposture could scarce be guarded against, for the credulity of the exorcist was stim- ulated by the fact that a good case of diabolical possession made an attractive show that could be utilized for the benefit of his own reputation and that of his church, and the stim- ulation of popular devotion. A somewhat typical case is related in a confidential gossipy correspondence between Jesuits in 1635. A lady of quality in Valladolid, reduced to Ferraris, loc. cit. ^ 2 g END EM ONI A DAS. want, pretended to be a demoniac in order to procure sub- sistance from the charity of the pious. Two rival exorcists exhausted themselves in contests over her, and crowds flocked to the church in which the performance was exhibited. This continued for a considerable period until the performer found herself unequal to the task of keeping up the deception, and confessed the truth to one of the exorcists. The affair had been too public and had attracted too much attention for the truth to be known without gravely compromising the honor of the church. The priest to whom the secret was confided was much embarrassed and consulted a Jesuit as to the course to be pursued in a business so delicate. The discreet advice was that the supposititious demons should be cast out privately. This was done ; the woman was announced to be cured, and the matter was hushed up without scandal or damage to the faith. 1 In Spain the extension of the jurisdiction of the Inquisi- tion brought all such matters within its cognizance. There were a number of trials arising from an epidemic of possession in Queretaro in 1691, and the records of two of them, which happen to have been preserved, enable us to follow the affair in a manner which throws considerable light upon the inner history of the combination of fraud and nervous excitability usually to be found as the proximate causes of such out- breaks. 2 In the spring of 169 1 two young girls of Queretaro suffered themselves to be seduced. One of them, named Francisca Mexia, a child in her fifteenth year, lost her lover in August through a prevailing pestilence. He had promised her mar- riage, and in despair she threw herself into the river. She was rescued insensible, and on being restored to life explained her act by declaring that she had been seized by the hair, 1 Cartas de Jesuitas, Memorial Histbrico Espanol, T. XIII. pp. 125-38. 2 Procesos de Francisca Mexia y Francisca de la Serna (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). I reprint the account of this case from the Journal of American Folk- Lore, for Jan -April, 1890. ENDEMONIADAS. 429 lifted through the air, and plunged into the water. It was a clear case of sorcery and demonism ; the preservation of her secret required her to keep it up, and this probably was not difficult in the nervous exaltation of her condition. She speedily presented the ordinary symptoms of diabolical pos- session, and the demons on being exorcised stated that they had been sent by sorceresses whose names were not revealed . About the same time, Juana de las Reyes, the other girl, found that her situation could not be much longer concealed. Probably the example of the Mexia suggested to her the same means of averting suspicion, and she forthwith commenced a similar series of performances. These were of the kind well known to demonologists — cataleptic rigidity, contor- tions, screams, wild and blasphemous talk, alternating with periods of rest. The sufferers would be scratched all over by invisible nails and be bitten by invisible teeth ; they fre- quently ejected all sorts of substances from mouth and ears — stones, mud, wool, pins, paper, toads, snakes, and spiders. One witness gravely declared that, while watching one of them, she saw the patient's eyes intently fixed on an enor- mous spider upon the opposite wall ; she crossed the room to examine it, and as she looked, it gradually diminished in size and disappeared without moving from the spot. Although the demons kept silence as to the names of the sorceresses who sent them, the girls had visions in which they frequently saw women. One who repeatedly appeared to them was a Mestiza named Josepha Ramos, commonly called Chuparatones, or Mouse-sucker, employed in an apothecary shop. They did not accuse her of being the cause of their suffering, but the mere fact of seeing her was enough. She was arrested by the secular magistrate and claimed by the Inquisition, which immured her in its secret prison in Mexico, where a chance allusion shows that she was still lying in 1694 with her trial unfinished. I have not the papers of her case and do not know its result, but the Spanish Inquisition was not in the habit of burning witches ; its decision as to the so- 19* 430 ENDEMONIADAS. called diabolical possession scarce justified Josepha's deten- tion, and she probably escaped after prolonged imprisonment due to the customary delays of inquisitorial procedure. Three other women were also arrested on suspicion of sor- cery, but do not seem to have been tried. The first treatment resorted to with the possessed was to call in certain Indian wise women, who performed inunction with herbs, producing delirium and stupor without relief. Then the church was appealed to, and Fray Pablo Sarmiento, guardian of the Franciscan convent, came with his friars, and an active course of exorcism was pursued. The Padres Apostblicos also took a hand. Public attention was aroused, and effective means were employed to make the most of the opportunity for the edification of the people. Mission ser- vices were held at night in the churches, which were filled with curious and excited crowds, eager to witness the per- formances of the demoniacs and the impressive solemnities of exorcism ; and as the attraction increased, the mission in the church of Santa