Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition 18

Torquemada and the Spanish Inquisition 18

Susan and his unfortunate confederates were seized as a consequence of

that infamous delation; they were lodged in the cells of the Convent of

St. Paul, which meanwhile did duty as a prison, and brought to trial

before the Court of the Holy Office sitting in the convent.[65]

 

They were tried for heresy and apostasy, of course; since upon no other

grounds was it possible for the Holy Office to deal with them. It is

unfortunate that Llorente should have unearthed no record of this

trial--one of the first held by the Inquisition in Castile--and that

nothing should be known of what took place beyond the fact that Susan,

Sauli, Bartolomé Torralba, and the brothers Fernandez were found guilty

of the alleged offence of apostasy and were delivered up to the secular

arm for punishment.

 

Garcia Rodrigo has devoted a couple of pages of his “Historia

Verdadera” to an elaborate piece of fiction in which he asserts that

these men were persistent in their error in spite of the strenuous

efforts made to save them. He invests the fanatical Ojeda with the

character of an angel of mercy, and represents him hovering round

the condemned, exhorting them, almost with tears, to abjure their

error, and he assures us that although the Dominican persevered in his

charitable efforts up to the last moment, all was vain.

 

There is not a grain of evidence to support the statement, nor does

Garcia Rodrigo pretend to advance any. As a matter of fact, Bernaldez,

the only available authority who mentions Susan’s end, tells us

specifically that he died a Christian. And when it is considered

that Bernaldez is an ardent admirer and champion of the Inquisition,

such a pronouncement from his pen is sufficient to convict the

inquisitors Morillo and San Martin of having proceeded in a manner

that was vindictive and _ultra vires_. For at this epoch it was not

yet decreed that those who had relapsed (_relapsos_) should suffer

capital punishment unless they persisted in their apostasy--as Rodrigo,

obviously for the purpose of justifying the inquisitors, unwarrantably

asserts did Susan and his confederates.

 

Llorente considers the blood-lust of the inquisitors established by

these merciless convictions, urging that it is incredible that all the

prisoners should have refused to recant and to submit themselves to

penance--even assuming that they were actually guilty of apostasy as

alleged. For when all is considered it must remain extremely doubtful

whether they had Judaized at all, and it is not improbable--from what

we see of the spirit that actuated the inquisitors--that Morillo

and San Martin may have construed the action of those men into an

offence against the Faith for the purpose of bringing them within the

jurisdiction of the Holy Office.

 

They were condemned to be the chief actors in the first Auto de Fé that

was held in Seville. This took place on February 6.[66]

 

There was about this Auto comparatively little of that pomp and

ceremonial, that ghastly theatricality that was presently to

distinguish these proceedings. But the essentials were already present.

 

Susan and his fellows were led forth barefoot, in the ignominious,

yellow penitential sack, a candle in the hand of each. Hemmed about by

halberdiers, they were paraded through the streets of a city in which

they had won the goodwill and respect of all, to be gazed upon by a

people whose eyes must have been filled with horror and dismay. To head

the procession went a black-robed Dominican holding aloft the green

cross of the Inquisition, now swathed in a veil of crape; behind him,

walking two by two, came the familiars of the Holy Office, members of

the Confraternity of St. Peter the Martyr; next followed the doomed men

amid their guards; and last came the inquisitors with their attendants

and a considerable body of Dominicans from the Convent of St. Paul,

headed by their prior, the fanatical Ojeda.

 

The procession headed for the Cathedral, where the sufferers were taken

to hear Mass and forced to listen to a sermon framed for the occasion

which was preached by Ojeda, and must have increased the exquisite

torment of their protracted agony. Thence they were conducted--once

more processionally--out of the city to the meadows of Tablada. There

they were attached to the stakes that had been erected, fire was set to

the faggots, and thus they perished miserably, to the greater honour

and glory of the Catholic Apostolic Church.[67]

 

Ojeda may have looked with satisfaction upon that holocaust, upon those

cruel flames which more than any man in Spain he had been instrumental

in kindling, and which being kindled would continue to cast their lurid

glow over that fair land for close upon four centuries. It was the

first burning that Ojeda witnessed, and it was the last. His own hour

was at hand. His mission, whatever ends it had to serve in the eternal

scheme of things, was completed there on the meadows of Tablada, and he

might now depart. A few days later he lay dead, stricken down by the

plague that was ravaging the south of Spain, and sought him out for one

of its first victims.

