PERSECUTION OF JEWS AND MOORS

The fires of the modern Inquisition, it was said, had been lighted exclusively for the Jews. The fiery zeal of Torquemada and his coadjutors was first directed against the Spanish children of Israel. The Jews constantly offered themselves to be harassed and despoiled. They were always fair game for avaricious greed. The inquisitors availed themselves of both lines of attack. Jewish wealth steadily increased as their financial operations and their industrial activities extended and flourished. When the Catholic Kings embarked upon the conquest of Granada, the Jews found the sinews of war; Jewish victuallers purveyed rations to the armies in the field; Jewish brokers advanced the cash needed for the payments of troops; Jewish armourers repaired the weapons used and furnished new tools and warlike implements.

At the same time the passions of the populace were more and more inflamed against the Jews by the dissemination of scandalous stories of their blasphemous proceedings. It was seriously asserted by certain monks that some Jews had stolen a consecrated wafer with the intention of working it into a paste with the warm blood of a newly killed Christian child and so produce a deadly poison to be administered to the hated chief inquisitor. Another report was to the effect that crumbs from the holy wafer had been detected between the leaves of a Hebrew prayer book in a synagogue. One witness declared that this substance emitted a bright effulgence which gave clear proof of its sanctity and betrayed the act of sacrilege committed. Other tales were circulated of the diabolical practices of these wicked Jewish heretics.

Ferdinand in 1484 proceeded to give the modern Inquisition to the Kingdom of Aragon, where the "ancient" had once existed but had lost much of its rigour. It was a comparatively free country and the Holy Office had become little more than an ordinary ecclesiastical court. But King Ferdinand was resolved to reËstablish it on the wider basis it had assumed in Castile and imposed it upon his people by a royal order which directed all constituted authorities to support it in carrying out its new extended functions. A Dominican monk, Fray Gaspar Juglar, and a canon of the church, Pedro ArbuÉs, were appointed by Torquemada to be inquisitors for the diocese of Saragossa. The new institution was most distasteful to the Aragonese, a hardy and independent people. Among the higher orders were numbers of Jewish descent, filling important offices and likely to come under the ban of the Inquisition. The result was a deputation to the pope and another to the king representing the general repugnance of the Aragonese to the institution and praying that its action might be suspended. Neither pope nor king would listen to the appeal and the Holy Office began its work. Two autos da fÉ were celebrated in Saragossa, the capital, in 1484, when two men were executed.

Horror and consternation seized the Conversos and a fierce desire for reprisals developed. They were resolved to intimidate their oppressors by some appalling act of retaliation and a plot was hatched to make away with one of the inquisitors. The conspirators included many of the principal "New Christians," some of whom were persons of note in the district. A considerable sum was subscribed to meet expenses and pay the assassins. Pedro ArbuÉs was marked down for destruction but, conscious of his danger, continually managed to evade his enemies. He wore always a coat of mail beneath his robes when he attended mass in the Cathedral, and every avenue by which he could be approached in his house was also carefully guarded.

At length he was taken by surprise when at his devotions. He was on his knees before the high altar saying his prayers at midnight, when two men crept up behind him unobserved and attacked him. One struck him with a dagger in the left arm, the other felled him with a violent blow on the back of the neck by which he was laid prostrate and carried off dying. With his last breath he thanked God for being selected to seal so good a cause with his blood. His death was deemed a martyrdom and caused a reaction in favour of the Inquisition as a general rising of the New Christians was feared. The storm was appeased by the archbishop of Saragossa who gave out publicly that the murderers should be rigorously pursued and should suffer condign punishment. The promise was abundantly fulfilled. A stern recompense was exacted from all who were identified with the conspiracy. The scent was followed up with unrelenting pertinacity, several persons were taken and put to death, and a larger number perished in the dungeons of the Inquisition. All the perpetrators of the murder were hanged after their right hands had been amputated. The sentence of one who had given evidence against the rest was commuted in that his hand was not cut off till after his death.

