VII
Illuminism, Erasmianism, and Protestantism: The Problem of Religious Dissent

In spite of the attention that Spanish Protestantism has received over the centuries, scholars have been skeptical about its real or potential impact on Spanish society. This view was perhaps best expressed by Lea who declared that it was unlikely that the small number of Spanish Protestants could make a "permanent impression on the profound and unreasoning religious convictions of Spain in the sixteenth century."^[1] He and others have also rightly emphasized the benefits that accrued to the Inquisition from its discovery of Protestant "cells" in Valladolid and Seville and the spectacular autos de fé of the late 1550s and early 1560s. Given the small number of actual native Protestants punished at these and other proceedings, it might seem almost as though the Inquisition had grossly exaggerated the importance of the threat so as to reverse its flagging fortunes and render itself indispensable to the monarchy.

Of course, it would be foolish to deny that the Inquisition reaped substantial political and financial benefits from its persecution of Protestants, but, in my view, it would be equally foolish to underestimate the gravity of religious dissent and disaffection among the Old Christian population. In many regions, popular Christianity was neither "profound" nor "unreasoning"; it simply did not exist.^[2] In other areas, even in places like the Archdiocese of Toledo with its large number of parish clergy, less than 40 percent of those the

Inquisition interrogated before 155o could recite the basic prayers.^[3] In Valencia, the tribunal found that only 8.7 percent of those tried for common blasphemy from 1554 to 1820 even mentioned the name of Jesus in their curses.^[4]

Ignorance of the basic tenets of Christianity could prove to be as much of a barrier to the spread of religious heterodoxy as it was to official efforts to cathechize the population. What really concerned the church and the Inquisition, however, was the widespread doubt about or outright rejection of important Catholic dogmas and a pervasive anticlericalism expressed in everything from the picaresque novel to a statement by Lorenzo Sanchez, himself a notary of the Inquisition, who once declared that "tithes are ours, and the clergy are our servants."^[5]

The Inquisition punished such statements under two general and overlapping headings: blasphemy and propositions. In their most serious form, both of these categories were designed to trap individuals who had made statements contrary to Catholic dogma and tending to a denial of faith.^[6] In practice, the really serious forms of these offenses were not the blasphemous swearing that often accompanied games of cards or dice or the proposition, which represented the widely held belief that fornication between single people was no sin, but those statements that implied hostility to the church and rejection of its teachings. In Valencia, 50.3 percent of those punished for blasphemy between 1554 and 1820 were convicted for cursing and denying God and the saints. More significant of the widespread rejection of the position that the church claimed for itself was the fact that fully 24.2 percent of those convicted for propositions expressed doubts about the church's authority in matters of faith.

Although blasphemy was theoretically a less serious charge than propositions, there were at least some among the mass of ordinary people (mainly artisans and peasants) charged with this offense whose statements and actions betrayed a profound religious malaise. Cristóbal Ballester was one such person. This cavalier, the nephew of the governor of the estates of the admiral of Aragon, was a restless individual who moved incessantly around the district and lived separated from his wife. Convicted of blasphemy for the usual profanity, his refusal to go to confession, attend mass, or observe fast days reveal him as another one of the many Old Christians

whose ambivalent attitudes about Roman Catholicism were a cause of increasing concern to the church in the turbulent 1560s.^[7] Even more alarming from the standpoint of the church was that some people's blasphemy took the form of mocking church observances. Almost 13 percent of those convicted of blasphemy were accused of such mockery, which consisted primarily of satirical references to church ceremonies or the sale of indulgences but occasionally became sacrilegious. In 1665, Francisco Dalmau was accused of ridiculing Holy Week and habitually taking over the pulpit just before mass began to deliver an absurd and mocking sermon.^[8]

But the ignorance, indifference, or downright hostility that characterized popular attitudes toward Catholicism all over Spain was counteracted, at least in part, by a broad-scale effort at religious reform and renewal that affected both monastic and secular clergy and involved pious laymen as well.^[9] Within the monastic orders, this reform movement had a double thrust: institutional and individual. On an institutional level, the reformers wished to return to the simplicity and poverty prescribed in the primitive rule of the order. Closely linked with this, they offered each monk a new form of spirituality with strongly mystical overtones. This recogimiento tendency, as it came to be called, was an interiorized form of Christianity by which each individual sought to achieve union with God by searching within himself and following a course of methodical mental prayer.

