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
Ferdinand was not satisfied, but he had to acquiesce and adopt the
device of the bishops delegating one of the inquisitors as their
representative--an expedient for which precedents can be found in the
early Inquisition of Languedoc. That this soon became common is
indicated in the Instructions of 1484, which warns the inquisitor
holding the commission that he is not to deem himself superior to his
colleagues.[37] Another plan was to require the bishops to issue a
commission as vicar-general to whomsoever the inquisitors might
designate, as Ferdinand ordered the bishops of Aragon to do, in a letter
of January 27, 1484. The individual thus selected became an official of
the tribunal and was borne on its pay-roll for a salary to be paid out
of the confiscations for which he might vote. Of this we have examples
in Martin Navarro thus serving at Teruel, in 1486, on a yearly stipend
of two thousand sueldos and in Martin Garcia, included as vicar-general
at a salary of three thousand sueldos, in the Saragossa pay-roll of the
same year.[38]
[Sidenote: _EPISCOPAL CONCURRENCE_]
It is possible that the bishops grew restive under this absorption of
their powers and that they remonstrated with the Holy See for, in 1494,
when Alexander VI issued commissions to the four new inquisitors-general
there appeared a new condition requiring them to exercise their
functions in conjunction with the Ordinaries of the sees or their vicars
or officials, or other persons deputized by the Ordinaries.[39]
Ferdinand, however, was not accustomed to brook opposition to his will.
The most efficient and economical expedient was the episcopal delegation
to an inquisitor and this he enforced by whatever pressure was
necessary. Thus when, in 1498, the Bishop of Tarazona demurred to do
this, Ferdinand, in a letter of November 21st, brushed aside his reasons
and imperatively ordered the delegation to be sent at once. Still the
bishop recalcitrated and Ferdinand wrote, January 4, 1499, that he must
do so at once; no excuse would be admitted and nothing would change his
determined purpose, but it was not until March that he learned the
bishop's submission. In this same year, 1499, he broke down, in similar
rude fashion, the resistance of two other bishops and when, in 1501, the
Archbishop of Tarragona notified the tribunal of Barcelona not to hear,
without his participation, certain cases committed to them on appeal,
Ferdinand expressed his indignant surprise; the archbishop must remove
the obstruction at once and not await a second command.[40]
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