A native of Saragossa had taken refuge in Tudela where he found shelter and concealment in the house of the Infante, Don Jaime, the illegitimate son of the Queen of Navarre, and nephew of King Ferdinand himself. The generous young prince could not reject the claims of hospitality and helped the fugitive to escape into France. But the Infante was himself arrested by the inquisitors and imprisoned as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. His trial took place in Saragossa, although Navarre was outside its jurisdiction, and he was sentenced to do open penance in the cathedral in the presence of a great congregation at High Mass. The ceremony was carried out before the Archbishop of Saragossa, a boy of seventeen, the illegitimate son of King Ferdinand, and this callow stripling in his primate's robes ordered his father's nephew to be flogged round the church with rods.

The second story is much more horrible. One Gaspar de Santa Cruz of Saragossa had been concerned in the rebellion, but escaped to Toulouse where he died. He had been aided in his flight by a son who remained in Saragossa, and who was arrested as an "impeder" of the Holy Office. He was tried and condemned to appear at an auto da fÉ, where he was made to read an act which held up his father to public ignominy. Then the son was transferred to the custody of the inquisitor of Toulouse who took him to his father's grave, forced him to exhume the corpse and burn it with his own hands.

The bitter hatred of the Jews culminated in the determination of the king and queen, urged on by Torquemada, to expel them entirely from Spain. The germ of this idea may be found in the capitulation of Granada by the Moors, when it was agreed that every Jew found in the city was to be shipped off forthwith to Barbary. It was now argued that since all attempts to convert them had failed, Spain should be altogether rid of them. The Catholic King and Queen were induced to sign an edict dated March 30th, 1492, by which it was decreed that every Jew should be banished from Spain within three months, save and except those who chose to apostasise and who, on surrendering the faith of their fathers, might be suffered to remain in the land of their adoption, with leave to enjoy the goods they had inherited or earned. No doubt this edict originated with Torquemada.

Dismay and deep sorrow fell upon the Spanish Jews. The whole country was filled with tribulation. All alike cried for mercy and offered to submit to any laws and ordinances however oppressive, to accept any terms, to pay any penalties if only they might escape this cruel exile. Leading Jews appeared before King Ferdinand and pleaded abjectly for mercy for their co-religionists, offering an immediate ransom of six hundred thousand crowns in gold. The king was inclined to clemency, but the queen was firm. He saw the present advantage, the ready money, and doubted whether he would get as much from the fines and confiscations promised by the inquisitors. But at that moment, so the story goes, Torquemada rushed into the presence bearing a crucifix on high and cried in stentorian tones that the sovereigns were about to act the part of Judas Iscariot. "Here he is! Sell Him again, not for thirty pieces of silver, but for thirty thousand!" and flinging the crucifix on to the table, he ran out in a frenzy. This turned the tables, and the decree for expulsion was confirmed.

The terms of the edict were extremely harsh and peremptory. As a preamble the crimes of the Jews were recited and the small effect produced hitherto by the most severe penalties. It was asserted that they still conspired to overturn Christianity in Spain and recourse to the last remedy, the decree of expulsion, under which all Jews and Jewesses were commanded to leave Spain and never return, even for a passing visit, on pain of death, was therefore necessary. The last day of July, 1492, or four months later, was fixed for the last day of their sojourn in Spain. After that date they would remain at the peril of their lives, while any person of whatever rank or quality who should presume to receive, shelter, protect or defend a Jew or Jewess should forfeit all his property and be discharged from his office, dignity or calling. During the four months, the law allowed the Jews to sell their estates, or barter them for heavy goods, but they were forbidden to remove gold or silver or take out of the kingdom other portable property which was already prohibited by law from exportation.

During the preparation for, and execution of this modern exodus, the condition of the wretched Israelites was heart-rending. Torquemada had tried hard to proselytise, had sent out preachers offering baptism and reconciliation, but at first few listened to the terms proposed. All owners of property and valuables suffered the heaviest losses. Enforced sales were so numerous that purchasers were not to be easily found. Fine estates were sold for a song. A house was exchanged for an ass or beast of burden; a vineyard for a scrap of cloth or linen. Despite the prohibition much gold and silver were carried away concealed in the stuffing of saddles and among horse furniture. Some exiles at the moment of departure swallowed gold pieces, as many as twenty and thirty, and thus evaded to some extent the strict search instituted at the sea ports and frontier towns.

