History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 by William H. Prescott

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Acts of intolerance are to be discerned from the earliest period in which
Christianity became the established religion of the Roman empire. But they
do not seem to have flowed from any systematized plan of persecution,
until the papal authority had swollen to a considerable height. The popes,
who claimed the spiritual allegiance of all Christendom, regarded heresy
as treason against themselves, and, as such, deserving all the penalties,
which sovereigns have uniformly visited on this, in their eyes,
unpardonable offence. The crusades, which, in the early part of the
thirteenth century, swept so fiercely over the southern provinces of
France, exterminating their inhabitants, and blasting the fair buds of
civilization which had put forth after the long feudal winter, opened the
way to the Inquisition; and it was on the ruins of this once happy land,
that were first erected the bloody altars of that tribunal. [1]

After various modifications, the province of detecting and punishing
heresy was exclusively committed to the hands of the Dominican friars; and
in 1233, in the reign of St. Louis, and under the pontificate of Gregory
the Ninth, a code for the regulation of their proceedings was finally
digested. The tribunal, after having been successively adopted in Italy
and Germany, was introduced into Aragon, where, in 1242, additional
provisions were framed by the council of Tarragona, on the basis of those
of 1233, which may properly be considered as the primitive instructions of
the Holy Office in Spain. [2]

This ancient Inquisition, as it is termed, bore the same odious
peculiarities in its leading features as the Modern; the same impenetrable
secrecy in its proceedings, the same insidious modes of accusation, a
similar use of torture, and similar penalties for the offender. A sort of
manual, drawn up by Eymerich, an Aragonese inquisitor of the fourteenth
century, for the instruction of the judges of the Holy Office, prescribes
all those ambiguous forms of interrogation, by which the unwary, and
perhaps innocent victim might be circumvented. [3] The principles, on
which the ancient Inquisition was established, are no less repugnant to
justice, than those which regulated the modern; although the former, it is
true, was much less extensive in its operation. The arm of persecution,
however, fell with sufficient heaviness, especially during the thirteenth
and fourteenth centuries, on the unfortunate Albigenses, who from the
proximity and political relations of Aragon and Provence, had become
numerous in the former kingdom. The persecution appears, however, to have
been chiefly confined to this unfortunate sect, and there is no evidence
that the Holy Office, notwithstanding papal briefs to that effect, was
fully organized in Castile, before the reign of Isabella. This is perhaps
imputable to the paucity of heretics in that kingdom. It cannot, at any
rate, be charged to any lukewarmness in its sovereigns; since they, from
the time of St. Ferdinand, who heaped the fagots on the blazing pile with
his own hands, down to that of John the Second, Isabella's father, who
hunted the unhappy heretics of Biscay, like so many wild beasts, among the
mountains, had ever evinced a lively zeal for the orthodox faith. [4]

By the middle of the fifteenth century, the Albigensian heresy had become
nearly extirpated by the Inquisition of Aragon; so that this infernal
engine might have been suffered to sleep undisturbed from want of
sufficient fuel to keep it in motion, when new and ample materials were
discovered in the unfortunate race of Israel, on whom the sins of their
fathers have been so unsparingly visited by every nation in Christendom,
among whom they have sojourned, almost to the present century. As this
remarkable people, who seem to have preserved their unity of character
unbroken, amid the thousand fragments into which they have been scattered,
attained perhaps to greater consideration in Spain than in any other part
of Europe, and as the efforts of the Inquisition were directed principally
against them during the present reign, it may be well to take a brief
review of their preceding history in the Peninsula.

Under the Visigothic empire the Jews multiplied exceedingly in the
country, and were permitted to acquire considerable power and wealth. But
no sooner had their Arian masters embraced the orthodox faith, than they
began to testify their zeal by pouring on the Jews the most pitiless storm
of persecution. One of their laws alone condemned the whole race to
slavery; and Montesquieu remarks, without much exaggeration, that to the
Gothic code may be traced all the maxims of the modern Inquisition, the
monks of the fifteenth century only copying, in reference to the
Israelites, the bishops of the seventh. [5]