 

And from the pulpits of Seville the Dominicans thundered forth

declarations that this pestilence was a visitation of God upon an

unfaithful city. They never paused to consider that if that were indeed

the case either God’s aim must be singularly untrue since the shafts of

His wrath overtook such faithful servants as Ojeda, or else....

 

But an incapacity to conduct its reasonings to a logical conclusion,

and an utter want of any sense of proportion, are the main factors in

all fanaticism.

 

Lest they should themselves be stricken by these bolts of pestilence

launched against the unfaithful, behold next the inquisitors scuttling

out of Seville! They go in quest of more salubrious districts,

and, presumably upon the assumption that these--since they remain

healthy--are escaping divine attention, the Dominicans zealously

proceed to light their fires that they may repair this heavenly

oversight.[68]

 

But that _villegiatura_ of theirs did not take place until they had

transacted a deal more of their horrible business in Seville. Great

had been the results of the edict of January 2. The nobles, not daring

to run the risk of the threatened ecclesiastical censure, proceeded

to effect the arrests demanded, and gangs of pinioned captives were

brought daily into the city from the surrounding country districts

where they had sought shelter. And in the city itself the familiars of

the Holy Office were busily effecting the capture of suspects and of

those against whom, either out of bigotry or malice, delations had been

made.

 

So numerous were the arrests that by the middle of the month of January

already the capacity of the Convent of St. Paul was strained to its

utmost, and the inquisitors were compelled to remove themselves, their

tribunal and their prison to the ampler quarters of the Castle of

Triana, accorded to them by the Sovereigns in response to their request

for it.[69]

 

The edict of January 2 was soon succeeded by a second one, known as the

“Edict of Grace.” This exhorted all who were guilty of apostasy to come

forward voluntarily within a term appointed, to confess their sins and

be reconciled to the Church. It assured them that if they did this with

real contrition and a firm purpose of amendment, they should receive

absolution and suffer no confiscation of property. And it concluded

with a warning that if they allowed the term of grace to expire without

taking advantage of it, and they should afterwards be accused by

others, they would be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.

 

Amador de los Rios is of opinion that Cardinal Mendoza was

“instrumental” in having this edict published, in which case it would

hardly be too much to assume that he was the instrument of Isabella

in the matter. Nor is it too much to assume that the inspiration

was purely merciful, and that there was no thought in the mind of

either Queen or Cardinal of the edict’s being turned, as it was, to

treacherous account.

 

The response was immediate. It is estimated that not less than 20,000

_conversos_ who had been guilty of Judaizing came forward to avail

themselves of its promise of amnesty and to secure absolution for

their infidelity to the religion they had embraced. They discovered

to their horror that they had walked into a trap as cruel as any that

smooth-faced, benign-voiced priestcraft had ever devised.

 

The inquisitors had thought well to saddle the promised absolution and

immunity from punishment with a condition which they had not published,

a condition which they had secretly reserved to spring it now upon

these self-convicted apostates at their mercy. They pointed out with

infernal subtlety that the edict provided that the contrition of the

self-accused must be sincere, and that of this sincerity the penitents

must give the only proof possible by disclosing the names of all

Judaizers known to them.

 

The demand was an infamy; for not even under the seal of private

confession is a priest authorized to impose upon a penitent as a

condition of absolution that he shall divulge the name even of an

accomplice or a partner in guilt. Yet here it was demanded of these

that they should go much further, and denounce such sinners as they

knew; and the demand was framed in such specious terms--as the only

proof they could offer of the sincerity of their own contrition--that

none dared have taxed the inquisitors with malpractice or with

subverting the ends and purpose of this edict they had been forced to

publish.

 

The wretched apostates found themselves between the sword and the

wall. Either they must perpetrate the infamy of betraying those of

their race whom they knew to be Judaizers, or they must submit not only

to the cruel death by fire, but to the destitution of their children

as a consequence of the confiscation of their property. Most of them

gave way, and purchased their reconciliation at the price of betrayal.

And there were men like Bernaldez, the parish priest of Palacios, who

applauded this procedure of the Holy Office. “A very glorious thing”

(_muy hazañosa cosa_), he exclaims, “was the reconciliation of these

people, as thus by their confessions were discovered all that were

Judaizers, and in Seville knowledge was obtained of Judaizers in

Toledo, Cordova, and Burgos.”[70]

 

* * * * *

 

Upon the expiry of the term of grace a further edict was published by

Morillo and San Martin, in which they now commanded, under pain of

mortal sin and greater excommunication, with its attendant penalties,

the discovery of all persons known to be engaged in Judaizing practices.

 

And that there should be no excuse offered by any on the score of