Cruz was kept up all day. A great religious procession was organized in which the women walked barefoot, and the men scourged themselves. Every effort was made to stimulate religious exaltation, with the natural result. The patients steadily grew worse, and the arts of the exorciser proved fruitless. On one occasion Fray Pablo im- agined for a moment that he had won a victory in casting out two hundred demons who had been sent by sorcerers, but they were immediately replaced by two hundred fresh ones sent by God. What at first was merely imposture, doubtless grew to be, in some degree at least, pathological, as the nerves of the girls became affected by the prolonged excitement. What was more deplorable was that the conta- gious character of the affection was stimulated to the utmost under the most favorable conditions. At almost every even- ing service of exorcism some one in the crowd would be carried out convulsed and shrieking, to be at once submitted to a course of exorcism and be converted into a confirmed END EM ONI A DA S. 431 demoniac. The number grew until it amounted to fourteen — not all of the gentler sex, for we hear of an old man and a boy who were subjected to such active treatment of fumiga- tions of sulphur and incense by the friars that they died, each declaring with his last breath that he was not possessed, which was explained to be merely an astute trick of the demons to create infidel unbelief. The epidemic would doubtless have been much more severe had all the ecclesiastics encouraged it, but fortunately they were not unanimous. The Franciscans and Apostolicos had succeeded in monopolizing the affair, and in the tradi- tional jealousy between the various religious orders those which were excluded were necessarily rendered antagonistic. The Dominicans and the Jesuits even, for a moment, forgot their mortal enmity, and they were joined by the Carmelites, in spite of the deadly battle which at that time was raging between them and the Jesuits over the Acta Sanctorum and Father Papenbroek. These made common cause in de- nouncing the whole affair as fraudulent, and they carried with them a portion of the secular and parochial clergy. Passions on both sides were aroused, the pulpits rang with the clangor of disputation, the people took sides with one party or the other, and in the heat of controversy serious tumults appeared inevitable. In November and December both sides appealed to the Inquisition of Mexico, asking its interposition in their favor. With its customary dilatoriness it postponed action until an unexpected development occurred. Fray Pablo Sarmiento testifies that at 8 p. m., on January 2, 1692, he visited Juana de las Reyes and exorcised her, when she ejected from her mouth pins and wool and paper, and he left her as one dead. On reaching his convent he was told that a friar had been hastily sent for, as she was dying ; the friar was not long absent, and on returning secretly informed Fray Pablo that Juana had just given birth to a boy. At first he was dumbfounded, but became greatly consoled on remem- bering that the Malleus Maleficarum provides for such cases, 43 2 ENDEMONIADAS. which are not infrequent, by informing us how the demon succeeds in producing such results in a perfectly innocent demoniac. He hastened to Juana's bedside, and in presence of the commissioner of the Inquisition, and of notaries whom he summoned, he questioned her demon, Masambique, and received the most satisfactory assurances, more curious than decent, confirming his theory. The demon, moreover, in- formed him that two other demoniacs, one of them being Francisca Mexia, were in the same predicament, and would bring forth children in about two months. Fray Pablo returned to his convent, but had scarce more than reached it when word was brought him that the Mexia was about to be confined. Naturally provoked at this untoward coincidence, he at first refused to go to her, but charity prevailed and he went. Her demon, Fongo Bonito, confirmed the fact, described a different process which he had employed, and said that the birth would not occur for a couple of months. It proved a false alarm, arising from hysterical tympanites, for the Mexia escaped exposure and never had a child. This contretemps might have been expected to end the delusion, but it only stimulated the good frailes to fresh efforts to maintain their position against the sarcastic com- ments of their adversaries. The children were all miraculous. The one just born had made all hell tremble as he came into the world ; he was marked with the letter R in token that he was to be named Raphael ; the one to be born of the Mexia would be marked M, to indicate his name of Miguel ; a girl seven years of age, one of the possessed, would bring forth another marked F, whose name was to be Francisco IV. — the worthy successor of the three Francises, of Assisi, Paola, and Sales. All these infants in time were to perform immense service to the church. It was quite time for the Inquisition to interfere. The combined influence of the Jesuits, Dominicans, and Carmel- ites triumphed. On December 19, a Junta de Calificadores had been held, which, although it contained two Franciscans, ENDEMONIADAS. 