408

Autos-de-fé at Valladolid

[1559-71 prisons were full; and Valdés the Inquisitor-General was able to report to Charles V, in his retirement at Yuste, that each day brought fresh evidence against them. Moreover, mutual trust was lacking; when under examination, even without torture, they accused one another and endeavoured by all means to exculpate themselves, so that there was no lack of incriminating evidence. The cause was pressed on vigorously, special powers being sought from Rome that it might not be delayed; and an auto-de-fé, the first against heresy, was arranged for Trinity Sunday, May 21, 1559, to be held in the Plaza Mayor.

On the appointed day a concourse gathered, the like of which had seldom been seen. After a sermon by the theologian Melchor Cano, the sentences were read out. Fourteen heretics were condemned to death, together with a Portuguese Jew. They were Agustin Cazalla and his brother Francisco (also a priest), his sister and four other women, and seven laymen, including Juan García, a worker in silver of Valladolid, and Anton Asél, a peasant. The bones of Leonor de Vibera were burnt, her house pulled down, and the spot was marked by a "pillar of infamy.' Sixteen were reconciled, and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment; thirty-seven were reserved in prison. Of those who suffered, most showed sufficient signs of penitence to be strangled before being burnt, including Cazalla himself. But exhortations were wasted upon the licentiate Herrezuelo, who held to his opinions and was burnt alive.

A second auto followed on October 8, in the presence of Philip himself. Seven men and six women were burnt, and five women were imprisoned for life. The former included Fray Domingo de Rojas, Pedro Cazalla, two other priests, a nun of Santa Clara at Valladolid, and four nuns of Belén; of the latter, three were nuns of Belén. Several of those who were burnt were gagged that they might not speak; but Fray Domingo demanded leave to address the King, and said, "Although I die here as a heretic in the opinion of the people, yet I believe in God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and I believe in the passion of Christ, which alone suffices to save the world, without any other work save the justification of the soul to be with God; and in this faith I believe that I shall be saved." It would seem, however, that only two were burnt alive, Carlos de Seso and Juan Sanchez.

Many isolated cases of heresy are to be found after this, and doubtless the records of others have perished. Leonor de Cisneros, the mother of Herrezuelo, was burnt alive as an obstinate heretic on September 26, 1568; several cases of heresy were dealt with at an auto-de-fé at Toledo in 1571, and recent research has found a certain number of other instances elsewhere. As time went on such cases were in increasing proportion of foreign origin. But wherever heresy was discovered it was ruthlessly stamped out. Nor was this merely the work of a few officials. From his retirement at Yuste Charles V adjured his son to carry out the work of

1503-82]

Bartolomé de Carranza

409

repression to the uttermost; and Philip replied that he would do what his father wished and more also. He told Carlos de Seso that if his own son were a heretic, he would himself carry the wood to burn him; and in this, as in most other things, he was a typical Spaniard. The rage against heresy regarded all learning, all evangelical teaching, with suspicion; to speak overmuch of faith or of inward religion might be a disparagement of works and of outward religion. Sooner or later most of the learned men of the day were cited on suspicion of heresy, or, if not actually cited, their actions and words were carefully watched. Fray Luis de Leon, poet and scholar, spent nearly five years in the prisons of the Inquisition whilst his works were being examined; and although he was at length acquitted, his Translation of the Song of Solomon was suppressed, and he again fell under suspicion in 1582. Juan de Ávila, Luis de Granada, even St Teresa, and St John of the Cross were accused; and it is said that Alva himself and Don John of Austria were not above suspicion.