By the beginning of the sixteenth century, this tendency was becoming popularized by such authors as Garcia de Cisneros in his Excercitatorio de la vida espiritual (1500) and by groups of laymen and clergy who were strongly influenced by the works of the Catholic mystics which were becoming available in Castilian translation.^[10] These groups frequently formed around a beata, a woman who had adopted a religious life without necessarily joining an order and who was regarded as having exceptional spiritual gifts.^[11] This Illuminist movement, as it came to be called, eschewed the long and complicated spiritual exercises followed by the members of religious orders and promised that everyone who spontaneously accepted the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit could achieve a supreme and immediate union with God.^[12] The egalitarianism and religious fervor of the Illuminists was an important source of religious renewal among the laity during the first decades of the six-

teenth century, and Illuminist preachers under the leadership of Juan López de Celain (who was executed as a Lutheran in 1530) were even recruited by the admiral of Castile, Fadrique Enríquez, for an abortive campaign to evangelize his estates.^[13]

The problem with Illuminism, however, as with all forms of mysticism, was that in upholding mental prayer, meditation, and direct communication with God as the most exalted form of religiosity, the Illuminists tended to downplay the importance of obedience, church observances, and good works.^[14] The relationship of sexually frustrated priests and monks with the female beatas also posed the danger of sexual license, especially since Illuminism, in its most extreme form of Dejamiento, held that nothing could be sinful if it came from God. In Dejamiento, the believer combined a complete abandonment to the will of God with a doctrine of the impeccability of those whose souls were closest to God. The belief in impeccability led devotees to engage in daring sexual experimentation, which they not only believed was pleasing in the sight of God but would also aid them in achieving spiritual perfection. Moreover, beatas like Isabel de la Cruz posed special problems of their own. As women leading sexually mixed groups that frequently included male priests, they upset the traditional concept of a male-dominated church.^[15] At the same time, the powers that they claimed for themselves frequently extended to setting aside church precepts (such as fast days), on the grounds that they were irrelevant or unnecessary for their devotees. This amounted to a substitution of private judgment for the rule of authority and could almost be construed as setting up a rival to the established church. Finally, apart from these doctrines that could more or less be accommodated within church tradition, there was another element to Illuminism that drew the special ire of theologians. Like all Spanish mysticism, it was hostile to scholastic theology, which, in its late-fifteenth-century form, seemed to provide little more than a field for abstract and involved theological disputes without reference to scripture.^[16]

In light of all of this and the fact that many of the early sixteenth-century Illuminists were converted Jews, the Inquisition began taking an interest in the movement.^[17] The tribunals where Illuminist activity was most concentrated began making arrests in the mid-1520s, and, in a series of trials lasting until the late 1530s, the leading

representatives of the early Illuminist movement were punished.^[18] In September 1525, the Inquisition also issued the first of its condemnations of Illuminist doctrine, which resulted in part from a visitation to Illuminist-infected zones of the Archdiocese of Toledo by a special inquisitorial commission appointed by Inquisitor-General Manrique.^[19] This did not end the movement, however, and there were several more waves of Illuminist activity that attracted the attention of the Inquisition in Extremadura (1570-1582), upper Andalusia (1575-1590), Seville (1622-1630), and Valencia (1668-1675). Even after the major foci of the Illuminist movement had been destroyed, the tribunals continued dealing with isolated cases down to the end of the eighteenth century.^[20]