At last in the first week of July, all took to the roads travelling to the coast on foot, on horse or ass-back or were conveyed in country carts. According to an eye-witness, "they suffered incredible misfortunes by the way, some walking feebly, some struggling manfully, some fainting, many attacked with illness, some dying, others coming into the world, so that there was not a Christian who did not feel for them and entreat them to be baptised." Here and there under the pressure of accumulated miseries a few professed to be converted, but such cases were very rare. The rabbis encouraged the people as they went and exhorted the young ones to raise their voices and the women to sing and play on pipes and timbrels to enliven them and keep up their spirits.

Ships were provided by the Spanish authorities at Cadiz, Gibraltar, Carthagena, Valencia and Barcelona on which fifteen hundred of the wealthy families embarked and started for Africa, Italy and the Levant, taking with them their dialect of the Spanish language, such as is still talked at the places where they landed. Of those who joined in the general exodus some perished at sea, by wreck, disease, violence or fire, and some by famine, exhaustion or murder on inhospitable shores. Many were sold for slaves, many thrown overboard by savage ship captains, while parents parted with their children for money to buy food. On board one crowded ship a pestilence broke out, and the whole company was landed and marooned on a desert island. Other infected ships carried disease into the port of Naples, where it grew into a terrible epidemic, by which twenty thousand native Neapolitans perished. Those who reached the city found it in the throes of famine, but were met in landing by a procession of priests, led by one who carried a crucifix and a loaf of bread, and who intimated that only those who would adore the first would receive the other. In papal dominions alone was a hospitable reception accorded. The pope of the time, Alexander VI, was more tolerant than other rulers.

The total loss of population is now difficult to ascertain, but undoubtedly it has been greatly exaggerated. The most trustworthy estimate fixes the number of emigrants at one hundred and sixty-five thousand, and the number dying of hardships and grief before leaving at about twenty thousand. Probably fifty thousand more accepted baptism as a consequence of the edict. The loss entailed in actual value was incalculable and a vast amount of potential earnings was sacrificed by the disappearance of so large a part of the most industrious members of the population. The king and queen greatly impoverished Spain in purging it of Hebrew heresy. Their action however was greeted with applause by other rulers who did not go to the same lengths on account of economic considerations. They were praised because they were willing to sacrifice revenue for the sake of the faith.

Open Judaism no longer existed in Spain. There were left only the apostates, or New Christians. That many of these were Christians in name and kept the Mosaic law in every detail is undoubted. As Jews they were not subject to the Inquisition. As professing Christians, any departure from the established faith subjected them to the penalties imposed upon heretics. In spite of the high positions which many achieved, they were objects of suspicion, and with the increasing authority of the Inquisition their lot grew harder.

Torquemada had been active not only against the Jews, but against all suspected of any heresy, no matter how influential. The odium he incurred raised up constant accusations against him, and he was obliged on three occasions to send an agent to Rome to defend his character. Later his arbitrary power was curtailed by the appointment of four coadjutors, nominally, to share the burthens of office, but really to check his action. On the whole he may be said to take rank among those who have been the authors of evil to their species. "His zeal was of such an extravagant character that it may almost shelter itself under the name of insanity." His later days were filled with constant dread of assassination, and when he moved to and fro his person was protected by a formidable escort, a bodyguard of fifty familiars of the Holy Office mounted as dragoons and a body of two hundred infantry soldiers. Yet he reached a very old age and died quietly in his bed.

Estimates of the numbers convicted and punished during his administration differ widely. Llorente, who is, however, much given to exaggeration, states that eight thousand eight hundred were burned alive, and that the total number condemned was more than one hundred and five thousand. On the other hand Langlois,[4] whose estimate is accepted by Vancandard, and other Catholic writers, thinks that the number put to death was about two thousand.

Death overtook him when a fresh campaign against heresy was imminent. The conquest of the Kingdom of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella opened up a new field for the proselytising fervour of the Inquisition, which was now resolved to convert all Mahometan subjects to the Christian faith. A friar of the order of St. Jerome, Hernando de Talavera, a man of blameless life, a ripe scholar, a persuasive preacher, deeply read in sacred literature and moral philosophy, had been one of the confessors to Royalty, and had been raised to the bishopric of Avila. But he had begged to be allowed to resign it and devote himself entirely to the conversion of the Moors. The pope granted his request and appointed him archbishop of Granada with a smaller revenue than that of the diocese he left, but he was humble minded, had no craving to exhibit the pomp and display of a great prelate and devoted himself with all diligence to the duties of his new charge.

