Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition 16

Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition 16

This is Frey Tomás de Torquemada, Prior of the Dominican Convent of

Holy Cross of Segovia, the nephew of the late illustrious Juan de

Torquemada, Cardinal of San Sisto.

 

His influence with the Queen is vast; his eloquence fiery; his mental

energy compelling. Ojeda looks on, and his hopes grow confident at

last.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VII

 

THE PRIOR OF HOLY CROSS

 

 

If ever a name held the omen of a man’s life, that name is Torquemada.

To such an extraordinary degree is it instinct with the suggestion

of the machinery of fire and torture over which he was destined to

preside, that it almost seems a fictitious name, a _nom de guerre_,

a grim invention, compounded of the Latin _torque_ and the Spanish

_quemada_, to fit the man who was to hold the office of Grand

Inquisitor.

 

It was derived from the northern town of Torquemada (the Turre Cremata

of the Romans), where the illustrious family had its beginnings. This

family first sprang into historical distinction with the knighting by

Alfonso XI of Lope Alonso de Torquemada (_Hijodalgo a los Fueros de

Castilla_), and thereafter was maintained in prominence by several

members who held more or less distinguished offices. But the most

illustrious bearer of the name was the cultured Dominican Juan de

Torquemada (Lope Alonso’s great-grandson), who was raised to the

purple with the title of Cardinal of San Sisto. He was one of the most

learned, eminent, and respected theologians of his age, an upholder of

the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and the most ardent champion

since Thomas Aquinas of the doctrine of papal infallibility. He

enriched theological literature by several works, the best known of

which is his “Meditations.”

 

Fr. Tomás de Torquemada was the son of the Cardinal’s only brother,

Pero Fernandez de Torquemada. He was born at Valladolid in 1420, and

after a scholastic career of some distinction--if Garcia Rodrigo is

to be believed in this particular[58]--he followed in his uncle’s

footsteps, soliciting the habit of the Order of St. Dominic, which he

assumed in the Convent of St. Paul of Valladolid upon completing his

studies of philosophy and divinity, and receiving a doctor’s degree.

 

He filled with distinction the chair of canon law and theology, and in

the fullness of time was elected Prior of the Convent of Santa Cruz of

Segovia. He so distinguished himself in the discharge of the duties

of this office by his piety, his learning, and his zeal, that he was

repeatedly re-elected, there being at the time no rule of the order

to inhibit it. Such was the austerity of his character that he never

ate meat, or used linen either in his clothing or on his bed.[59] He

observed the rule of poverty imposed by his order so rigorously that he

was unable to provide his only sister with an endowment suitable to her

station, and could allow her no more than would permit her to live as a

nun under the rule of the tertiary order of St. Dominic.

 

At what epoch the Prior of Holy Cross first became the confessor of the

Infanta Isabella it is not now possible to ascertain. Jaime Bleda tells

us that in the fulfilment of this office he had extracted from her,

during her youth at the Court of her brother King Henry IV, a promise

that should she ever come to the throne she would devote her life to

the extirpation of heresy from her realm.[60]

 

This may be dismissed as one of those popular fictions that arise

concerning the intimate affairs of princes, for it cannot be said that

it is borne out by the circumstances under consideration.

 

Isabella’s reluctance to proceed to extreme--or even vigorous--measures

against those of her subjects accused of Judaizing is admitted by every

serious student of her reign, however opinions may vary as to the

motives that swayed her in this course.

 

There remains, however, out of Bleda’s anecdote, the fact that

Torquemada had been Isabella’s confessor in early years--which in

itself bears out the statement that the Dominican had achieved

distinction. It follows by virtue of his having occupied this office

that he must have acquired over the mind of a woman so devout a

considerable ascendancy where matters connected with the Faith were

concerned.

 

This influence he came now to exert.

 

To support it he brought an indubitable sincerity and disinterestedness

of motives; he brought a reputation for sanctity derived from the rigid

purity of his life and the stern asceticism which he practised--a

reputation which could not fail to act upon the imagination of a woman

of Isabella’s pious temperament; and, finally, he brought the dominant,

masterful personality and the burning eloquence that were his own.

 

When all this is taken into account it is not surprising that the

Queen’s resistance, weakened already by the onslaughts of Ojeda and his

associates, the King and the papal legate, should at last have broken

down; and that under the compelling persuasion of the Prior of Holy

Cross she should reluctantly have consented to the establishment of the

Holy Office in her dominions.

