Such was the situation when the Spanish Inquisition was founded. Conversos were numerous in the Orders and many were prosecuted. Under Torquemada, himself a Dominican, the inquisitors were largely Dominicans and the Franciscans naturally claimed the privileges of the papal decrees of 1460 and 1479; when, in 1487, some Observantine Franciscans were prosecuted, Innocent VIII ordered their release and repeated the provisions of 1479.[94] In the following year, however, by a _motu proprío_ of May 17, 1488, he declared that none of the Orders were exempt and specially mentioned the Cistercians, Dominicans and Franciscans.[95] Even before this, Torquemada had treated the regulars as under his jurisdiction for, though he had granted to the Geronimite prelates power to try some of their frailes he revoked this, May 3, 1488, and commissioned the inquisitors of Toledo to prosecute them.[96] In Rome the influence of the regular Orders was great; that of the growing Spanish power was steadily increasing, and the contest between these opposing forces is seen in the fluctuating policy of the Holy See. The _motu proprio_ of 1488 remained in force for a considerable time, but, after the death of Ferdinand, the Franciscans in 1517 obtained from Leo X the renewal of their old privileges, which probably also included the Dominicans.[97] The Augustinians soon followed, for a letter of the Suprema, May 7, 1521, directs the tribunals, in view of their privileges to be tried by their prelates, to obtain from the superiors delegated power to act in their cases, or to get a fraile assigned to sit as assessor, or to remit the cases to the Suprema as they may deem best.[98] Apparently these exemptions were not always respected, for Clement VII, by a brief of January 18, 1524, emphatically confirmed the Franciscan privileges and ordered all their cases pending in the tribunals to be transferred within six days to the prelates of the accused.[99] So when, in a brief of March 19, 1525, he prohibited descendants of Jews and heretics from acquiring dignities in the Observantine branch of the Order, he gave as a reason that the provincials are judges of their subjects.[100]