433 unanimously came to the conclusion that the demoniacal pos- session was fraudulent, and that the blasphemies and sacri- legious acts committed by the possessed, and the violent sermons of the friars, were justiciable by the Holy Office. Accordingly on January 9, 1692, a decree was issued per- emptorily ordering the cessation of all exorcism, and of all discussion of the subject, whether in the pulpit or in private. The effect was magical. The excitement died away, and the possessed, for the most part, deprived of the stimulus of ex- orcism and of the attention which their antics had attracted, were speedily cured when left to themselves. Prosecutions were commenced against four of them, and against a Fran- ciscan, Fray Matheo de Bonilla, which dragged along per- functorily for a few years and seem to have been finally sus- pended. All, however, did not escape so easily. Some nervous organizations are too susceptible to undergo agitation so profound without permanent alteration. One of the earliest to sympathize with the demoniacal movement was a girl named Francisca de la Serna, then about eighteen years of age. In her simple zeal she prayed that God's will be done with her, and that she should suffer if it was his pleasure, where- upon Lucifer himself, with a thousand attendant demons, had entered into her. She was one of those against whom prose- cutions were directed ; the Inquisition consequently kept an eye on her, and we are able to follow her case. In October, 1692, a report was ordered concerning her, by which we learn that she was in the utmost misery, bodily and mental — absolutely penniless, incapable of self-support, and depen- dent on the charity of one or two neighbors. She is described as being in the same state as before the exorcisms were stopped. Sometimes she lies quiet and speechless like a corpse ; then she will be furious and blaspheme the Virgin and the saints, and talk insanely ; then she will come to her senses, weeping and begging God's mercy and uttering prayers of tender devotion. She was evidently the victim 434. ENDEMONIADA S. of recurring hysterical attacks, sometimes epileptiform and sometimes maniacal. A year passed away, when in October, 1693, the Inquisition ordered her placed under the spiritual direction of the Rector of the Jesuit College, with power to employ exorcisms, and to report at his convenience whether she was feigning, or was possessed, or was suffering from nat- ural disease. After careful examination the shrewd Jesuit, Father Bernardo Rolandegui, reported that she was not and never had been possessed, and that this was now her own belief. She sometimes became suddenly dumb, while retain- ing all her senses, but this was attributable to her having at first been told that it would be- so, or from some humors that caused it, or from deceit, or from sorcery. No exorcisms, he said, had been deemed necessary. The next we hear of her is in 1699, when the commissioner at Queretaro applied to the Inquisition for permission to have her exorcised. He describes her as completely under demoniacal possession ; the last attack had lasted for ten days ; she is dumb and crippled and suffers acutely. The disease was evidently ad- vancing apace, but the Inquisition held good, and merely ordered her to be put under the direction of the Jesuit rector, Phelipe de la Mora, who had succeeded Bernardo Rolandegui. Then for ten years we hear no more of her. The last scene of the tragedy is set forth in a petition from the Jesuit rector, Juan Antonio Perez de Espinosa, in 1709, begging to be re- leased from the charge. Three years before he had made this request and it had received no attention. She daily crawls to his church and occupies his time, interfering with his studies and his duties in the confessional. Exorcisms do her no good, but she occasionally finds relief from blowing in her face, or from saliva applied to the eyes or to the heart. Sometimes she is blind, sometimes deaf, sometimes crippled and always weak-minded. From numerous experiments he is convinced that it is not diabolical possession, but the influence of the imagination, unless indeed there may be imposture to work upon the compassion of the charitable man who has supported ENDEMONIADAS. 435 her since 1692. Her case had evidently become one of chronic hysterical hypochondriasis, and her end can only have been complete dementia, unless she was mercifully re- lieved by death. We have seen in the preceding essay how much trouble was frequently caused to ecclesiastics by pretended demoniacs. This is illustrated by another case, of no special importance in itself except as showing how large a space demoniacal pos- session occupied in many minds. 1 In Oaxaca a girl named Teresa Patino asserted that she was persecuted by the spirit of a dead man. In answer to her application for relief Fray Caietano Nunez, a Dominican, was sent to her, when she said that the ghost was endeavoring to get nine or twelve masses sung for him which would rescue him from hell. Fray Nunez recognized it at once as a deceit and told her to recommend the spirit to come to his cell and to bring the money with him, as he was not accustomed to celebrate gratuitously. Finding thus that her fiction was unprofitable, she changed it in 1792 to diabolical possession and in this she was more successful. Another Dominican, Fray Manuel Gorvea, became interested in her. He was a man of learning and of irreproachable life, but he became so wrapped up in the case that he could talk of little else than possession ; when his superior forbade his longer attendance upon her, he visited her secretly by night, and stories were circulated, not unnat- urally, of her being pregnant by him, a condition which Gorvea described as the work of the devil to discredit the church. She was generally regarded as an impostor, and failed when tested with strange languages, but nothing could shake his belief. This continued for six years, when in 1798 another Dominican, Fray Antonio Pavon, denounced him to the Inquisition, which made secret inquiries into the matter. 1 Proceso del Maestro Fr. Manuel Gorvea (MSS. of David Fergusson, Esq.). 