The Valencia tribunal's experience with Illuminism was minimal in the sixteenth century as Valencia was far from the major centers of Illuminist activity in New and Old Castile. In January 1538, the tribunal punished Esperanza Martorella, called "the beata" for asserting, among other things, that she had frequent conversations with the angels, that God had given her the power to live without eating just like certain saints, and that she would receive the blessing of God, the Son, and the Holy Spirit whatever her sins and transgressions. While it is true that the tribunal classified this case as "Illusiones," Martorella's ideas and attitudes appear to fit comfortably into one or another of the lists of Illuminist propositions condemned by the Holy Office.^[21] Certainly, her claim to be able to live without eating indicates that she believed herself to be in possession of a special state of spiritual perfection. She even testified that while she was in the inquisitorial prison awaiting trial, God had informed her that she would emerge from the ordeal "without shame."^[22]

My analysis of the relaciónes de causas and cases during the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries yields thirty-nine cases, with the last one in 1818.^[23] These were not very frequent occurrences, however, averaging little more than one every ten years from the mid-1620s to the late 1660s, when the pace of prosecution definitely increases.

It was in spring 1668 that the Valencia tribunal, for the first and last time in its history, stumbled on a group of Illuminists similar to those discovered by the Toledo tribunal in the 1520s or the Llerena and Córdoba tribunals in the late sixteenth century. This group was

made up of eight individuals who formed around a young (25) married woman named Gertrudis Tosca, whom they all regarded as their "spiritual mistress."^[24] Like other beatas who played an important role in Illuminist groups, Tosca laid claim to great spiritual power. She said that she knew the mind of God and could tell if a deceased soul had mounted to heaven. At one point, she even declared that God had made her into another God on earth.^[25] Like the early sixteenth-century practitioners of Dejamiento, she informed her followers that they should surrender themselves completely to the will of God even in matters normally considered sinful.^[26]

Her disciples, including three priests, Remigio Choza, José Navarro, and Dr. José Torres, a benefice holder in the parish church of San Juan del Mercado, "worshiped her as a saint" and believed she was "especially illuminated with the Holy Spirit" and was "impeccable and confirmed in Grace."^[27] This belief in Tosca's impeccability combined with the extravagant worship that the disciples accorded her, which included frequent kissing on the hands, mouth, and breast, led naturally to carnal excesses. All three priests became her lovers, sometimes performing the sex act openly in front of or even in the same bed as the female disciples. They justified this conduct to themselves and others as a way of advancing to perfection. Once when Luisa Choza, Remigio Choza's sister, was sleeping in the same bed with Tosca, the priest entered the room, undressed, and proceeded to have sexual relations with her. When Luisa reproached him about this, he answered that these carnal acts had been ordained by God and "were perfection, not sin."^[28] José Torres, who admitted having intercourse with Tosca on thirty occasions, two of them in the communion chapel of the parish church of San Miguel, even claimed that each time they consummated the sexual act, a soul would be released from purgatory.^[29]

Tosca's exalted conception of her own spiritual powers also led her to take on an almost priestly role among her devotees. She was obsessed with the desire to administer communion in her own home and did administer a form of communion to Torres. She also partially supported herself on alms given to her by her followers; she assured them that giving her the alms that they would normally have given at mass was exactly the same as giving them to the priest in church.^[30]

The little group finally broke up because Tosca failed to justify her claim to possess extraordinary spiritual powers. The end came when Angela Sinisterra, one of her most recent devotees, decided to test her abilities by bringing her a blind man to cure. At first reluctant, Tosca attempted to bring about a cure and failed. This, in turn, led to a grave spiritual crisis for her, and shortly thereafter, she and some of her followers approached one of the tribunal's calificadores, who presented their confessions to the tribunal.^[31]

Spontaneous confession combined with a remarkable reluctance by both the inquisitors and their consultor to use the words "heretic" or "Illuminist" when referring to the accused were responsible for the relative leniency with which they were treated. Except for Josefa Clement, who was admonished and given spiritual penalties, the cases of all the women in the group were suspended.^[32]