He soon won the hearts of the Moors who loved and venerated him. He proceeded with great caution, made no open show of his desire to convert them, and strictly refrained from any coercive measures, trusting rather to reason them out of their heterodox belief. He caused a translation to be made of the Bible into Arabic, distributed it, encouraged the Moors to attend conferences, and come to him in private to listen to his arguments. Being thus busily engaged, he withdrew to a great extent from the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, who came more and more under the influence of fiery bigots, to whom the mild measures of the archbishop became profoundly displeasing. The inquisitors, with Don Diego Deza who had succeeded Torquemada, at their head, incessantly entreated the sovereigns to proceed with more severity, and went the length of advising the immediate expulsion of all Moors who hesitated to accept conversion and baptism forthwith. They urged that it was for the good of their souls to draw them into the fold and insisted that it would be utterly impossible for Christian and Moslem to live peacefully and happily side by side. The king and queen demurred, temporising as they had done with the revival of the Inquisition. It might be dangerous, they argued, to enforce penalties that were too harsh. Their supremacy was hardly as yet consolidated in Granada; the Moors had not yet entirely laid aside their arms and unwise oppression might bring about a resumption of hostilities. They hoped that the Moors, like other conquered peoples, would in due course freely adopt the religion of their new masters. Loving kindliness and gentle persuasion would more surely gain ground than fierce threats and arbitrary decrees.

So for seven or more years the conciliatory methods of Archbishop Talavera prevailed and met with the approval of Ferdinand and Isabella. But now a remarkable man of very different character appeared upon the scene and began to advocate sterner measures. This was a Franciscan monk, Ximenes de Cisneros, one of the most notable figures in Spanish history, who became in due course inquisitor-general and regent of Spain. A sketch of his life may well be given to enable us better to understand the times.

Ximenes de Cisneros better known, perhaps, under his first name alone, was the scion of an ancient but decayed family and destined from his youth for the Church. He studied at the University of Salamanca and evinced marked ability. After a stay in Rome, the best field for preferment, he returned to Spain with the papal promise of the first vacant benefice in the See of Toledo. The archbishop had other views, however, and when Ximenes claimed the cure of Uceda, he was sent to prison in its fortress and not to the presbytery. For six years Ximenes asserted his pretensions unflinchingly and was at last nominated, when he exchanged to a chaplaincy in another diocese, that of Siguenza, where he continued his theological studies and acquired Hebrew and Chaldee. Here he came under the observation of the Bishop Mendoza, who afterwards became Cardinal Primate of Spain, and who enjoyed the unbounded confidence of Queen Isabella. Mendoza when invited to recommend to her a new confessor, in succession to Talavera on his translation to the See of Granada, fixed upon Ximenes of whom he had never lost sight since their first acquaintance at Siguenza.

Ximenes, meanwhile, had become more and more devoted to his sacred calling. His marked business aptitudes had gained for him the post of steward to a great nobleman, the Conde de Cifuentes, who had been taken prisoner by the Moors. But secular concerns were distasteful to him and Ximenes resigned his charge. His naturally austere and contemplative disposition had deepened into stern fanatical enthusiasm and he resolved to devote himself more absolutely to the service of the Church. He entered the Franciscan order, threw up all his benefices and employments, and became a simple novice in the monastery of San Juan de los Reyes in Toledo, where his cloister life was signalised by extreme severity and self-mortification. He wore haircloth next his skin, slept on the stone floor with a wooden pillow under his head, tortured himself with continual fasts and vigils, and flogged himself perpetually. At last he became a professed monk, and because of the fame of his exemplary piety, great crowds were attracted to his confessional. He shrank now from the popular favour and retired to a lonely convent in a far off forest, where he built himself a small hermitage with his own hands and where he passed days and nights in solemn abstraction and unceasing prayer, living like the ancient anchorites on the green herbs he gathered and drinking water from the running streams. Self centred and pondering deeply on spiritual concerns, constantly in a state of mental exaltation and ecstasy, he saw visions and dreamed dreams, believing himself to be in close communication with celestial agencies and was no doubt on the eve of going mad, when his superiors ordered him to reside in the convent of Salceda, where he became charged with its administration and management, and was forced to exercise his powerful mind for the benefit of others.