436 ENDEMONIA DA S. Teresa's brother, Jose Patino, was also a Dominican, and prior of the nunnery of Religiosas Catarinas of Oaxaca. He and Gorvea were great friends and were equally zealous as exorcisers. The nuns of the convent were many of them hysterical, and Fray Patino excited unfavorable comment by the freedom with which he penetrated within the cloister to perform the function of exorcising demons in which no one else believed. Fray Gorvea rose to be vicar of the Order ; he declined the priorship of Tehuantepec and finally in 1799 he was elected Provincial. Though he was accused of being still too fond of frequenting nunneries, his interest in Teresa Patino declined and she settled the matter by running away with a weaver named Jose Maria. The case dragged on in the Inquisition until 1805, when it seems to have been dropped without any decision being reached. The evidence against Gorvea was not particularly strong, the irreligious principles of the French Revolution were penetrating the people and rendering the rulers of Church and State anxious, and there was little to be gained from the scandal of arresting and prosecuting a Provincial of the great Dominican Order. The moral to be drawn from these ca es is that the prudent precautions of the Church, in strictly limiting the function of exorcism to priests of learning and experience, are an insuffi- cient protection against the arts of a designing or hysterical woman. 1 1 Todos los exorcistas reciben en su ordinacion esta potestad ; sin embargo la Iglesia solo permite que la ejerzan los Sacerdotes de grande instruccion y experiencia. Se trata de un asunto muy delicado y, para evitar fraudes y abusos, la Iglesia, siempre tan prudente, ha dispuesto que no conjuren los exorcistas inexpertos que pudieran ser facilmente enganados 6 alucinados. — Sanchez, Pron'uario de la Theologia Moral, Madrid, 1878, p. 268. EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD I A. 1 The expulsion of the Jews from Spain, by the edict of 31 March, 1492, marked the triumph of the policy of intolerance which reached its culmination in the banishment of the Moriscos, 1609-13, and crippled the Spanish monarchy by depriving it of its most industrious subjects. In January, 1 481, the Inquisition had commenced its worjc in Seville, its primary, or rather its virtually sole, object being to detect and punish the secret judaizing of the numerous conversos, or New Christians, who had multiplied so greatly since the massacres of 1391. The operations of the Inquisition could not fail to put an end to conversions, for the Jew, by reason of his judaism, was not subject to its jurisdiction, while the converse?, having been baptized, was a member of the church, and any secret leaning to the rites and ceremonies of his ancestors, however innocent in themselves, was relentlessly punished. The Jews, who naturally looked with contempt upon the Meschunadi;n, or conversos, as apostates, for whose destruction they uttered prayers thrice a day, 2 could regard their sufferings with complacency and feel that, amid the numberless oppressions to which they were themselves ex- posed, they were at least shielded from this new and dreadful danger by sturdy adherence to the law of Moses. On the other hand, the inquisitor could not but recognize that, while his zeal was weeding out the tares from among the New Christians, it was postponing indefinitely all realization of the hope that on Spanish soil Israel would eventually be 1 Reprinted from the English Historical Review, April, 1889. 2 Alonso de Spina, Fortalicium Fidei, ed. 1494, fol. cxlviii. 43§ EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUAA'DIA. brought wholly within the fold of Christ. In the existing insane hatred of judaism, moreover, it was intolerable to him to see the vast body of Jews scattered through the land prac- tising their abhorred rites under the protection of the laws, and exempt from his jurisdiction save in the rare cases when they could be charged with proselytism, sorcery, or other spiritual offences. That Torquemada and his subordinates should eagerly press upon Ferdinand and Isabella some comprehensive measure which should rid the land of this reproach was there- fore inevitable, and the only measure which seemed adequate to the end in view was that of offering to the Jews the alter- native of conversion or exile. The Jews had been banished from England in 1290, and had never subsequently been allowed to return. 1 The same experiment had been tried more than once in France, although the exclusion had been but temporary. 2 In Germany the fifteenth century, had wit- nessed their exclusion from one state after another. 3 In Spain, however, although a partial recourse to this expedient had been had in Andalusia between 1480 and 1490/ the numbers, wealth, and social importance of the Jews rendered a general measure of the kind a matter of highest statecraft, to be maturely weighed, and the sovereigns hesitated long. It is a suggestive fact that, whenever a decision was needed in favor of the faith, some opportune revelation occurred to hasten it. Isabella's doubts as to the introduction of the 1 Matt. Westmonastrens. ann. 1290. 2 Rigordus de Gestis Phil. Aug. ann. 1182. — Guill. Nangiac. Contin. ann. 1306. 3 The Jews were driven from Saxony in 1432, from Spires and Zurich in 1435, from Mayence in 1438, from Augsburg in 1439, from Bavaria in 1450, from Wiirzburg in 1453, from Briinn and Olmiitz in 1454, fr >m Schweidnitz in 1457, from Erfurt in 1458, from Neisse in 1468, from the arc'hiepiscopal province of Mayence in 1470. — Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, I. 403 (Freiburg i. B., 1887). 4 Pulgar, Chronica, P. 11. cap. Ixxvii. This expulsion from Andalusia is alluded to in the general edict of 1492. EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD I A. 439 Inquisition were removed by the apparently fortuitous dis- covery of an assembly of judaizing New Christians in Seville. 