Above all, the Inquisition struck, and not ineffectively, at the highest ecclesiastic in Spain, and brought him low, even to the ground. Bartolomé de Carranza was born in 1503, of a noble family, at Miranda in Navarre, and he entered the Dominican Order at the age of seventeen. In 1523 he was sent to the College of San Gregorio at Valladolid, of which he ultimately became Rector. It is possible that on a visit to Rome in 1539, to attend the Chapter-general of his Order, he met Juan Valdés. As time went on Bartolomé was more and more honoured in Spain for his learning and goodness. In 1545 Charles V sent him as theologian to the Council of Trent, where he won golden opinions. His doctrine of Justification was indeed questioned on one occasion; but he had no difficulty in showing that his words were in harmony with the decree of the Council, and he was vigorous in his treatment of heretical books. In Spain (1553), in England (1554), and in Flanders (1557), he showed himself zealous against heresy; and when, late in the latter year, he was chosen to be Archbishop of Toledo, his own was the single dissentient voice. Having at length accepted the office, he gave himself unreservedly to its duties. But it soon appeared that he was not without enemies. Some of the Bishops were ill-disposed towards him because he rigorously enforced upon them the duty of residence. Valdés, the Inquisitor-General, was jealous of him, perhaps because he himself had aspired to the primatial see. And the great theologian Melchor Cano, of his own order, was a lifelong rival. The two men differed in the whole tone of their minds; Fray Melchor was a thinker of almost mathematical accuracy, while Fray Bartolomé reasoned from the heart.

Under these circumstances very little evidence would suffice for a process for heresy; and Carranza himself, learning that it was in contemplation, wrote repeatedly to the Inquisitors in his own defence. Valdés however had applied to Rome for permission to proceed against

410

Trial of Carranza

[1559-76

him. The brief arrived on April 8, 1559, the King gave his permission in June, and in August Carranza was arrested and imprisoned. The main charges against him were based upon his relations with Cazalla, Domingo de Rojas, and others then under condemnation; upon his writings, especially the Commentaries on the Catechism, which he had published at Antwerp just after he became primate; and upon his last interview with Charles V. Of these the first head was by far the most serious. Many of the accused at Valladolid spoke of the way in which he had met their doubts in the early days of the movement; and Rojas in particular, desiring to shelter himself under the aegis of his old master, had in effect implicated him. The evidence showed that he had been in correspondence with Juan Valdés; and it seems clear that at this period his position had been that of the loyal doctrinal Reformers of Italy. Although he had willingly accepted the Tridentine decree on Justification, it does not appear that his doctrinal position ever really changed. His interview with Charles V had been very short, but he was accused of making use of words which savoured of heresy. The Catecismo was next examined: and, although some, both of the prelates and of the doctors, had no fault to find, others censured it severely. Melchor Cano in particular found much that was ambiguous, much that was temerarious, much that was even heretical, in the sense in which it was said. Nevertheless, the Tridentine censors had pronounced the book orthodox and had given it their approval.

The process dragged on its slow length, with many delays and many interruptions. At length the case was cited to Rome. On December 5, 1566, Carranza came out of his prison, and a few months afterwards he set out for Italy. Here the question had to be reopened, and the documents re-examined and in many cases translated, which involved a further delay. But it appears that Pius V was convinced of Carranza's innocence; and a decree would probably have been given in his favour had not the Pope died on May 1, 1572. His successor Gregory XIII reopened the case, and sentence was not actually given till April 14, 1576. The Archbishop was declared to have taken many errors and modes of speech from the heretics, on account of which he was "vehemently suspected" of heresy; and he was condemned to abjure sixteen propositions. Having done this, and performed certain penances, he was to be free from all censures, but to be suspended for five years from the exercise of his office, meanwhile dwelling in the house of his Order at Orvieto. The Catecismo was prohibited altogether. The decision was severe, but not unjust according to the views of the sixteenth century, which applied the tests of doctrinal orthodoxy to the minutiae of individual opinion. But Carranza was no longer subject to it; for seventeen years in prison had broken his strength. He endeavoured to fulfil his penances, humbly made his profession of faith and received the Eucharist, and expired on May 2, 1576.

1511-53]