It was here that the call to court found him and he was summoned to Valladolid and unexpectedly brought into the presence of the queen. Isabella was greatly prepossessed in his favour by his simple dignity of manner, his discretion, his unembarrassed self-possession and above all his fervent piety in discussing religious questions. Yet he hesitated to accept the office of her confessor, and only did so on the condition that he should be allowed to conform to the rules of his order and remain at his monastery except when officially on duty at the court.

Soon afterwards, he was appointed Provincial of the Franciscans in Castile and set himself to reform their religious houses, the discipline of which was greatly relaxed. Sloth, luxury and licentiousness prevailed and especially in his own order, which was wealthy and richly endowed with estates in the country, and stately dwellings in the towns. These monks, styled "conventuals," wasted large sums in prodigal expenditure, and were often guilty of scandalous misconduct which Ximenes, as an Observantine, one of a small section pledged to rigid observance of monastic rules, strongly condemned. He was encouraged and supported in the work of reform by Isabella and a special bull from Rome armed him with full authority. His rigorous and unsparing action met with fierce opposition, but he triumphed in the end and won a notable reward. When the archbishop of Toledo died, in 1495, Ximenes, unknown to himself, was selected for the great post of primate of all Spain and Lord High Chancellor of Castile.

The right to nominate was vested in the Queen, and Ferdinand in this instance begged her to appoint his natural son, Alfonso, already archbishop of Saragossa, but a child almost in years. She firmly and unhesitatingly refused and recommended her confessor to the pope as the most worthy recipient of the honour. When the bull making the appointment arrived from Rome, the queen summoned Ximenes to her presence handed him the letter and desired him to open it before her. On reading the address, "To our venerable brother, Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo," he changed colour, dropped the letter, and crying, "There must be some mistake," ran out of the room. The queen, in surprise, waited, but he did not return and it was found that he had taken horse and fled to his monastery. Two grandees were despatched in hot haste to ride after him, overtake him and bring him back to Madrid. He returned but still resisted all the entreaties of his friends and the clearly expressed wishes of his sovereign. Finally his persistent refusal was overborne, but only by the direct command of the pope, who ordered him to accept the post for which his sovereigns had chosen him. He has been sharply criticised for his apparent humility, but it is generally admitted that he was sincere in his refusal. He was already advanced in years, ambition was dying in him, he had become habituated to monastic seclusion and his thoughts were already turned from the busy turmoil of this world to the life beyond the grave.

However reluctant to accept high office, Ximenes was by no means slow to exercise the power it gave him. He ruled the Spanish Church with a rod of iron, bending all his energies to the work of reforming the practices of the clergy, enforcing discipline and insisting upon the maintenance of the strictest morality. He trod heavily, made many enemies, and stirred so much ill feeling that the malcontents combined to despatch a messenger to lay their grievances before the pope. The officious advocate, however, got no audience but went home to Spain, where twenty months' imprisonment taught him not to offend again the masterful archbishop of Toledo.

Ximenes in insisting upon a strict observance of propriety and the adoption of an exemplary life, was in himself a model to the priesthood. He never relaxed the personal mortifications which had been his rule when a simple monk. He kept no state and made no show, regulating his domestic expenditure with the strictest and most parsimonious economy, until reminded by the Holy See that the dignity of his great office demanded more magnificence. Still, when he increased his display and the general style of living in household, equipages and the number of his retainers, he continued to be as harsh as ever to himself.

In spite of all opposition and discontent he pursued his course with inflexible purpose. His spirit was unyielding, and his energetic proceedings were unremittingly directed to the amelioration and improvement in the morals of the clergy with marked success. And now he set himself with the same uncompromising zeal to extirpate heresy. Having begged Archbishop Talavera to allow him to join in the good work at Granada, he took immediate advantage of the consent given and began to attack the Moorish unbelievers in his own vigorous fashion. His first step was to call together a great conference of learned Mussulman doctors, to whom he expounded with all the eloquence he had at his command, the true doctrines of the Catholic faith and their superiority to the law of Mahomet. He accompanied his teaching with liberal gifts, chiefly of costly articles of apparel, a specious though irresistible bribery, which had the desired effect. Great numbers of the Moorish doctors came over at once and their example was speedily followed by many of their illiterate disciples. So great was the number of converts that no less than three thousand presented themselves for baptism in one day, and as the rite could not be administered individually, they were christened wholesale by sprinkling them from a mop or hyssop which had been dipped in holy water, and from which the drops fell upon the proselytes as it was twirled over the heads of the multitude. These early successes stimulated the primate's zeal and he next adopted more violent measures by proceeding to imprison and impose penalties upon all Moors who still stood out against conversion. He was resolved not merely to exterminate heresy, but to destroy the basis of belief contained in the most famous Arabic manuscripts, large quantities of which were collected into great piles and burned publicly in the great squares of the city. Many of these were beautifully executed copies of the Koran; others, treasured theological and scientific works, and their indiscriminate destruction is a blot upon the reputation of the cultivated prelate who had created the most learned university in Spain.