The priests were treated with greater severity, although the final sentences were more a reflection of the Suprema's harsher attitude than the relative leniency advocated by the tribunal and its con-suitor. In the ease of Torres, for example, the Suprema added exile, confiscation of property, and loss of ecclesiastical benefice to the abjuration and reclusion prescribed by the tribunal.^[33]

So ended the Valencia tribunal's most important brush with Illuminism. One can only surmise that its failure to use the term "Alumbrado" in connection with these eases reflects a reluctance to make a martyr out of someone who had a popular reputation for extraordinary spiritual grace and virtue. The disastrous ease of Padre Simón had taught the tribunal the virtues of discretion and the limits of its power over popular religious figures.^[34] This impression of caution by the tribunal is supported by its reluctance to actually arrest the accused once their initial confession had been received and by its insistence on reading their sentences in private rather than holding a dramatic auto de fé.^[35]

The edict of September 23, 1525, which condemned forty-eight propositions stemming from the beliefs of the "alumbrados, dejados o perfectos," and the trials of leading Castilian Illuminists during the mid-1520s and 1530s placed the Spanish reform movement on the horns of a cruel dilemma. The Illuminists and other reformers could throw in their lot with the Lutheran movement and abandon the Roman Catholic church altogether or they could resign themselves to accepting the Spanish Catholic church with all of its imper-

fections. Like the Italian spirituali, although for different reasons, neither of these alternatives was feasible.^[36] For one thing, apart from a few Spaniards who had witnessed the dramatic events at the Diet of Worms and a few hardy German or Flemish merchants who talked about it during their journeys through the Iberian peninsula, Lutheranism was virtually unknown in Spain. Furthermore, an Illuminist-Lutheran alignment was also made more difficult by significant doctrinal differences, notably, over justification and the role of Christ.^[37] Bythe 1520s, however, the Spanish reformers could no longer entirely accept conventional church practices or reconcile themselves with the institutional church.

A middle way, which could allow them to pursue their goals within the Catholic Church while affording them some protection from the Inquisition, was indicated by the favor shown to the works of Erasmus in official circles during the 1520s and 1530s. That this should be the ease was more the result of a favorable (if temporary) conjuncture in imperial foreign policy than the fact that certain court officials were pro-Erasmian during this period.

As a consequence, for approximately twenty-two years, there was a tacit agreement between Erasmus's position on the need to reform radically and restructure the Catholic Church and the orientation of imperial policy. In concrete terms, the result was that influential courtiers and high-ranking administrators openly favored Erasmus, supported the translation of his works into Spanish, and extended their protection to intellectuals with a pro-Erasmian point of view. Since one of these high-ranking officials was Inquisitor-General Manrique himself, those who identified themselves with Erasmianism could even hope to enjoy a measure of protection against inquisitorial persecution. It was under Manrique that the Inquisition was given specific responsibility for curbing the already mounting chorus of criticism of Erasmus in Spain.^[38] Manrique also presided over the theologians' commission that was convened on June 27, 1527, to debate the orthodoxy of Erasmus's work. Six weeks later, Manrique dismissed the commission because of an outbreak of plague in Valladolid, although some have suggested that he wanted to avoid a negative verdict.^[39] Regardless of Manrique's intentions, it never reconvened, and the result was to perpetuate the status quo in which Erasmus's works were allowed to circulate freely.^[40]

But the official support that Erasmus enjoyed and the protection that such support afforded had unintended and unforeseen effects on the native Spanish reform movement. The fact is that Erasmus's stress on mental prayer and his tendency to downplay the importance of formalized religious observances radicalized the Spanish reformers and moved some of them considerably closer to a Protestant or proto-Protestant position.