 

* * * * *

 

Thus it befell that by order of the Catholic Sovereigns their Orator at

the Pontifical Court, D. Francisco de Santillana, applied to Sixtus IV

for a bull that should empower Ferdinand and Isabella to set up the

tribunal of the Inquisition in Castile, to enable them--as Bernaldez

puts it--to proceed to the extirpation of heresy “by the way of

fire”--_por via del fuego_.

 

This bull was duly granted under date of November 7, 1478.

 

It gave the Sovereigns the faculty of electing three bishops or

archbishops or other God-fearing and upright priests, regular or

secular, of over forty years of age, who must be masters or bachelors

of divinity and doctors or licentiates of canon law, to make

inquisition throughout the kingdom against heretics, apostates, and

their abettors.

 

His Holiness accorded to the men so elected the requisite jurisdiction

to proceed according to law and custom, and he further empowered the

Sovereigns to annul such nominations as they might make and to replace

their nominees as they saw fit.[61]

 

The Sovereigns were in Cordova when the bull reached them in the

following month of December. But they did not at once proceed to act

upon it. Before doing so, Isabella made one last effort to repress the

Judaizing and apostatizing movement by the gentler measures concerted

with the Cardinal of Spain in 1477.

 

To the task of continuing with increased vigour the teachings of the

“catechism” drawn up by Mendoza she now appointed Diego Alonso de

Solis, Bishop of Cadiz, D. Diego de Merlo, Coadjutor of Seville, and

Alonso de Ojeda, to whom these royal orders must have been a fresh

source of disappointment and chagrin.

 

Torquemada, we must assume, had withdrawn once more to his convent of

Segovia, and perhaps the removal of his stern influence enabled the

Queen to make this last effort to avoid the course to which he had all

but constrained her.

 

Having concluded these arrangements, the Sovereigns repaired to Toledo.

There, in the spring of the year 1480, the Cortes assembled to make

oath of fealty to the infant Prince of Asturias to whom Isabella had

given birth in June of 1478. Whilst this oath was the chief motive of

the assembly, it was by no means the only business with which it had to

deal. Many other matters received attention; amongst them the necessity

for remedying the evils arising out of the commerce between Christians

and Jews was seriously considered.

 

It was decreed that the old laws concerning the Jews, which lately

had been falling into partial desuetude, should be re-enforced,

particularly those which prescribed that all Jews should wear the

distinguishing badge of the circlet of red cloth on the shoulders of

their gabardines; that they should keep strictly to their Juderias,

always retiring to these at nightfall; that walls to enclose these

Juderias should be erected wherever they might still be wanting, and

that no Jew should practise as a doctor, surgeon, apothecary, or

innkeeper.

 

Beyond that, however, the Cortes did not go; and the institution of

the Inquisition to deal with Judaizers was not so much as mentioned,

which circumstance Llorente accepts as a further proof of the Queen’s

antipathy to the Holy Office.

 

Coming at a time when the Jews were once more beginning to taste the

sweets of freedom, there can be little doubt that these provisions,

which thrust them back into bondage and ignominy, must have been

extremely galling to them. It is possible that these measures

against the men of his race spurred a New-Christian to the rash

step of publishing a pamphlet in which he criticized and censured

the royal action in the matter. Carried away by his feelings, the

writer--intentionally or not--fell into heresy in the course of his

writings, to which the Jeronymite monk, Hernando de Talavera, published

a reply.

 

Rodrigo[62] assumes that this heretical pamphlet put an end to the

Queen’s patience. It may very well have been the case, or at least it

may have afforded Ferdinand and the others who desired the Inquisition

a final argument whereby to overcome what reluctance still lingered

with her.

 

Be that as it may, it was very soon after this--September 27,

1480--that the Sovereigns, who at the time were at Medina del Campo,

acted at last upon the papal bull which had now been in their hands for

nearly two years, and delegated their faculty of giving inquisitors to

Castile to the Cardinal of Spain and Fr. Tomás de Torquemada.

 

Mendoza and Torquemada proceeded at once to carry out the task

entrusted to them, and appointed as inquisitors of the faith for

Seville--where Judaizing was represented to be most flagrant--the

Dominican friars Juan de San Martino and Miguel Morillo. The latter was

the Provincial of the Dominicans of Aragon, and was already a person of

experience in such matters, having acted as inquisitor in Rousillon. To

assist them in the discharge of their office, the secular priest Juan

Ruiz de Medina, a doctor of canon law, and Juan Lopez de Barco, one of