Indexes of the exhibitions
100 Spanish leaflets on the Inquisition
Instructions, edicts, decrees, lists of autos de fe & other documents
April 2018
This seventh exhibition organized by Bibliotheca Sefarad shows a wide selection of leaflets (one hundred and eight) related to the Inquisition and published in Spain.
The Spanish Inquisition and its three and a half centuries of existence is, without a doubt, one of the institutions that has had the greatest impact on Spanish history, thought, science, culture and mindset. Established by the Catholic Monarchs and authorized by Pope Sixtus IV in 1478, it was a tribunal dependent on and at the service of the Spanish monarchy, created to persecute the Jewish converts accused of Judaizing. Over time, the Holy Office incorporated “heresies” (Islamizing Moors, Lutherans, Protestants, etc.) and “crimes” (witchcraft, bigamy, sodomy, etc.) into its sphere of activity, as well as ruling on an infinite number of civil and criminal cases in its courts and dealing with the prohibition, censorship and purging of books. Nevertheless, the harshest sentences (burning at the stake, life imprisonment, etc.) were mainly handed down to Judaizers, where their property was automatically confiscated regardless of the severity of the crime and the other sentences that were imposed on them. Throughout the centuries, tens of thousands of people were processed by Judaism and other causes of faith.
This relentless, persistent and prolonged prosecution of Jewish converts in Spain and Portugal led to a continuous exodus of converts from the 15th century until the first decades of the 18th century who fled from the inquisitorial pyres to other countries, in particular, the Netherlands, Italy and France, where most reverted back to Judaism publicly. These New Jews founded, among others, important Sephardic communities in Amsterdam, Hamburg, Rouen, Bayonne and later, those in London and New York and several in the Caribbean.
It is often indicated that the Holy Office was governed by procedural instructions and norms intended to control the behavior of the inquisitors and its civil employees in all steps of the procedure against a prisoner upon their arrest. Moreover, it was a highly bureaucratic institution where all of its actions, either organizational (norms, edicts, inquisitor appointments, civil employees, familiars, etc.) or procedural, were registered in writing, black on white. Although all this seems to lend legitimacy to the holy court, the fact is that the potential victims and those who were processed found themselves in a situation of profound helplessness. They never found out who had denounced them nor what they were accused of: upon denunciation or arrest of the prisoner, the entire case was secret, except ... Except for the spectacle aimed at publicly shaming the victims of the Inquisition: the public autos da fé. Stigmatizing the condemned was not enough their sanbenitos were hung in the churches and cathedrals to display the shame of the condemned onto their relatives and descendants for generations.
The Inquisition, given its practices, was a tribunal that spread fear throughout Spanish society for centuries. It stood out for its particularly cruel punishment in the cases of faith under the pretext of saving souls, destroying lives and taking ownership of the property of the victims. It showed a good amount of cynicism, since although it handed down all the sentences of the condemned, to carry out the punishment, particularly those involving death either by garrote or in the flames of the pyre, the prisoner was handed over to the civil authority for further action, something with very little moral coherence.
Since the entire system is totalitarian and opaque, the Inquisition created its own Orwellian language, which included two especially notable terms: familiar (informant or whistleblower) and relajado (referring to a prisoner handed over to ordinary jurisdiction so that they are given the sentence of death by garrote or burning at the stake handed down by the very tribunals of the Holy Office).
Two institutions, the Statutes on Blood Purity and the Inquisition, were key to the creation of a society in which the actions and merits of the individual, in any area of life, were limited to, dependent on their lineage and the purity of their blood. Work and economic activity stained, they belonged to New Christians. Until the establishment of these two institutions, the stain of being Jewish (or Muslim) was washed away with the water of Baptism. Afterwards, it hardly mattered whether they were good or bad Christians; the marginalization of the converts and their descendants had nothing to do with their beliefs, but rather their lineage. Centuries before the pseudoscientific theories at the end of the 19th century regarding the inequality of races (later adopted by Nazism), Spanish society was stratified into two castes: the clean caste, for the Old Christians; and the stained caste, for the New Christians.
It is important to recall that the Inquisition only had jurisdiction over Christians, in other words, over those who had been baptized. Therefore, it could not process any Jews (or Muslims) that had not been baptized. It is often stated that the Inquisition persecuted Jews and Moors, which strictly speaking, is false since they remained outside of its jurisdiction. Although there were cases of processes against Jews and Moors, they were the exception.