1 Her scruples and those of Ferdinand as to the expulsion of the Jews were shaken by the incident of the Santo Nino de la Guardia, which came to light in the very nick of time, when the approaching downfall of the kingdom of Granada gave promise that the whole peninsula, from sea to sea, would be under the unquestioned domination of the cross. This cele- brated case, which has been embroidered with so many marvellous legendary details, can at length be studied with some approach to scientific accuracy, through the publication by Padre Fidel Fita, S.J., in the Boletin de la Real Acade- mia de la Historia for July-September, 1887, of the records of the trial of one of the victims by the Inquisition of Avila. To understand it we must remember that for many centu- ries there has existed a belief, popularized in Chaucer's " Prioress's Tale," that a favorite Jewish expression of hatred for Christianity consisted in crucifying on Good Friday a Christian child, with a repetition of the insults and contempt lavished upon Christ in the Passion. The earliest recorded foundation for this is an occurrence related in 415, when, at Inmestar, a town between Antioch and Chalcis, some Jews in a drunken frolic tied a Christian boy to a cross, and mocked and jeered at him until their savage jocularity grew to fury, and they beat him to death, for which Theodosius II. inflicted condign punishment. 2 We hear no more of it until the eleventh century, when the Jews of Chieti were accused of making a waxen image of Christ, which they transpierced with knives. The image was solemnly carried to the church, the synagogue was torn down, and the participants in the affair were punished. 3 As intolerance grew stronger, and as popular hatred towards the proscribed race became more intense, stories of this kind multiply and assume the form 1 Paramo de Orig. Offic S. Inquisit. p. 134. 2 Socrat. H. E. lib. VII. cap. xvi. 3 Depping, Les Juifs dans le Moyen-age, Paris, 1834, p. 152. 440 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD/A. which subsequently characterizes them. In 1 144 we are told that a boy named William was crucified at Norwich. 1 At Easter, 11 71, the Jews of Blois crucified a boy, for which Thiebault, count of Chartres, burnt all who refused to be baptized, and not long after a similar occurrence is reported as taking place at Gloucester. 2 The terrible massacres which followed the coronation of Richard I., September, 1189, continuing at intervals throughout England during the following year, sought justification in tales of the same kind. 3 Perhaps better authenticated was a case occurring, in 1192, at Bray-sur-Seine, where the Jews by heavy bribes obtained from the countess a Christian accused of theft and murder, whom they scourged through the streets, with a crown of thorns on his head, and then hanged — a parody of the Passion which Philip Augustus promptly avenged by burning eighty or more of them.* In 1235 the Jews of Norwich were again accused — this time of circumcising a boy and keeping him for a year with the intention of crucifying him, and on proper means being used they confessed the crime before Henry III. 5 In 1250 we meet the first case recorded in Spain — that of San Domenguito de Val, a young chorister of Saragossa, whose crucifixion was revealed by a miraculous light shining over his grave, though the protection afforded by King Jayme I. shielded the perpetrators from merited punishment. 6 It was probably the excitement caused by this affair that led Alfonso X. of Castile soon afterwards, in his code of "Las Siete Partidas," to allude to such crimes as ascribed to the Jews. 7 In 1255 occurred the well-known case of Hugh of Lincoln. 8 1 Radulf. de Coggeshall Chron. aim. 1144. 2 Nic. Trivetti Chron. ann. 1171. 3 Radulf. de Coggeshall Chron. ann. 1189. * Rigordus de Gest. Phil. Aug. ann. 1192. 5 Matt. Paris, ann. 1235. 6 Jose Amado de los Rios, Hist, de los Judios de Espana, III. 318. — Lindo, History of the Jews of Spain, p. 86. 7 Partidas, VII. xxiv. 2. 8 Nic. Trivetti Chron. ann. 1255. # EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARDIA. 441 In 1282 a similar crime ascribed to the Jews of Munich led to a massacre in which a hundred and eighty were burnt in a synagogue where they had taken refuge, undeterred by which their descendants repeated the offence in 1345. 1 In 1303 a case is recorded in Thuringia; in 1305 at Prague; 2 and in 1 33 1 at Ueberlingen the finding of the corpse of a child caused the burning of three hundred Jews, a massacre which the Emperor Louis of Bavaria sternly avenged. 3 In 1410 the Jews of Misnia purchased a boy from a peasant for the pur- pose of sacrificing him ; the matter became divulged, the peasant was broken on the wheel and quartered, while the Jews were banished from Misnia and Thuringia, and all their property was confiscated. 4 In 1435, at Palma, in Majorca, the leading members of the Aljama, or Jewish community, were accused of parodying the Passion with a Moorish slave, but without putting him to death; torture brought confession, when many Jews fled to the mountains of Lluch to escape the wrath of the mob, but were captured and thrown into gaol. They submitted to baptism, their example was followed by the other prisoners and then by the whole synagogue. The solemn ceremony of this happy conversion so wrought upon the feelings of the people that they begged the lives of the convicts, and after some difficulty obtained their pardon. 5 In 1454 a case occurred at Valladolid which contained the germs of much future trouble. A child was robbed of the ornaments he wore, was slain, and was buried in the fields, where dogs scratched up the body. The Jews were accused, and Alonso de Espina tells us that they had ripped out its heart, burnt it, and mixed the ashes with wine to form an unholy sacrament ; and that, although a Jew confessed under torture, bribery of King Henry IV. and of the judges pro- 1 Aventini Annal. Boior. lib. VII. cap. x. No. 11 ; cap. xix. No. 13. 