After the Saracenic invasion, which the Jews, perhaps with reason, are
accused of having facilitated, they resided in the conquered cities, and
were permitted to mingle with the Arabs on nearly equal terms. Their
common Oriental origin produced a similarity of tastes, to a certain
extent, not unfavorable to such a coalition. At any rate, the early
Spanish Arabs were characterized by a spirit of toleration towards both
Jews and Christians, "the people of the book," as they were called, which
has scarcely been found among later Moslems. [6] The Jews, accordingly,
under these favorable auspices, not only accumulated wealth with their
usual diligence, but gradually rose to the highest civil dignities, and
made great advances in various departments of letters. The schools of
Cordova, Toledo, Barcelona, and Granada were crowded with numerous
disciples, who emulated the Arabians in keeping alive the flame of
learning, during the deep darkness of the Middle Ages. [7] Whatever may be
thought of their success in speculative philosophy, [8] they cannot
reasonably be denied to have contributed largely to practical and
experimental science. They were diligent travellers in all parts of the
known world, compiling itineraries which have proved of extensive use in
later times, and bringing home hoards of foreign specimens and Oriental
drugs, that furnished important contributions to the domestic
pharmacopoeias. [9] In the practice of medicine, indeed, they became so
expert, as in a manner to monopolize that profession. They made great
proficiency in mathematics, and particularly in astronomy; while, in the
cultivation of elegant letters, they revived the ancient glories of the
Hebrew muse. [10] This was indeed the golden age of modern Jewish
literature, which, under the Spanish caliphs, experienced a protection so
benign, although occasionally checkered by the caprices of despotism, that
it was enabled to attain higher beauty and a more perfect development in
the tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries, than it has
reached in any other part of Christendom. [11]

The ancient Castilians of the same period, very different from their
Gothic ancestors, seem to have conceded to the Israelites somewhat of the
feelings of respect, which were extorted from them by the superior
civilization of the Spanish Arabs. We find eminent Jews residing in the
courts of the Christian princes, directing their studies, attending them
as physicians, or more frequently administering their finances. For this
last vocation they seem to have had a natural aptitude; and, indeed, the
correspondence which they maintained with the different countries of
Europe by means of their own countrymen, who acted as the brokers of
almost every people among whom they were scattered during the Middle Ages,
afforded them peculiar facilities both in politics and commerce. We meet
with Jewish scholars and statesmen attached to the courts of Alfonso the
Tenth, Alfonso the Eleventh, Peter the Cruel, Henry the Second, and other
princes. Their astronomical science recommended them in a special manner
to Alfonso the Wise, who employed them in the construction of his
celebrated Tables. James the First of Aragon condescended to receive
instruction from them in ethics; and, in the fifteenth century, we notice
John the Second, of Castile, employing a Jewish secretary in the
compilation of a national Cancionero. [12]

But all this royal patronage proved incompetent to protect the Jews, when
their flourishing fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to excite
popular envy, augmented, as it was, by that profuse ostentation of
equipage and apparel, for which this singular people, notwithstanding
their avarice, have usually shown a predilection. [13] Stories were
circulated of their contempt for the Catholic worship, their desecration
of its most holy symbols, and of their crucifixion, or other sacrifice, of
Christian children, at the celebration of their own passover. [14] With
these foolish calumnies, the more probable charge of usury and extortion
was industriously preferred against them, till at length, towards the
close of the fourteenth century, the fanatical populace, stimulated in
many instances by the no less fanatical clergy, and perhaps encouraged by
the numerous class of debtors to the Jews, who found this a convenient
mode of settling their accounts, made a fierce assault on this unfortunate
people in Castile and Aragon, breaking into their houses, violating their
most private sanctuaries, scattering their costly collections and
furniture, and consigning the wretched proprietors to indiscriminate
massacre, without regard to sex or age. [15]

In this crisis, the only remedy left to the Jews was a real or feigned
conversion to Christianity. St. Vincent Ferrier, a Dominican of Valencia,
performed such a quantity of miracles, in furtherance of this purpose, as
might have excited the envy of any saint in the Calendar; and these, aided
by his eloquence, are said to have changed the hearts of no less than
thirty-five thousand of the race of Israel, which doubtless must be
reckoned the greatest miracle of all. [16]