Although the de jure Inquisition had clearly delimited competences, from its earliest days until its end, the inquisitorial tribunals in fact handled a countless number of cases belonging to the civil sphere, leading to constant clashes with the Monarchy and other entities over jurisdictional matters. This occurred more often when one of the parties in a civil or criminal case was a civil employee or familiar of the Inquisition. The Inquisition’s capacity to intimidate and terrorize not only affected those potentially charged with crimes of faith, but also anyone who had some type of dispute with the institution itself or with someone linked to it.
The Spanish Inquisition took place in all the regions of the Monarchy, from Mexico to Chile, and from the Philippines to Sicily. The Holy Office was formally abolished in 1834 under the regency of Maria Cristina, after having been abolished and restored several times from 1808 to 1823. The implementation of the Inquisition in Portugal, established in 1536, was an imposition by the Spanish Monarchy and, in terms of its operation, very similar to that of Spain and equally independent from that of Rome; it was active in Portugal and all of its overseas territories until its formal abolition in 1821.
The exhibition 100 Spanish leaflets on the Inquisition ... includes many loose pages, signs, forms, documents, pamphlets and other short leaflets printed in Spain prior to the formal abolition of the holy tribunal related to the Holy Office and which are in the Bibliotheca Sefarad; with the occasional exception, the publications selected have less than forty-eight pages.
Due to its fleeting nature, short print run, age and format, very few copies of most of the pieces displayed have been preserved. Other copies of many of them have not been found in public libraries and/or they are not in Palau1 or Vekene2.
As for the Spanish production of books related to the Inquisition before the 19th century, it is first important to note that there are very few titles about this subject precisely because of the secrecy with which its activities were carried out (especially the cases of faith) and the control that it had over all that was said and written and, even more so, over what was directly relevant to it. With the Inquisition, shhhh! This is true for studies as well as for literary works. Only a few topics related to inquisitorial procedures, such as that of the Holy Child of La Guardia, the sacrilege of Christ on the street Calle de las Infantas in Madrid, the nuns of the Convent of San Plácido in Madrid and some others, led to a certain proliferation of books and pamphlets. All others, almost all that is published, except for the reports of autos da fé, were manuals, instructions, autos, edits, indices of banned books and other documents of the Holy Office; decrees or other royal documents limiting their rights and putting an end to their interference in civil and criminal cases that did not correspond to it; in addition to a significant number of legal claims from one of the parties in litigation for cases of common law in the hands of the inquisitorial tribunals.
Many of these leaflets were produced in short print runs and intended for a relatively limited group of readers since its distribution was restricted to inquisitors and inquisitorial civil employees from a specific district or tribunal, members of one of the royal hearings, etc. Among the numerous inquisitorial edicts sent to be printed with the aim of placing them on walls and doors of churches and convents, which would possibly have runs of a certain importance given their intended use, copies of only some of these printed documents are preserved.
A considerable percentage of the papers and pamphlets related to the Inquisition and printed in Spain are claims, royal decrees and other texts and documents based on jurisdictional conflicts or abuses of the tribunals, inquisitors, commissioners, familiars, etc. of the Holy Office. In this exhibition, a good number of these can be seen.
Another fairly common type of inquisitorial booklet was the generically called Reports of autos da fé published by the institution itself or with its permission, although there were also some that were published without its authorization and, of course, were later banned. A total of over one hundred reports of autos da fé printed in Spain are known; each one informs of one or several autos da fé held in Spain, its possessions in the Americas or Portugal. Of course, not all autos da fé had a printed report. The oldest one that we are aware of is the one dedicated to the Logroño auto da fé of 1611 and the latest are from the second half of the 18th century; a very important percentage of the autos da fé were published in two well-defined periods: 1623-1683 and 1720-1761, with nearly all of them published in Madrid, Cuenca, Toledo, Córdoba, Valladolid, Granada, Seville, Murcia and Lima. More than forty different copies are displayed in this exhibition.
Most of these publications had between four and twenty-four pages, although there were also a few others that were much more extensive, such as the Relación histórica del auto general de fe, que se celebró en Madrid esto año de 1680 [Historical report of the general auto da fé, which was held in Madrid in this year 1680] by Joseph del Olmo (Madrid, 1680; reed. 1820 and following) La fee triunfante en quatro autos celebrados en Mallorca por el Santo Oficio de la Inquisición de Francisco Garau [Triumphant faith in four autos held in Majorca by the Holy Office of the Inquisition of Francisco Garau] (Palma de Majorca, 1691; reed. 1755 and following), or some published in Lima.