2 Eisenmenger, Entdecktes Judenthum, P. II. p. 220. 3 Vitodurani Chron. ann. 1331. 4 Raynaldi Annal. ann. 1410, No. 31. 5 Vicente Mut, Hist. Gen. de Mallorca, ed. 1841, III. 384. 4^2 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARDIA. cured his acquittal. Alonso, however, succeeded in arousing great excitement by preaching on the subject in Valladolid during the progress of the trial. 1 Fed by such stories as this, popular hatred of the Jews was steadily rising, as was shown by the next case, in 1468, at Sepulveda, where the rabbi, Solomon Pico, and the leaders of the synagogue were accused of crucifying a child during Holy Week. Juan Arias de Avila, bishop of Segovia, arrested sixteen of those most deeply implicated, of whom some peri-hed in the flames, and the rest were hanged, except a boy who begged to be baptized. Even this did not satisfy the zeal of the Sepulvedans, who slew some of the remaining Jews and drove the rest away. 2 A case soon afterwards, at Trent, in 1472, illustrates the growth of the popular beliefs which heightened these affairs with constantly more revolting details, for during the inquisi- tion held on it a converted Jew testified that it was customary for his people to slay a Christian child at Passover and to mingle its blood with their wine and with the dough of - the unleavened bread. 3 At Ratisbon, in i486, no fewer than six children were said to have been thus sacrificed in a single holocaust. 4 In 1509 there was a case in Hungary, and in 1540 one at Titingen, which the Lutheran count palatine, Otho Henry, irreligiously refused to investigate ; and when the pious Hilbrand Thiermar abused him in a poem, he had the audacious poet's tongue cut out— though it miraculously grew again. 5 That Rome had no belief in the truth of these stories is indicated by the fact that in the ferocious bull of Gregory XIII. in 1581, enumerating the offences for which Jews were to be subjected to the jurisdiction of the Inquisition, 1 Alonso de Spina, Fortalic. Fidei, fol. cxlvi. 2 Colmenares, Historia de Segovia, cap. xxxiii. § 2. 3 Eisenmenger, loc. cit. In the case of a Christian girl whose murder by the Jews at Forchheim in 1261 was revealed by a miracle, the object as stated was only to collect the blood (Cornel. Zanfiiet Chron. ann. 1261). 4 Raderi Bavaria Sancta III. 172. Raphael Sadeler, the prince of engravers of his day, embellishes this narrative with a very effective print. » Ibid. III. 176. EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD IA. ^ there is no mention of crucifying children, although a modi- fied form of the crime is described, in which a lamb was affixed to a cross and spit upon or otherwise insulted. 1 Cases now become rarer ; at Caaden there was one, n March, 1650, which met with speedy punishment, for in ten days the guilty Jew was broken on the wheel ; and there was another at Metz in 1669, for which Raphael Levi was burnt alive. This is the last instance which the industry of Eisenmenger enabled him to discover; writing in 1711 he says that the crime is no longer heard of, owing to the rigor of its suppression, and not to any abatement of Jewish hatred of Christians. He considers it doubtful whether the Jews really mingled Christian blood with the Passover bread, in view of the Mosaic commands against eating blood ; but he places faith in another explanation which had already been advanced by Dr. John Eck, the antagonist of Luther— that a Hebrew woman in labor could not bring forth without the application of Christian blood. 2 Another theory, advanced in the seven- teenth century by a learned Portuguese, was that all Jews on Easter-day were afflicted with a bloody flux, for which the only remedy was Christian blood. 3 If Eisenmenger believed that the world would hear no more of this, he underrated the persistence of human credu- lity and intolerance. In 1874, at Kilmasti Cassaba, in Asia Minor, the Greek inhabitants stimulated an active persecu- tion of the Jews by the Turkish authorities on the accusation of having sacrificed two Christian children who had disap- peared, and who, as was found on investigation, had been murdered by a Turk. In 1881 at Alexandria the Greeks accused the Jews of killing a Greek boy as a Passover sacri- fice. The child had disappeared and in a few days its body 1 Septimi Decretal, lib. V. tit. i. c. 5. 2 Eisenmenger, op. cit. ii. 224-7.— Bavaria Sancta III. 172. 3 Vicente da Costa Mattos, BVeve Discurso contra a heretica Perfidia do Judaismo, Lisboa, 1623, fol. 131. 444 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD I A. was found floating in the harbor ; medical examination showed that it had suffered no violence, but the Greeks set upon the Jews, of whom a few were killed and many wounded and a general massacre was threatened. Still more striking as a survival of medieval beliefs was the case of Esther Salomassy at Tizla-Eszlar, in Hungary, in 1882, when her disappearance was followed by the arrest of the chief Jews of the synagogue on the charge of having murdered her for the purpose of mingling her blood with the Passover bread. It will be re- membered that the principal witnesses in this case were two boys, one of five and the other of fourteen years, sons of Josef Scharf, beadle of the synagogue and one of the accused ; that the local authorities used every effort to secure convic- tion, including torture of some of those implicated and per- secution of the witnesses for the defence ; and that, when the superior officials intervened and showed that the accused were innocent, popular excitement could with difficulty be suppressed. The implicit belief in the Jewish Passover sac- rifice of a Christian child was manifested during the present year, 1890, at Smyrna, where two Greeks offered the Grand Rabbi, Abraham Palacci, to procure a young girl with that object for about $7500. Their proposals were entertained for the purpose of entrapping them, which was successfully accomplished, and they were arrested. 