The impact of these Erasmian ideas on the intellectual and religious climate of Valencia in the 1530s was reflected in the trial of Miguel de Mezquita whose strong antipapal views found support in Erasmus's Sileni Alcibiadis , which had been translated by Valencian Bernardo Pérez de Chinchón and published in 1529.^[41] Under interrogation, he admitted to owning copies of the Enquiridion and the Colloquies . The influence of the latter work on his religious practices can be seen in his manner of confessing every day in private. This "confession to Christ" prescribed by Erasmus in his Colloquium senile gave rise to an interesting exchange between Mezquita and his judges who tried to trick him into declaring that private confession alone was sufficient. A few years earlier, the Córdoba tribunal had tortured Diego de Uceda for admitting that he believed that the most important form of confession was private, but Mezquita insisted that oral confession before a priest was necessary at least once a year. This seemed to be enough for the inquisitors, who ordered him released.^[42]

Official protection, the support of powerful nobles like the marquis of Villena in Castile or the duke of Calabria in Valencia and, above all, the favorable conjuncture in imperial policy were sufficient to protect the Erasmians of the 1520s and the 1530s from severe punishment even if they were brought to trial by the Inquisition.^[43] The shift in imperial policy toward the German Lutherans which took place after the failure of the Regensburg conference and the hardening of papal attitudes under Julius III and especially Paul IV Caraffa (1555-1559) heralded a change in the way that the Spanish Inquisition would deal with religious tendencies that appeared compatible with Lutheranism. Already from the early 1540s, the Inquisition began to intensify its censorship activity.^[44] In 1551, the Spanish Inquisition published its first index of prohibited books. This catalog was based on the University of Louvain Index of 1546 but added those works that the Inquisition had prohibited by

edict as well as a whole series of general prohibitions on specific categories of books, which greatly increased its impact.^[45] The death of Inquisitor-General Francisco Garcia de Loaysa on April 22, 1546, and the selection of Fernando de Valdés to replace him brought to the Inquisition's highest office a man who had an almost visceral hatred of all forms of spirituality.^[46] It was Valdés, with the help of his spiritual counselor, Melchor Cano, who presided over the destruction of the "Protestant" cells of Seville and Valladolid in 1558-1560 and unleashed the wave of persecution that included many native "Protestants" during the mid-1560s.^[47]

It can scarcely be doubted that in most of these cases, the Inquisition was dealing not with true Protestants but with the evangelical and reformist strain in Spanish Catholicism. It is also undeniably true that Valdés exaggerated the threat and used it to solidify his own position and that of the institution he served. Nevertheless, the evolution of Spanish reformers from the first generation of the 1520s to the second generation of the 1540s and 1550s had moved them toward a doctrine of justification by the will of Christ in which works were seen to flow from and depend on faith.^[48] Of course, this was not exactly justification by faith alone, but it was close enough to cause the Inquisition and the authorities serious and legitimate concern.

Related in time and substance to the inquisitorial crackdowns in Seville and Valladolid was the Valencia tribunal's persecution of the little group of Erasmians that formed around the Valencian noble, Gaspar de Centelles y Moncada. Centelles was the scion of a distinguished Valencian family that was linked by marriage to the counts of Gagliano. His grandfather, Pedro Sánchez de Centelles-Calatayud, was the first lord of Pedralba.^[49] His humanistic intellectual concerns and evangelical religious orientation were nurtured at the imperial court during the mid-1530s.^[50] After returning to Valencia sometime in the late 1540s, Centelles served as one of the four oidors de compte for the noble estate at the Cortes of Monzón of 1542. Ten years later, after quarreling with the fifth duke of Gandía, he became deeply involved in the violent feud that pitted the Pardo de la Casta against the Figuerola and involved such leading noble families as the Borja and the Aragon-Sicilia. As a consequence, Centelles was exiled to his estates by express order of Philip II.^[51]

With plenty of time on his hands now that he was no longer involved in Valencian politics, Centelles returned to the intellectual concerns of his youth and became the center of a small group of humanists who carried on a vigorous correspondence and occasionally visited the palace in Pedralba to debate the religious issues of the day. The group included Miguel Pérez, a student who was reconciled in 1567, Pedro Luis Verga, reconciled in 1567 and relaxed in 1572, Dr. Sigismundo Arquer, a former fiscal of the Council of Aragon in Sardinia who was relaxed by order of the Toledo tribunal in 1571, and Jerónimo Conques, who was condemned to abjure de vehementi in 1564.