The publication of these reports was a response to the desire of the Holy Office to use the celebration of autos da fé and the successive campaigns of relentlessly persecuting Jewish converts as propaganda. The late crusade against Judaizers from 1720-1732, duly published, also served to demonstrate its strength and justify the Holy Office’s need to eradicate the remains Judaism in Spain.
Furthermore, there were several ways of narrating the auto da fé: a simple report with the names of the prisoners who were a part of the auto da fé, their place of origin, trade, etc., as well as their “crimes” and the sentence received; in others, the narration was presented as a poem and it was common to dedicate part of the content to praising the Inquisition and the authorities involved, describe the platform and the rest of the stage; there are auto da fés that are more or less descriptive, as well as others loaded with insults towards the condemned, and in particular the Judaizers.
Of course, nothing (or very little) was published against the holy court, its course of action, etc. There were, however, some works against the Statutes of Blood Purity, although they did not exclusively refer to the Inquisition. Things changed after the first attempts to suppress the Inquisition, in 1808 by Napoleon and in 1813 by the Cortes of Cádiz, which were temporary: it kept the debate open about the Inquisition and whether or not to abolish it, its actions, etc. During these first few decades, many books, brochures, pamphlets and articles were published in newsletters in favor of and against a tribunal that had been omnipresent for more than three centuries. Some of these pamphlets can be seen in this exhibition, most of them published after their abolition by the Cortes of Cádiz.
This exhibition does not include leaflets on the chuetas (converts from Majorca) and the Inquisition in Majorca, which will be the subject of an upcoming exhibition.
Bibliotheca Sefarad has a rich collection of documents, manuscripts, pamphlets and books, old and new, which are related to the Inquisition, mainly the Spanish Inquisition, and were displayed in the exhibition Of the history and modus operandi of the Spanish Inquisition in the 16th to 19th centuries (2014) and several were also included in Against Jews: Anti-Jewish books in a Spain without Jews (2015) and in Six centuries of Judaism: A tour of the Bibliotheca Sefarad (2012).
For the exhibition and cataloguing of the works, they have been classified as follows:
- A. Instructions, edicts and other inquisitorial documents.
- B. Decrees, orders and other royal, civil and ecclesiastical provisions.
- C. Reports, poems and sermons of autos da fé.
- D. Claims of law and other papers of individuals.
- E. Debate regarding abolition.
- F. Various.
They have been ordered chronologically in each group.
All of the works displayed are digitalized and can be viewed at www.bibliothecasefarad.com.
Uriel Macías
Exhibition Coordinator
1 Antonio PALAU y DULCET: Manual del librero hispanoamericano: Bibliografía general española e hispano-americana desde la invención de la imprenta hasta nuestros tiempos, con el valor comercial de los impresos descritos (Barcelona: 1948-1977; 28 vols.).
2 Emil van der VEKENE: Bibliotheca bibliographica historiae sanctae inquisitionis: Bibliographisches Verzeichnis des gedruckten Schrifttums zur Geschichte und Literatur der Inquisition (Vaduz: 1982-1992; 3 vols.).
Presentation
The Inquisition undoubtedly shaped the long period of Spanish History Spain from 1478 to 1834. Its mark still remains evident today in the frequent use of words such as “inquisitive” and “inquisitorial” which are usually spoken in reference to intolerance towards the ideas, beliefs or practices of others.
The word “inquisition”, however, originally had much more to do with specific characteristics of the specific penal process carried out during the Late Middle Ages. These characteristics were the investigative, careful and methodical actions carried out by the judge in order to discover the truth. In this way, years later, Sebastián de Covarrubias stated in his work Tesoro de la lengua castellana (Treasury of Castilian Language) (1611) that the word “inquirir” [inquire] meant “buscar, pesquisar, preguntar, hacer diligencia para saber la verdad de algún hecho” [to search, investigate, show diligence to know the truth about some fact], where “la pesquisa por excelencia” [the search for excellence] conducted by the “Santo Tribunal de la Fe” [Holy Tribunal of Faith], for which the inquisitors were its “integérrimos jueces” [most honorable judges]. The author of this first monolingual dictionary of the Spanish language must have known something about this since he was, in fact, consultor of the Holy Office.