1 Closely related to this belief in Christian victims at the Passover was another, that the Jews were constantly endeav- oring to obtain consecrated hosts in order to wreak on them their vengeance against Christ. The usual story was that the Jews would stab the host with knives, when it would spout forth blood. In 1289 a Jew popularly known as le bon juif, 1 The wide extent of such beliefs is illustrated by the occurrence, so recently as June-20, 1888, in Seoul, the capital of Corea, of a rising against the American missionaries, who were accused of purchasing children and boiling them down to make medicines. The lives of the missionaries were saved by the authorities, but nine native officials, said to have been implicated in the sale of the children, were seized by the mob and publicly beheaded. EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD/A. 445 was burnt at Paris for thus maltreating a host procured from a woman who had swallowed and vomited it. 1 In 1338 there was a terrible massacre in the diocese of Passau, occasioned by a layman finding a wafer stained with blood near the house of a Jew ; there was no evidence that it had been con- secrated, but the populace leapt to the conclusion that it had been abused in the unholy rites of judaism. Duke Albert of Austria was much puzzled, and applied for instructions to Benedict XII., stating that similar occurrences had recently happened at Sintz, at Nirmiburg, and at Werchartshof, in at least one of which cases it had been proved that an ecclesi- astic had arranged the affair in order to excite enmity against the Jews. One of these cases is doubtless the same as that related by the Franciscan John of Winterthur, which affords a possible explanation of their frequent occurrence. He tells us that about 1336 in Austria a knavish priest, to gain money, excited a fierce persecution of the Jews by sprinkling a wafer with blood and throwing it near some Jews, where it was picked up and brought back to his church. Crowds came to worship it, and their oblations were as productive as he desired. A confederate betrayed him and he was thrown into prison, not for wronging the Jews, but because he had caused the sin of idolatry among his people by leading them to worship an unconsecrated host. He escaped by bribing his bishop.' 2 In 1379 Wenceslas of Brabant burnt at Brussels a Jew who had obtained sixteen hosts and had transfixed them with a knife, when they dropped blood. Three of these were preserved in the church of St. Gudule, at least till the sixteenth century ; they worked many miracles, and were carried in the procession at the feast of Corpus Christi. In 1399, at Posen, some Jews obtained a host and stabbed it with knives, when the blood which spurted forth stained their faces indelibly. They buried it in a field, but birds 1 Grandes Chroniques, ed. Paulin, Paris, t. V. p. 100. 2 Raynaldi Annal. ann. 1338, No. 19-21. — Vitodurani Cronicon ann. 1336. 20 446 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARDIA. kept flying over the spot and oxen knelt around it till the attention of the magistrates was attracted \ it was dug up and performed miracles ; the criminals were discovered and were slowly burnt to death tied to dogs, who tore them as the flames advanced. 1 More serious in its results was a similar affair in Segovia in 1410, where the Jews obtained from the sacristan of San Fagun a consecrated host as security for a loan which he desired to raise — the street where the bargain was made obtaining the name of Calle del Mai Consejo. The Jews threw it into a boiling cauldrgn, when it rose and remained suspended in the air. This miracle, repeated sev- eral times, so impressed some of those present that they were converted; they carried the host to the Dominican convent and told the story, when the Dominicans piously adminis- tered the host in communion to a child, who died in three days. The queen-regent, Dona Catalina, happened to be in Segovia, and had the affair rigorously investigated. One of the accused was Don Mayr, royal physician and perhaps the most prominent member of his race in Spain. Under torture he confessed not only his participation in this sacrilege, but also that he had poisoned the late King Henry III. The participants in the matter were all dragged through the streets and quartered, as likewise were others who in revenge en- deavored to poison the Bishop of Segovia, Juan de Torde- sillas ; the Jewish synagogue was converted into the church of Corpus Christi, and an annual procession still perpetuates the memory of the event. It affords another instance of the fortunate coincidence of such affairs with measures in prepa- ration against the Jews, for it gave San Vincente Ferrer as- sistance in procuring the proscriptive laws known as the Ordenamiento de Dona Catalina, of 141 2. 2 So recently as 1 Raynaldi Annal. arm. 1338, No. 19-21 ; ann. 1399, No. 2. 2 Fortalicium Fidei, fol. clxxii.-iii. — Colmenares, Hist, de Segovia, cap. xxviii. 6-8.— Garibay, Compendio Historial de Espana, lib. xv. c. 58. — EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD! A. 1556 a number of Jews were burnt at Lovitz in Poland for being concerned in a similar sacrilege, in which the host when stabbed spouted forth abundant blood. 