Miguel Serveto

411

Thus ended the Reform in Spain, as it had ended in Italy, uprooted by the intolerant dogmatism which assumed that there was an ascertained answer to every possible theological question, confused right-thinking with accuracy of knowledge, and discerned heresy in every reaction and every independent effort of the human mind. Many of those who had been driven out of Spain continued to work elsewhere. Such were Juan Perez already referred to, Cassiodoro de Reina, and Cipriano Valera, each of whom translated the whole Bible into Spanish, and many more. But without following these further, mention must be made of one great Spanish thinker of the earlier part of the century, who spent most of his life abroad. Miguel Serveto y Reves was born at Tudela in Navarre about 1511, his family being of Villanueva in Aragon; and he studied at Toulouse. As secretary to Juan de Quintana, the Emperor's confessor, he was with him at Bologna in 1529 and at the Diet of Augsburg in 1530 (where he met Melanchthon, of whose Loci communes he became a diligent student), but soon afterwards left his service and went to Basel. In 1531 he published his De Trinitatis Erroribus, and in 1552 two Dialogues on the Trinity: and the suspicion which he incurred by his views led him to flee to France. Here for the first time he met Calvin, who was his antithesis in every way, being as clear, logical, and narrow in his views as Serveto was the reverse. After acting as proofreader to Trechsel at Lyons, and producing a remarkable edition of Ptolemy, he went to study medicine at Paris. In this field he greatly distinguished himself, for he appears to have been the first discoverer of the circulation of the blood. After a period of wandering, during which he submitted to rebaptism by the Anabaptists of Charlieu, he came to Vienne, where his old pupil Pierre Palmier was now Archbishop, and remained there till 1553. In 1546-7 he engaged in a violent theological controversy with Calvin; and when at length he published his Christianismi Restitutio the letters were added to the book as a kind of appendix. Not unnaturally offended, Calvin meanly accused his adversary, through an intermediary, to the Inquisition, and in April, 1553, both Serveto and the printer of the book were imprisoned. Serveto made his escape, probably by complicity of his gaolers, and was burnt in effigy (June 17). He now resolved to make his way into northern Italy; but by a strange mischance he went by way of Geneva. His arrival was reported to Calvin, who resolved that his enemy should not escape; the blasphemer must die. On October 27, 1553, Serveto was burnt at the stake.

It is difficult to estimate his theological position; for his one follower, Alfonso Ligurio of Tarragona, is now little more than a name. Miguel Serveto stands quite alone, and towers far above other sceptical thinkers of his age. In some ways essentially modern, he is in others essentially medieval. He could not throw in his lot with any party because he held that all existing religions alike were partly right and partly wrong. It is impossible to judge of him by constructing a theological system

412

Social condition of Portugal

[1526-7

from his writings; for his mind was analytic and not synthetic, his tenets varied from time to time, and his system was after all but a framework by means of which he endeavoured to hold and to express certain great ideas creation in the Logos, the immanence of God in the universe, and the like. But in his anxiety to correct the rigidity of the theological conceptions of his age he took up a position which often degenerated into the merest shallow negation; and his books on the Trinity are anti-trinitarian, not because of his teaching, but in spite of it. And thus, whilst supplying many elements which were lacking to the religious consciousness of most other men of his age, he obscured them, and marred his own usefulness immeasurably, by alloying them with elements of dogmatic anti-trinitarianism which were never of the essence of his teaching.

III

PORTUGAL

In Portugal the religious revolt never attained serious dimensions : there were a few erasmistas, and a number of foreigners were proceeded against for heresy from time to time; but that is all. Nevertheless, the prevalence of heresy was one of the reasons alleged for the founding of the Lisbon Inquisition; and the circumstances under which this took place may well claim attention here.

The social condition of Portugal in the early part of the sixteenth century was not a little remarkable. Great opportunities for acquiring wealth had suddenly been opened to its people by the discovery and colonisation of the Indies. The result was that they flocked abroad as colonists, or else left the country districts in order to engage in commerce at Oporto or Lisbon, which rapidly increased in size. But this had a curious effect upon the rural districts. Before long there were scarcely any peasants, and the few that there were demanded high wages. To supply their place, the landowners began to import huge gangs of negro slaves, who were far cheaper, and could be obtained in any number that was required. But this system had one great disadvantage, so far as the exchequer was concerned. It became increasingly difficult to get the taxes paid; for there was no longer anybody to pay them, the property of the merchants being for the most part not within reach for the purpose. And thus the King, Dom João III (1526-57), found himself in a curious position. He had great hoards of money in the treasury, but there was a continual drain upon them; and there were no means of replenishing them, although he reigned over the richest people in Europe. In a letter to Clement VII dated June 28, 1526, he complains of his poverty, and gives this as his reason for not succouring the King of Hungary in his resistance to the Turks.