Indeed, in light of the previous criminal process, based on the accusation, defense and proof of the facts provided to the judge by the parties and in which the accuser also ran the risk of being condemned if the guilt of the accused was not successfully demonstrated, the final centuries of the Middle Ages involved the development of the inquisitive judicial process where the judge not only made his ruling, but had also previously investigated the crimes, captured the guilty and tried the cases. This model of criminal prosecution, the basic principles of which spread throughout Europe not only in ecclesiastical jurisdiction, but also in secular jurisdiction, thanks to the publication of the “Derecho común” [Common law], the legal culture that was taught in universities and had a dual purpose, since it linked the legal system of the monarchies to that of the Church, which was called utrumque ius.
The publication of this judicial procedure saw significant development as of the end of the 12th century, following the Pope’s appointment of some inquisitor judges, with the purpose of suppressing the practice of certain heresies, which had exceeded the limited territorial jurisdiction of the bishops. Heretic practices, especially those of the Cathars and Albigensians, seriously affected the great religious and political value of Europe’s Catholic unit.
In Spain, this type of inquisition was only present in the Kingdom of Aragon, and it was unknown in Castile. However, on November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus IV granted a bull to the Catholic Monarchs, authorizing them to appoint inquisitors who would persecute the false converts coming from Judaism. This text can be considered the origin of the Spanish Inquisition, since it led to the creation of the Supreme Council and General Inquisition a few years later.
This Council, as higher tribunal of the Hispanic Holy Office, was presided by the Grand Inquisitor, a person appointed by the Pope upon request of the king, who was given extraordinary jurisdiction and often played an important political role in the Monarchy administration. A large network of district tribunals, usually led by two inquisitors, who were initially intended to be a jurist and a theologian, depended on this Council.
The geographical jurisdiction of this Inquisition extended from Castile to most lands of the Spanish Monarchy, meaning that the crimes falling under its competence ceased to be those exclusively related to the false conversion of Jews and Muslims as well as Lutheranism, and gradually included other types of crimes, such as bigamy, sexual offenses, superstitions and blasphemies, since it was understood that such behaviors could entail a distorted, and possibly heretical, interpretation of the Church’s dogma and doctrine.
In this sense, any dissenting opinions could be considered a crime of heresy, something exceptionally serious, since this crime has the nature of a “crimen de lesa majestad divina y humana” [crime of divine and human lèse-majesté], in other words: against the law of God and the law of man. This was especially relevant if similar beliefs were shared among groups, “sectas” [sects] or “conventículos” [conventicles].
The Spanish Inquisition was also responsible for literary censorship and the control of printed books abroad, however, this censorship should not be confused with the censorship practiced by the temporal authorities prior to the publication of the books. For this reason, it is even more interesting to see how the universal Hispanic hegemony occurred at the height of the inquisitorial power and despite the apparent contradiction with the oppressive nature of its activity, one of the most notable phenomena of the universal culture arose, which was the “Golden Age” of Spanish arts and thought.
Such contradiction between efficient inquisitorial censorship and the essential exercise of freedom required by all intellectual and artistic creations is, without a doubt, a phenomenon worth of study and reflection.
With this approach, the Inquisition, as a mixed ecclesiastical and political judicial institution, sought to control not only the written and verbal acts and manifestations that could be considered crimes of heresy, but also the conscience of individuals themselves. This was carried out in the interest of saving the soul of the potential heretic, or simple heterodox, as well as benefiting the moral and political well-being of society.
This is clearly an unexplainable phenomenon from our current Western mindset, but it is true that it was accepted by nearly all of Europe’s political societies of the Old Regime. Therefore, without having the slightest interest in starting black legends or pink legends about said type of intolerance, I believe that the Spanish Inquisition was no more cruel or bloody than the Inquisition of other Catholic or Protestant countries.
Furthermore, it is demonstrated that its procedures, as compared to other jurisdictions, usually provided guarantees such that the types of torture practiced, such as the “potro” [the rack], were more psychological than gory. Even the number of death sentences was relatively low, especially if we compare this number to the thousands of women who were burned at the stake throughout Europe during the same years. What is true is that the Spanish Inquisition worked better and more efficiently than the other European inquisitions.
Another notable aspect of the inquisitorial action was the secrecy that enshrouded all matters related to the actions of the Holy Office. The Inquisition itself affirmed, as recounted by Eduardo Galván, that in secrecy there was todo su poder y autoridad..., pues cuanto más secretas son las materias que en él se tratan, son tenidas por sagradas y estimadas de las personas que de ellas no tienen noticia [all its power and authority..., since the greater the secrecy of the matters addressed therein, the more holy and esteemed they are by those who know nothing about them].