1 The Jews, moreover, were accused of desiring to obtain consecrated hosts, not only for the purpose of thus insulting them, but also of using their supernatural powers for the destruction of Christianity. The superstition of the day at- tributed to the sacred wafer the most potent magical proper- ties, and it was constantly employed in the operations of sorcerers. To suppose that Jews would partake of this belief required an incredible stretch of credulity, but even this was not lacking. Commingled with it was the idea that with the heart of a Christian a Jewish magician could work im- measurable mischief. Alonso de Espina gravely tells us that in a certain province of France a Jew promised the execu- tioner ten crowns for a human heart, saying that he needed it to perform a cure for which he would receive twenty. From the next criminal whom he had to dismember the exe- cutioner took the heart and handed it to his wife, telling her how it would fetch him ten crowns. She knew the Jew to be a sorcerer, and suggested that they should substitute the heart of a hog, which was done. The Jew worked his spells over it and buried it in a field, whereupon all the hogs of the province came rushing to the spot, and fought each other with such fury that not one was left alive. This led to the arrest of the Jew, who confessed that if it had been a man's heart all the Christians would have done the same, whereupon the king put to death all the Jews of the province. 2 Wild as these stories seem to us, they were stern realities to the men of those times, by whom they were implicitly believed. They were an ever-present weapon by which ma- Rodrigo, Historia Verdadera de la Inquisition, II. 44.— Cronica de Juan II. ano v. c. 22. 1 Laur. Surii Comment. Rer. Gestar. ann. 1556 (Colon. 1586, p. 487). 2 Fortalicium Fidei, fol. cxliii. 448 EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD LA. lignity or craft or superstitious zeal could at any moment inflame popular wrath against the unfortunate race to which these hideous practices were ascribed. If Torquemada de- sired to overcome the scruples of prince and people, the means were ready to his hand. About June i, 1490, a converted Jew named Benito Garcia was returning from a pilgrimage to Compostella. He had been baptized about thirty-five years before, and he attrib- uted the misfortunes which overtook him to the curse uttered against him by his father on his abandonment of his ances- tral religion. For thirty years he had persisted in the faith, but on his trial he was brought to confess that five years pre- viously he had been secretly reconverted to judaism, and had practised Jewish rites when he could do so in safety. When he reached Astorga on his homeward journey, he chanced to lodge in a house where there was a party of drunken men. These pulled open his knapsack and found in it a consecrated wafer, when they at once stigmatized him as a heretic and delivered him to the ecclesiastical authorities. There was no tribunal of the Inquisition at Astorga, but the provisor, or episcopal vicar, Doctor Pedro de Villada, was zealous and experienced in such matters. Recognising that some impor- tant mystery was involved he set promptly and vigorously to work with inquisitorial methods. Two hundred lashes failed to elicit an explanation. Then he tried the water-torture, which was exceedingly severe : the patient being bound tightly to a frame in which his head was lower than his feet, the sharp cords around his limbs were twisted with a winch until they cut deeply into the flesh, producing almost insufferable pain, which frequently sufficed to wring from him the desired confession. When this failed a still more efficacious torment was superadded. Still bound to the trestle, his nostrils were plugged, and a jet of water was sent down his throat carrying with it a strip of linen, which was drawn out from time to time to prevent complete suffocation, and to give him an oppor- EL SANTO NINO DE LA GUARD I A. tunity to signify his readiness to confess. 1 Finally, on another night, Benito was twice subjected to the ' garrote '—which probably means the torture of the cord without the water. Under this energetic treatment, which promised to be end- less, Benito's tongue was loosened by June 6. As he subse- quently remarked to a fellow-prisoner, he told more than he knew, and enough to burn him. We have not his confession, but from the subsequent proceedings it probably was that he and others, whom he named, had been engaged in a conjura- tion with a human heart and a consecrated host, whereby, as in Alonso de Espina's story, all Christians would die raving mad and the Jews would obtain their wealth, Christianity would be destroyed, and judaism would reign supreme.' 2 This was quite sufficient for the moment, and placed the affair within the jurisdiction of the Inquisition. Its organi- zation was already perfect enough to enable it to act promptly, and when the information was laid before the inquisitor gen- eral, Torquemada, he lost no time in arresting those desig- nated by Benito as his accomplices, who were all in prison at Segovia, and their property duly sequestrated, by about the first of July. The accused, besides Benito Garcia, were Juan de Ocana, Alonso Franco, Lope Franco, Garcia Franco, and Juan Franco, of the town of La Guardia, all conversos, or New Christians, together with two Jews, Juce Franco, of Tembleque, and Mose Abenamias, of Zamora. Besides these, 1 This was a form of torture extensively in use. Not long before, Francois Villon describes it as applied to himself: '"Se fusse des hoirs Hue Capel Qui fut extraict de boucherie, Ou ne m' eust, parmy ce drapel, Faict boyre a celle eschorcherie." An occasional modification consisted in forcing the water out again by blows on the stomach with a paddle. s Fidel Fita, El Proceso y Quema de Juce Franco (Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia, torn. XI. Jul.-Set. 1887, pp. 13, 34 , 47 , 60, 115, sqq.). 45