The tenor of this group's religious views can be best understood from the extensive correspondence between Arquer and Centelles and conversations held in Pedralba itself. In a series of letters written between 1548 and 1557, Arquer stressed the critical importance of Scripture as the basis for any true Christianity and praised those who became the "lambs of Christ without needing anyone to expound the gospel to them." Arquer also stated his belief that the faithful would have to rely utterly on God for their salvation since they were too weak to observe His law. It is little wonder that the theologians who reviewed these letters for the Toledo tribunal agreed that these propositions were strongly reminiscent of Lutheran ideas regarding works, observances, and spirituality.^[52] Later, when Arquer stayed in Pedralba as a guest of Centelles, he became involved in a conversation with Jerónimo Conques concerning the Eucharist in which he specifically denied any change in the substance of the bread and wine.^[53]

Conques, a benefice holder in Valencia's cathedral, was certainly more moderate than Arquer and claimed at his trial that he had rejected his view of the Eucharist. Instead of sharing Arquer's almost Lutheran position, Conques approached the church from an Erasmian standpoint. In his correspondence with Centelles, he deplored the way in which the ceremonies of the church were neither "meritorious nor useful" when carried out by those whose only desire was to make an outward show of piety. Claiming to be disgusted by the vulgarity and ignorance of certain local preachers, he intended to write a treatise on preaching based on Erasmus's Ecclesiastes .^[54]

In 1571, after a long trial during which he proved himself a

stubborn and resourceful antagonist, Arquer was executed by order of the Toledo tribunal. As for Conques, even though his theological position cannot be characterized as any more than moderate reformism, he, like Seville's Dr. Constantino some years earlier, had the misfortune to be part of a wider struggle involving the Inquisition and the canons of the local cathedral chapter. By his own admission, Conques had been one of those responsible for ejecting Inquisitor Francisco Ramirez from the seat that Valencia's inquisitors had occupied in the choir.^[55]

Wounded but still dangerous, the tribunal found a way of avenging itself on the overbearing canons by punishing and humiliating one of their number who had made himself vulnerable because of his correspondence with Centelles. It is not difficult to imagine the inquisitors smiling inwardly as they sentenced Conques to two years of reclusion in the monastery of Nuestra Señora de Socorro outside the walls of the city. There, this detester of mindless devotions who had once helped Centelles wean Francisco Fenollet away from mechanically reciting his rosary was forced to say three parts of the rosary of Our Lady each day, amounting to 15 Our Fathers and 150 Ave Marías, and this avid correspondent could neither write nor receive letters without the express permission of the inquisitors.^[56]

In December 1562, Centelles himself was arrested by the Valencia tribunal, which had been gathering information about the Pedralba group since the spring and was particularly eager to prosecute him because of the potential windfall it would receive in confiscating his estate.^[57] After a prolonged period of depression during which he lived for seven months without opening the blinds that covered the windows of his cell, he recovered and took an aggressive tone with the theologians who came to convert him. Finally, when his defense attorney asked him to sign a statement in which he specifically recognized the Roman Catholic church as the only church of God, he refused and was condemned as a heretic at the auto de fé of September 17, 1564.^[58]