The legislative enactments of this period, and still more under John the
Second, during the first half of the fifteenth century, were uncommonly
severe upon the Jews. While they were prohibited from mingling freely with
the Christians, and from exercising the professions for which they were
best qualified, [17] their residence was restricted within certain
prescribed limits of the cities which they inhabited; and they were not
only debarred from their usual luxury of ornament in dress, but were held
up to public scorn, as it were, by some peculiar badge or emblem
embroidered on their garments. [18] Such was the condition of the Spanish
Jews at the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella. The _new Christians_, or
_converts_, as those who had renounced the faith of their fathers were
denominated, were occasionally preferred to high ecclesiastical dignities,
which they illustrated by their integrity and learning. They were
intrusted with municipal offices in the various cities of Castile; and, as
their wealth furnished an obvious resource for repairing, by way of
marriage, the decayed fortunes of the nobility, there was scarcely a
family of rank in the land, whose blood had not been contaminated, at some
period or other, by mixture with the _mala sangre_, as it came afterwards
to be termed, of the house of Judah; an ignominious stain, which no time
has been deemed sufficient wholly to purge away. [19]

Notwithstanding the show of prosperity enjoyed by the converted Jews,
their situation was far from secure. Their proselytism had been too sudden
to be generally sincere; and, as the task of dissimulation was too irksome
to be permanently endured, they gradually became less circumspect, and
exhibited the scandalous spectacle of apostates returning to wallow in the
ancient mire of Judaism. The clergy, especially the Dominicans, who seem
to have inherited the quick scent for heresy which distinguished their
frantic founder, were not slow in sounding the alarm; and the
superstitious populace, easily roused to acts of violence in the name of
religion, began to exhibit the most tumultuous movements, and actually
massacred the constable of Castile in an attempt to suppress them at Jaen,
the year preceding the accession of Isabella. After this period, the
complaints against the Jewish heresy became still more clamorous, and the
throne was repeatedly beset with petitions to devise some effectual means
for its extirpation. [20]

A chapter of the Chronicle of the Curate of Los Palacios, who lived at
this time in Andalusia, where the Jews seem to have most abounded, throws
considerable light on the real, as well as pretended motives of the
subsequent persecution. "This accursed race," he says, speaking of the
Israelites, "were either unwilling to bring their children to be baptized,
or, if they did, they washed away the stain on returning home. They
dressed their stews and other dishes with oil, instead of lard; abstained
from pork; kept the passover; ate meat in lent; and sent oil to replenish
the lamps of their synagogues; with many other abominable ceremonies of
their religion. They entertained no respect for monastic life, and
frequently profaned the sanctity of religious houses by the violation or
seduction of their inmates. They were an exceedingly politic and ambitious
people, engrossing the most lucrative municipal offices; and preferred to
gain their livelihood by traffic, in which they made exorbitant gains,
rather than by manual labor or mechanical arts. They considered themselves
in the hands of the Egyptians, whom it was a merit to deceive and plunder.
By their wicked contrivances they amassed great wealth, and thus were
often able to ally themselves by marriage with noble Christian families."
[21]

It is easy to discern, in this medley of credulity and superstition, the
secret envy, entertained by the Castilians, of the superior skill and
industry of their Hebrew brethren, and of the superior riches which these
qualities secured to them; and it is impossible not to suspect, that the
zeal of the most orthodox was considerably sharpened by worldly motives.

Be that as it may, the cry against the Jewish abominations now became
general. Among those most active in raising it, were Alfonso de Ojeda, a
Dominican, prior of the monastery of St. Paul in Seville, and Diego de
Merlo, assistant of that city, who should not be defrauded of the meed of
glory to which they are justly entitled by their exertions for the
establishment of the modern Inquisition. These persons, after urging on
the sovereigns the alarming extent to which the Jewish leprosy prevailed
in Andalusia, loudly called for the introduction of the Holy Office, as
the only effectual means of healing it. In this they were vigorously
supported by Niccolo Franco, the papal nuncio then residing at the court
of Castile. Ferdinand listened with complacency to a scheme, which
promised an ample source of revenue in the confiscations it involved. But
it was not so easy to vanquish Isabella's aversion to measures so
repugnant to the natural benevolence and magnanimity of her character. Her
scruples, indeed, were rather founded on sentiment than reason, the
exercise of which was little countenanced in matters of faith, in that
day, when the dangerous maxim, that the end justifies the means, was
universally received, and learned theologians seriously disputed whether
it were permitted to make peace with the infidel, and even whether
promises made to them were obligatory on Christians. [22]

