A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2 — John Shaqi
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 2
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
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]
[Sidenote: _EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION ENFORCED_]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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