A History of the Inquisition of Spain; Vol. 2

Responsibility to the Inquisition varied with the grade of heresy, which was carefully classified by the theologians. Material heresy is error in a baptized person arising from ignorance and, if the ignorance is inculpable, it is scarce to be considered as true heresy deserving of punishment.[11] Formal or mixed heresy is voluntary and pertinacious error, pertinacity being adherence to what is known to be contrary to the teachings of the Church. This formal heresy is again distinguished into internal, or mental, and external. Internal, or mental, heresy is that which is secretly entertained and is not manifested by either word or act. External heresy is subdivided into occult and public. Occult external is that which is manifested by words or signs, either in secret or to one or two persons only--as though a man in the solitude of his chamber should say "There is no God," or should utter his thought in the presence of another. Public external is that which is manifested openly, either in public or to more than two persons.[12] The bearing of these distinctions on the work of the Inquisition will be apparent hereafter.

There was still another definition of even greater importance. Heresy was both a sin and a crime. As a sin it was subject to the forum internum, or forum of conscience; as a crime, to the forum externum or judicial forum. A penitent in sacramental confession, admitting heretical belief, might receive sacramental absolution and be pardoned in the sight of God, but the crime, like that of murder or any other violation of human laws, would still remain to be punished in the judicial forum. We shall see that in the Inquisition the penitent, who confessed and repented and received absolution, was still subject to penalties ranging, according to circumstances, from slight penance to death.

Prior to the organization of the Inquisition in the thirteenth century, the cognizance of heresy was a natural attribute of the episcopal office. The duty of persecution was negligently performed and, when the Catharan and Waldensian heresies threatened the predominance of the Latin Church and the Albigensian Crusades left it master of the situation, the Inquisition gradually sprang up as an assistance to the bishops. There was some rivalry, but the bishops, as a rule, did not share in the confiscations and, as few of them had persecuting zeal sufficient to induce them to perform this gratuitous service, the field was virtually abandoned to the new organization, in the lands where it was introduced. Still the episcopal rights were undisputed. Jurisdiction over heresy was recognized to be cumulative--that is, it was enjoyed by both tribunals, either of which was entitled to any case in which it had taken prior action. Finally, in 1312, the Council of Vienne, in response to complaints of the cruelty of inquisitors, formulated a settlement under which the combined action of both jurisdictions was required in all commitments to harsh detentive prison, in all sentences to torture and in all final sentences, unless the one called upon to coöperate failed to come within eight days.[13] This, embodied in the acts of the council, technically known as the Clementines, remained the law of the Church. The bishops, however, remained indifferent and rarely took independent action. The inquisitorial districts were large, comprehending a number of dioceses; the episcopal jurisdiction was limited to the subjects of a single diocese. It was impossible for the bishops to assemble at the seat of the tribunal, and when an auto de fe was in preparation they would usually delegate their Ordinaries to represent them or commission an inquisitor to act.

Such was the somewhat cumbrous combination of episcopal and inquisitorial jurisdiction which the founding of the Holy Office brought into Spain. Independent action by bishops still continued occasionally, of which we have seen example (Vol. I, p. 167) and it was recognized, though subordinated to the inquisitorial jurisdiction in a brief of Innocent VIII, September 25, 1487, conferring on Torquemada appellate power in cases before episcopal courts, whether they were acting separately or in conjunction with inquisitors, provided appeal was made before sentence was rendered.[14] The popes of the period, moreover, were careful to maintain the assertion of episcopal participation in inquisitorial proceedings, as is manifested in the superscription of their letters addressed "Ordinariis et Inquisitoribus," or assuming that inquisitors acted under episcopal as well as papal authority.[15] Theoretically, this continued throughout the sixteenth century. The writers of highest authority treat bishops and inquisitors as possessing cumulative jurisdiction, so that both could prosecute, either separately or conjointly and the old canons were still cited threatening with deposition the bishop who was negligent in purifying his diocese of heresy.[16]

[Sidenote: _CLAIM OF EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION_]

Thus there was no legislation depriving the episcopal order of its traditional jurisdiction over heresy, yet the Inquisition claimed, and made good the claim, that its cognizance was exclusive and that the Clementines merely gave to the bishops a consultative privilege in the three sentences specified. No such privative right was conferred in the papal commissions to the inquisitors-general and the only source of such right is to be looked for in Ferdinand's masterful determination that nothing should interfere with the swift operation of his favorite institution, and no claim be admitted to a share in its pecuniary results. It was natural that he should favor the Inquisition, for procedure in the spiritual courts was public and was much less likely to result in conviction than the secrecy of the tribunals, and by 1500 he seems to have established the matter to his satisfaction for, in a letter of August 19th of that year to the Archbishop of Cagliari, he expresses surprise that the prelate, without his licence, or a commission from the inquisitor-general, should have meddled with matters belonging to the Inquisition and have collected certain pecuniary penances, although he had already been forbidden to do so. This prohibition is now emphatically repeated; he is to have nothing to do with the affairs of the Inquisition, except to aid the inquisitor when called upon, and he is at once to hand over his collections to the receiver, Pedro López, who is going to Sardinia.[17] Nothing can be more peremptory in tone than this missive, although the Sardinian tribunal was thoroughly disorganized and was about to be reconstructed by sending a full corps of officials. We may assume from this that if there had been any resistance on the part of the Castilian episcopate it had by this time been overcome.

That this concentration of exclusive jurisdiction in the Inquisition was the work of the royal power and was not universally admitted, even by the middle of the sixteenth century, is manifest from the remark of Bishop Simancas, himself an experienced inquisitor, when he says that it is the duty of bishops to enquire into cases of heresy, but they ought to send the prisoner and the testimony to the inquisitor, for otherwise their inexperience is apt to result in failure, as he had often found; there ought to be a papal decree prescribing this and, in default of it, the king is accustomed to order it of the bishops.[18] Of this we have an example, in 1527, when the vicar-general of the Archbishop of Toledo was required by Inquisitor-general Manrique to surrender a cleric whom he had arrested and was prosecuting.[19]

Simancas still recognizes the duty of the bishop to make preliminary inquiries into heresy, but even this had long before been forbidden, although there was a prolonged struggle before it was surrendered. In 1532 the Ordinary of Huesca issued an Edict of Faith, modelled on that of the Inquisition, calling for denunciation of heretics, for which the empress-regent sharply rebuked him, in a letter of March 23d, calling it an innovation unknown since the Inquisition had been introduced, and threatening him with fitting measures for the repetition of such intrusion on the jurisdiction of the Inquisition.[20] In spite of this, Archbishop Ayala of Valencia, in 1565, and his successor the Blessed Juan de Ribera, in 1576, and another bishop in 1567 repeated the indiscretion for which they were promptly called to account. When, in 1583, the Bishop of Tortosa committed the same offence, the Suprema wrote, January 14, 1584, that the popes had given the Inquisition exclusive jurisdiction over heresy and had prohibited its cognizance by others and that he must not in future intervene in such matters.[21] Undeterred by this, the Council of Tarragona, in 1591, reasserted the ancient episcopal jurisdiction by ordering all bishops to be vigilant in watching their flocks and, if they found any disseminators of heresy, to see to their condign punishment according to the canons.[22] How completely justified was the council in this and how false was the assertion of the Suprema, was manifested in 1595, when the Archbishop of Granada complained to Clement VIII that the inquisitors had forbidden him to issue an edict on the subject of heresy and the pope forthwith wrote to the inquisitor-general that this must not be allowed, for the faculties delegated to inquisitors in no way abridged episcopal jurisdiction.[23]