The policy of the Roman church, at that time, was not only shown in its
perversion of some of the most obvious principles of morality, but in the
discouragement of all free inquiry in its disciples, whom it instructed to
rely implicitly in matters of conscience on their spiritual advisers. The
artful institution of the tribunal of confession, established with this
view, brought, as it were, the whole Christian world at the feet of the
clergy, who, far from being always animated by the meek spirit of the
Gospel, almost justified the reproach of Voltaire, that confessors have
been the source of most of the violent measures pursued by princes of the
Catholic faith. [23] Isabella's serious temper, as well as early
education, naturally disposed her to religious influences. Notwithstanding
the independence exhibited by her in all secular affairs, in her own
spiritual concerns she uniformly testified the deepest humility, and
deferred too implicitly to what she deemed the superior sagacity, or
sanctity, of her ghostly counsellors. An instance of this humility may be
worth recording. When Fray Fernando de Talavera, afterwards archbishop of
Granada, who had been appointed confessor to the queen, attended her for
the first time in that capacity, he continued seated, after she had knelt
down to make her confession, which drew from her the remark, "that it was
usual for both parties to kneel." "No," replied the priest, "this is God's
tribunal; I act here as his minister, and it is fitting that I should keep
my seat, while your Highness kneels before me." Isabella, far from taking
umbrage at the ecclesiastic's arrogant demeanor, complied with all
humility, and was afterwards heard to say, "This is the confessor that I
wanted." [24]

Well had it been for the land, if the queen's conscience had always been
intrusted to the keeping of persons of such exemplary piety as Talavera.
Unfortunately, in her early days, during the lifetime of her brother
Henry, that charge was committed to a Dominican monk, Thomas de
Torquemada, a native of old Castile, subsequently raised to the rank of
prior of Santa Cruz in Segovia, and condemned to infamous immortality by
the signal part which he performed in the tragedy of the Inquisition. This
man, who concealed more pride under his monastic weeds than might have
furnished forth a convent of his order, was one of that class, with whom
zeal passes for religion, and who testify their zeal by a fiery
persecution of those whose creed differs from their own; who compensate
for their abstinence from sensual indulgence, by giving scope to those
deadlier vices of the heart, pride, bigotry, and intolerance, which are no
less opposed to virtue, and are far more extensively mischievous to
society. This personage had earnestly labored to infuse into Isabella's
young mind, to which his situation as her confessor gave him such ready
access, the same spirit of fanaticism that glowed in his own. Fortunately,
this was greatly counteracted by her sound understanding, and natural
kindness of heart. Torquemada urged her, or, indeed, as is stated by some,
extorted a promise, that, "should she ever come to the throne, she would
devote herself to the extirpation of heresy, for the glory of God, and the
exaltation of the Catholic faith." [25] The time was now arrived when this
fatal promise was to be discharged.

It is due to Isabella's fame to state thus much in palliation of the
unfortunate error into which she was led by her misguided zeal; an error
so grave, that, like a vein in some noble piece of statuary, it gives a
sinister expression to her otherwise unblemished character. [26] It was
not until the queen had endured the repeated importunities of the clergy,
particularly of those reverend persons in whom she most confided, seconded
by the arguments of Ferdinand, that she consented to solicit from the pope
a bull for the introduction of the Holy Office into Castile. Sixtus the
Fourth, who at that time filled the pontifical chair, easily discerning
the sources of wealth and influence, which this measure opened to the
court of Rome, readily complied with the petition of the sovereigns, and
expedited a bull bearing date November 1st, 1478, authorizing them to
appoint two or three ecclesiastics, inquisitors for the detection and
suppression of heresy throughout their dominions. [27]