More temperate and cautious people besought Ximenes to hold his hand. But he proceeded pertinaciously, declaring that a tamer policy might serve in temporal matters, but not where the interests of the soul were at stake. If the unbeliever could not be drawn he must be driven into the way of salvation, and he continued with unflinching resolution to arrest all recusants, and throw them into the prisons which were filled to overflowing. Discontent grew rapidly and soon broke into open violence. When an alguazil in Granada was leading a woman away as a prisoner, the people rose and released her from custody. The insurrection became general in the city and assumed a threatening aspect. Granada was full of warlike Moors and a mob besieged Ximenes in his house until he was rescued by the garrison of the Alhambra.

The king and queen were much annoyed with Ximenes and condemned his zealous precipitancy, but he was clever enough to vindicate his action and bring the sovereigns to believe that it was imperative that the rebellious Moors must be sharply repressed. Now a long conflict began. Forcible conversion became the order of the day; baptism continued to be performed in the gross upon thousands, the alternative being exile, and numbers were actually deported to Barbary in the royal ships. A fierce civil conflict broke out in the Alpujarras beyond Granada, which required a royal army to quell. The object sought was the welfare of the state by producing uniformity of faith.

Ximenes found a strenuous supporter in Diego Deza, the inquisitor-general, who was eager to emulate the strictness of his predecessor, Torquemada. Deza was a Dominican who had been at one time professor of theology and confessor to the queen. He was by nature and predilection exactly fitted for his new office upon which he entered with extensive powers. A bull from Pope Alexander VI dated 1499 invested him with the title of "Conservator of the Faith" in Spain.

Deza gave a new constitution to the Holy Office and prescribed that there should be a general "Inquest" in places not yet visited, and that edicts should be republished requiring all persons to lay information against suspected heretics. He stirred up the zeal of all subordinate inquisitors and was well served by them, especially by one, Lucero, commonly called el Tenebroso, "the gloomy," whose savage and ruthless proceedings terrorised Cordova where he presided. He made a general attack upon the most respectable inhabitants and arrested great numbers, many of whom were condemned and executed. Informers crowded Lucero's ante-chamber bringing monstrous tales of heretical conspiracies to reËstablish Judaism and subvert the Church. His familiars dragged the accused from their beds to answer to these charges and the prisons overflowed. Cordova was up in arms and many would have offered armed resistance to the Inquisition, but the more circumspect people, the Bishop and Chapter, some of the nobility and the municipal council appealed to Deza praying him to remove Lucero. The inquisitor-general however turned furiously upon the complainants and caused them to be arrested as abettors of heresy. Philip I, acting for his wife Juana, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, was inclined to listen to the complainants, and suspended both Deza and Lucero from their functions. But his sudden death stayed the relief he had promised, and the tormenting officials returned to renew their oppression.

The Cordovese would not tamely submit and appealed to force. A strong body of men under the Marques de Priego attacked the "Holy House," broke open the prison and liberated many of those detained, shutting up the officers of the Inquisition in their place. Lucero took to flight upon a swift mule and escaped. Though for a time Deza continued to keep his influence, he was shortly forced to resign and Cordova became tranquil. Deza's persecution had spared no one. In the eight years during which he held office, one account, probably greatly exaggerated, says that 2,592 persons were burned alive, some nine hundred were burned in effigy, and thirty-five thousand were punished by penance, fines and confiscations.