Thus, one circular approved by the Supreme Council, of 1607, imposed secrecy with the following terms: […] que la observancia del dicho secreto, demás de las cosas de la fe o en qualquiera manera dependientes de ella sea y se entienda a sí mismo de los votos, órdenes, determinaciones, cartas del Consejo en todas partes y materias sin dar noticia de ellas a las partes ni a personas fuera del secreto [the observance of said secrecy, in addition to the matters of faith or in any way dependent thereon, shall be and is understood from the votes, orders, resolutions and circulars of the Council for all parties and matters without providing information about them to parties or people excluded from secrecy]. Another circular from the same Supreme Council, of 1647, established that the printers must not print any document en hechos, o en derechos, sobre causas o negocios de fe o dependientes, a favor o en contra del reo, ni sobre otro negocio que toque al Santo Oficio [about the facts or rights of the cases or matters of faith or dependent thereon, in favor or against the prisoner, nor about other matters involving the Holy Office] without express permission from the Grand Inquisitor or the Council, under the penalty of excommunication and the considerable fine of one hundred ducats.
Even the so-called Instrucciones [Instructions], which were the regulatory fundamental norms of the actions of the Inquisition, were included in this policy of “secrecy”, which made it so that they failed to have one of the essential aspects of any legal norm: publicity.
It is true that it was considered appropriate to print them for better distribution and for internal use, as evidenced by several documents provided in this exhibition, but, as mentioned, the knowledge and use of these documents were strictly limited to tribunals of the Holy Office.
Experienced inquisitors wrote detailed manuals of the procedural practice, which were the subject of previous exhibitions organized by Bibliotheca Sefarad, but this type of knowledge of the “style” or methods of the inquisitorial procedure was also strictly limited to judges and other officials who were sworn to secrecy.
Henry C. Lea narrates an anecdote which demonstrates the extent to which this inquisitorial secrecy was defended. As it seems, shortly after the approval of the Instrucciones of 1561, a well-known jurist of the time had the audacity to ask for a copy of them. Then the prosecutor, to whom the request of this counsel was given, declare that granting said request was unprecedented. He also stated that the parties could not make inquiries about the methods of the tribunal since the Instrucciones had been exclusively approved to guide them, whereas others could only get to know them through their procedural application. This strict prosecutor made his decision taking into consideration that if the inquisitorial Instrucciones became part of public knowledge, ill-intentioned people could argue about whether the “style” of the Inquisition was good or bad.
These considerations not only highlight the interest in, but also the usefulness of the documents that comprise this exhibition. It is true that inquisitorial regulations and documentation lost its secretive nature two centuries ago; however, its application and development by the Supreme Council, through the many, well-selected documents displayed, offers a novel and original perspective. This is especially relevant to the numerous accounts about the autos da fé that are shown, which are quite representative of the inquisitorial activity, specifically during the 18th century. A century that is certainly closer to present day, but perhaps less known or at least less studied by the scholars of this institution.
There is just one last comment that I would like to make. Knowledge of History has a very important social purpose since it helps us see the amount of progress we have made towards recognizing human dignity, as well as making us aware of the risk of letting history repeat itself. Furthermore, it shows us the long path to perfection that still lies ahead. Nevertheless, one person, who was probably completely sane and whose intelligence was under inquisitorial watch, left us with the saying that history is: émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo por venir [emulator of time, deposit of actions, witness of the past, example and notice for the future, warning for what is to come] (Part one, chapter IX).
For this reason, dear exhibition visitor and possible reader of these lines, I ask you to also reflect on a short passage from the famous article El Día de Difuntos de 1836 [The Day of the Dead 1836] by Mariano José de Larra, contemporary author of the final moments of the Spanish Inquisition. In said article, our Figaro uses metaphorical language to describe how he contemplated different tombs in the cemetery, and upon discovering the epitaph of one of them, he claims: Más allá: ¡Santo Dios! «Aquí yace la Inquisición, hija de la fe y del fanatismo: murió de vejez». Con todo, anduve buscando alguna nota de resurrección: o todavía no la habían puesto, o no se debía de poner nunca [Behold: Holy God! “Here lies the Inquisition, daughter of faith and fanaticism: died of old age”. Nonetheless, I was searching for a note of resurrection: either it has not yet been placed or it should never be placed].
Amen.
Juan Carlos Domínguez Nafría, Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation