A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4Lea, Henry Charles
History
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4
Lea, Henry Charles
Inquisition -- Spain
This indicates the dangerous tendency to extend inquisitorial activity
beyond its original limits, and it is remarkable that a monarch
entertaining these conceptions and engaged in the struggle with
feudalism should not have frequently sought the assistance of the Holy
Office. The only definite case that I have met with of its political use
occurred in 1507, when Cæsar Borgia escaped from the castle of Medina
del Campo to Navarre, and was made commander of his army by Jean
d'Albret, whose sister Charlotte he had married. Ferdinand vainly
endeavored to obtain his surrender and then caused a prosecution to be
brought against him in the Inquisition for heretical blasphemy and
suspicion of atheism and materialism. As Cæsar came to his death, March
12, 1507, while besieging the castle of Viana, which held out for Luis
de Beaumont, and the prosecution was abandoned, we can only conjecture
what the outcome might have been.[547] Navarre was also the scene of a
trivial political use of the Inquisition in 1516, when, as we have seen
(Vol. I, p. 227) it was instructed to ascertain the names of those
friendly to Jean d'Albret.
[Sidenote: _ANTONIO PEREZ_]
There was evidently a purpose to use the Inquisition against the revolt
of the Germanía of Valencia, when a brief of October 11, 1520, was
obtained from Leo X, granting to Cardinal Adrian faculties to proceed
against all persons conspiring against public peace. No use seems to
have been made of this, but the Valencia tribunal had an opportunity of
making itself felt towards the end of the disturbances. After Vicente
Peris, the leader of the _Agermanados_ was killed in a tumult, March 3,
1522, a mysterious individual, known as _el Encubierto_, and variously
described as a hermit from Castile and as a Jew from Gibraltar,
presented himself as the avenger of Peris and became the spiritual chief
of those who kept up the revolt in Játiva and Alcira. He assumed to be a
prophet and the envoy of God, which brought him under the ordinary
jurisdiction of the Holy Office, and it made record of the heresies
uttered by him in a sermon preached at Játiva, March 23d. He organized a
conspiracy in Valencia, but one of the accomplices, named Juan Martin,
was betrayed and was seized, by the Inquisition. El Encubierto was
assassinated, May 18th, at Burjasot, and his head was cut off; the
corpse was brought to Valencia, where the inquisitors had it dragged
through the streets on the way to the tribunal. He was condemned as a
heretic, the headless body was relaxed and burnt and the head was set
over one of the gateways.[548] The action of the Inquisition had no
influence on the course of affairs, but it manifests the readiness of
the tribunal to assert itself as a political force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
A History of the Inquisition of Spain; vol. 4 — John Shaqi
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