The fall of Deza and the hostile attitude of the people warned the authorities that the affairs of the Inquisition must be managed more adroitly. New inquisitors must be appointed and choice fell upon Ximenes de Cisneros, who had already played a foremost part in proselytising, but who now was willing to adopt more moderate measures. The Pope in giving his approval sent him a cardinal's hat as a recompense for past services, and as an encouragement to act wisely in the future. He had a difficult task. Disaffection, strongly pronounced, prevailed through the kingdom and the Inquisition was everywhere cordially detested. Ximenes strove to appease the bitter feeling by instituting a searching inquiry into the conduct of his immediate predecessor, Deza, and promising to hear all complaints and redress all grievances. He created a "Catholic Congregation" as a special court to investigate the actions of Lucero in the proceedings growing out of the charges against Archbishop Talavera and his family. This court in due course pronounced a verdict of acquittal and rehabilitation of the Talaveras. Ruined houses were rebuilt, the memory of the dead restored to honour and fame, and this act of grace was published at Valladolid with great solemnity in the presence of the kings, bishops and grandees.

Nevertheless Ximenes had no desire to remodel the Holy Office or limit its operations to any considerable extent. On the contrary, he bent all his efforts to develop its influence and make it an engine of government, utilising it as a political as well as a religious agency. It was as rigorous as ever but he set his face like a flint against dishonesty. He systematised the division of the realm into inquisitorial provinces, each under its own inquisitor with headquarters in the principal cities, such as Seville, Toledo, Valladolid, Murcia, and in Sardinia and Sicily beyond the seas. His personal ascendancy became extraordinary. He enjoyed the unbounded confidence and favour of the sovereign. He had been created Cardinal of Spain, a title rarely conferred. As archbishop of Toledo, he was the supreme head of the Spanish clergy, and as inquisitor-general, he was the terror of every priest and every layman within his jurisdiction. He had, in fact, reached the highest ecclesiastical rank, short of the papacy and as he rose higher and higher he wielded powers little short of an independent absolute monarch, and his zeal in the cause of his religion grew more and more fervent and far-reaching. No doubt in an earlier age he would have turned crusader, but now he sought to crush the fugitive Moors who had escaped into Northern Africa, whence they made constant descents upon the south of Spain, burning to avenge the wrongs of their co-religionists, and were a constant scourge and source of grievous trouble.

The evils centred in the province of Oran, a fortified stronghold—the most considerable of the Moslem possessions on the shores of the Mediterranean—whence issued a swarm of pirate cruisers, manned by the exiles driven out of Spain, who had sought and found a welcome refuge in Oran. Ximenes was resolved to seize and sweep out this hornets' nest and undertook its conquest on his own account. Much ridicule was levelled at this "monk about to fight the battles of Spain," but he went forth undeterred at the head of a powerful army, conveyed by a strong fleet from Cartagena, which he landed at the African port of Mazalquivir, and after some desperate fighting made himself master of Oran. After his successful African campaign he resumed his duties of chief inquisitor, and the Holy Office under his fierce and vigorous rule became more than ever oppressive. Ximenes pursued his unwavering course and encouraged his inquisitors in their unceasing activity. He desired to extend the power and influence of the Inquisition, and established it in the new countries recently added to the Spanish dominion. A branch was set up in the newly conquered province of Oran, and another farther afield in the recently discovered new world beyond the Atlantic. On the initiative of Ximenes Fray Juan Quevedo, Bishop of Cuba, was appointed chief inquisitor in the kingdom of Terrafirma, as the territories of the new world were styled.

The energetic pursuit of heresy did not monopolise the exertions of Ximenes. He founded the great University of AlcalÁ, a vast design, a noble seat of learning richly endowed with magnificent buildings and a remarkable scheme of education, which produced the ablest and most eminent scholars. Another great monument is the well known polyglot Bible, designed to exhibit the scriptures in their various ancient languages, a work of singular erudition upon which the munificent cardinal expended vast sums.

Ximenes lived to the advanced age of eighty-one, long enough to act as regent of Spain during the interregnum preceding the arrival of Charles I, better known as the Emperor Charles V. The immediate cause of his death was said to have been the receipt of a letter from the Emperor in which he was coldly thanked for his services and desired to retire to his diocese, to "seek from heaven that reward which heaven alone could adequately bestow." In his last moments he is reported to have said, "that he had never intentionally wronged any man; but had rendered to every one his due, without being swayed, as far as he was conscious, by fear or affection."