The queen, however, still averse to violent measures, suspended the
operation of the ordinance, until a more lenient policy had been first
tried. By her command, accordingly, the archbishop of Seville, Cardinal
Mendoza, drew up a catechism exhibiting the different points of the
Catholic faith, and instructed the clergy throughout his diocese to spare
no pains in illuminating the benighted Israelites, by means of friendly
exhortation and a candid exposition of the true principles of
Christianity. [28] How far the spirit of these injunctions was complied
with, amid the excitement then prevailing, may be reasonably doubted.
There could be little doubt, however, that a report, made two years later,
by a commission of ecclesiastics with Alfonso de Ojeda at its head,
respecting the progress of the reformation, would be necessarily
unfavorable to the Jews. [29] In consequence of this report the papal
provisions were enforced by the nomination, on the 17th of September,
1480, of two Dominican monks as inquisitors, with two other ecclesiastics,
the one as assessor, and the other as procurator fiscal, with instructions
to proceed at once to Seville, and enter on the duties of their office.
Orders were also issued to the authorities of the city to support the
inquisitors by all the aid in their power. But the new institution, which
has since become the miserable boast of the Castilians, proved so
distasteful to them in its origin, that they refused any co-operation with
its ministers, and indeed opposed such delays and embarrassments, that,
during the first years, it can scarcely be said to have obtained a footing
in any other places in Andalusia, than those belonging to the crown. [30]

On the 2d of January, 1481, the court commenced operations by the
publication of an edict, followed by several others, requiring all persons
to aid in apprehending and accusing all such as they might know or suspect
to be guilty of heresy, [31] and holding out the illusory promise of
absolution to such as should confess their errors within a limited period.
As every mode of accusation, even anonymous, was invited, the number of
victims multiplied so fast, that the tribunal found it convenient to
remove its sittings from the convent of St. Paul, within the city, to the
spacious fortress of Triana, in the suburbs. [32]

The presumptive proofs by which the charge of Judaism was established
against the accused are so curious, that a few of them may deserve notice.
It was considered good evidence of the fact, if the prisoner wore better
clothes or cleaner linen on the Jewish sabbath than on other days of the
week; if he had no fire in his house the preceding evening; if he sat at
table with Jews, or ate the meat of animals slaughtered by their hands, or
drank a certain beverage held in much estimation by them; if he washed a
corpse in warm water, or when dying turned his face to the wall; or,
finally, if he gave Hebrew names to his children; a provision most
whimsically cruel, since, by a law of Henry the Second, he was prohibited
under severe penalties from giving them Christian names. He must have
found it difficult to extricate himself from the horns of this dilemma.
[33] Such are a few of the circumstances, some of them purely accidental
in their nature, others the result of early habit, which might well have
continued after a sincere conversion to Christianity, and all of them
trivial, on which capital accusations were to be alleged, and even
satisfactorily established. [34]

The inquisitors, adopting the wily and tortuous policy of the ancient
tribunal, proceeded with a despatch, which shows that they could have paid
little deference even to this affectation of legal form. On the sixth day
of January, six convicts suffered at the stake. Seventeen more were
executed in March, and a still greater number in the month following; and
by the 4th of November in the same year, no less than two hundred and
ninety-eight individuals had been sacrificed in the _autos da fe_ of
Seville. Besides these, the mouldering remains of many, who had been tried
and convicted after their death, were torn up from their graves, with a
hyena-like ferocity, which has disgraced no other court, Christian or
Pagan, and condemned to the common funeral pile. This was prepared on a
spacious stone scaffold, erected in the suburbs of the city, with the
statues of four prophets attached to the corners, to which the unhappy
sufferers were bound for the sacrifice, and which the worthy Curate of Los
Palacios celebrates with much complacency as the spot "where heretics were
burnt, and ought to burn as long as any can be found." [35]

Many of the convicts were persons estimable for learning and probity; and,
among these, three clergymen are named, together with other individuals
filling judicial or high municipal stations. The sword of justice was
observed, in particular, to strike at the wealthy, the least pardonable
offenders in times of proscription.

The plague which desolated Seville this year, sweeping off fifteen
thousand inhabitants, as if in token of the wrath of Heaven at these
enormities, did not palsy for a moment the arm of the Inquisition, which,
adjourning to Aracena, continued as indefatigable as before. A similar
persecution went forward in other parts of the province of Andalusia; so
that within the same year, 1481, the number of the sufferers was computed
at two thousand burnt alive, a still greater number in effigy, and
seventeen thousand _reconciled_; a term which must not be understood
by the reader to signify anything like a pardon or amnesty, but only the
commutation of a capital sentence for inferior penalties, as fines, civil
incapacity, very generally total confiscation of property, and not
unfrequently imprisonment for life. [36]

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