He combined a versatility of talent usually found only in softer and more flexible characters. Though bred in the cloister, he distinguished himself both in the cabinet and the camp. For the latter, indeed, so repugnant to his regular profession, he had a natural genius, according to the testimony of his biographer; and he evinced his relish for it by declaring that "the smell of gunpowder was more grateful to him than the sweetest perfume of Arabia!" In every situation, however, he exhibited the stamp of his peculiar calling; and the stern lineaments of the monk were never wholly concealed under the mask of the statesman or the visor of the warrior. He had a full measure of the religious bigotry which belonged to the age; and he had melancholy scope for displaying it, as chief of that dread tribunal over which he presided during the last ten years of his life.

The accession of the grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella to the Spanish throne as Charles I (better known as the Emperor Charles V), seemed to foreshadow a change in the relations of the Inquisition and the state. The young sovereign was born in Ghent and was more Fleming than Spaniard. Though his grandfather left in his will solemn injunctions "to labour with all his strength to destroy and extirpate heresy" and to appoint ministers "who will conduct the Inquisition justly and properly for the service of God and the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and who will also have great zeal for the destruction of the sect of Mahomet," it was reported that he sympathised with the critics of the Inquisition and was disposed to curtail its activity. The influence of his old tutor, Adrian of Utrecht, whom he commissioned inquisitor-general, first of Aragon, and, after the death of Ximenes, of Castile also, changed him however into a strong friend and staunch supporter of the institution.

Cardinal Manrique, who followed as inquisitor-general, was a man of more kindly disposition, charitable and a benefactor to the poor. He was inclined to relax the severities of the Holy Office but it was urged upon him that heresy was on the increase on account of the appearance of Lutheran opinions and the bitterest persecution was more than ever essential. Protestants began to appear sporadically and called for uncompromising repression. The writings of Luther, Erasmus, Melancthon, Zwingli, and the rest of the early reformers were brought into Spain, but the circulation was adjudged a crime, though Erasmus had once been a favourite author.

The Inquisition later prepared an Index Expurgandorum, or list of condemned and prohibited literature. All books named on it were put under the ban of the law. Possession of a translation of the Bible in the vulgar tongues was forbidden in 1551, and the prohibition was not lifted until 1782. By that time there was no longer such keen interest in its contents, and the Book was little circulated. In 1825 the British and Foreign Bible Society sent one of its agents into Spain to distribute it, and his adventures are described autobiographically in that interesting work, George Borrow's "Bible in Spain."

In spite of all the efforts to make good Catholics and good Spaniards of the Moriscos, little real progress was made. They had accepted baptism under compulsion, not realising that thereby they were brought under control of the Church. Little effort was made to instruct them, moreover, and as a result thousands, nominally Christians, observed scrupulously the whole Moslem ritual, used the old language, and kept their old costume. Some, to be sure, were hardly to be distinguished from the Spaniards with whom they had intermarried, but, on the whole, they seemed an unassimilable element in the population.

When Philip II succeeded his father, Charles V, in 1556, he determined to take strong measures. A decree proclaimed in Granada in 1566 forbade the use of the distinctive dress and of the Moorish names. The old customs were to be abandoned, and all the baths were to be destroyed. Rebellion followed this edict, and, for a time, it was doubtful whether it could be crushed. Finally open resistance was overcome, and several thousand were transferred to the mountains of Northern Spain. Meanwhile the Inquisition was active, and thousands were brought to trial for pagan practices.

Prejudice continued to grow, and fanatics declared that Spain could never prosper until the "evil seed" was destroyed or expelled from the Christian land. Jealousy of the prosperity of the Moriscos led the populace to agree with the bigots, and finally expulsion was unanimously decreed by the Council of State, in 1609, during the reign of Philip III. Valencia was first purged, and next Murcia, Granada, Andalusia, Old and New Castile and Aragon. Afterward vigorous attempts to root out individuals of Moorish blood, who had become indistinguishable because of their strict conformity, were made. Great suffering was incurred by the unfortunate exiles and many died. Those who reached Africa carried with them a hatred which persists to the present.

The number driven out is uncertain. The estimates vary from three hundred thousand to three million. Probably the most accurate estimate is that of six hundred thousand. In this number were included the most skilful artisans, and the most industrious and most thrifty portion of the population. It was a mistake from which Spain has never recovered.