According to the account that was sent to the Suprema by Inquisitor Bernardino de Aguilera shortly after the auto de fé, Centelles was at first adamant in his refusal to listen to any of the friars who were trying to get him to repent and publicly embrace Catholicism. But when the sentence was read out, he appeared to have been stricken

by remorse and fell on his knees begging forgiveness of God and the assembled multitude and declaring that "burning was nothing to what he really deserved" because of his crimes and the bad example he had given. A few moments later, however, after he had been led back to the city hall, he appeared to have repented of his earlier weakness. Tearing off the cross that the friars had placed around his neck, he threw it to the ground and cursed "those who had made him worship idols." At the end of the ordeal, just before he was to be garroted, Centelles confessed and appeared to have repented of his earlier defiance, but when confronted once again with the demand for a confession of faith in the Catholic church, some observers said that he had refused to swear; others said he had.^[59] On that ambiguous note ended the Valencia tribunal's most serious encounter with native Spanish Protestantism.

For the remainder of the century, the tribunal dealt with a few small and insignificant groups of native Valencians whose religious views were extreme enough for the tribunal to class them as "Lutherans." As it had from the mid-1520s, the tribunal confronted real Protestantism in the sense of conscious belief in and practice of Lutheranism and Calvinism largely in the shape of foreigners living, working, fighting, or traveling in the district.

An analysis of the sociological data drawn from the case summaries reveals that the overwhelming majority of those charged with "Lutheranism" were not only of foreign origin but were a typically transient population that put down few roots in Valencian society. One of the most revealing indications of this is a remarkable preponderance of young men and an almost total absence of individuals over 40 years old. More than 74 percent of those whose ages are known were between 20 and 30 years old, while only 10.5 percent were over 50. The impression of a young and rather transient group is reinforced by the data on marital status, which reveals that 82.6 percent were single at the time of their arrest. The offense was also overwhelmingly male, with only 2.1 percent of the cases involving women. Occupational data also serve to confirm this general pieture. Only 4.3 percent were peasants, while 22.5 percent were artisans and fully 54.3 percent soldiers either from invading forces like the Allied armies during the War of the Spanish Succession or from the Spanish regiments themselves, which were filled with foreign recruits, especially during the eighteenth century.

Among the very first cases of Lutheranism tried by the tribunal was that of a German merchant named Blay who was associated with one of the companies of German merchants who were active in Valencia during the first half of the sixteenth century. Although Blay made no secret of his sympathy for Martin Luther and his ideas, there is little evidence to suggest that he was a Lutheran in any formal sense or that he had had any direct contact with the incipient Lutheran church in his native land. He seems to have approved of Luther mainly when he opposed clerical celibacy on the grounds that if priests or monks were of such weak character that they could not be without a woman, it would be better for them to marry than live in mortal sin. He also claimed (mistakenly) that Luther had declared that persons should come to confession voluntarily. Apart from this, the fragmentary record of the case reveals nothing about any belief in justification by faith, hostility to the ecclesiastical hierarchy or the pope, or any of the other core doctrines of Lutheranism. After a brief trial, Blay was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment and confiscation of his property.^[60]

Germany also gave to the Valencia tribunal one of its most curious cases, involving John Heinrich Horstmann, a well-educated religious charlatan. Baptized a Catholic and given a good Catholic education by the Jesuits, Horstmann decided at around age 25 to leave his native Borgenstreich and wander Europe, supporting himself by teaching languages. Finding that this alone was insufficient, he soon discovered that he could profit from the rivalry between Protestant and Catholic by feigning conversion. In Protestant lands, he pretended to be a recent convert or a Catholic ready for conversion, while in Catholic countries, he became a Lutheran who wished to be baptized into the Holy Catholic Church. His excellent education and dignified bearing won him the support of powerful patrons in many places who were not only willing to sponsor his "conversion" but gave him small sums of money and even allowed him to tutor their children. In Perusia, for example, he lived in the home of the local inquisitor and received a purse of 30 escudos from the city. By the age of 89, when he was arrested by the Valencia tribunal, he had supported himself this way for more than fifty years and admitted to having been baptized on twenty-one separate occasions. He had even gone so far as to have himself circumcised in Amsterdam and practiced Judaism there for eight months while being supported by

the Jewish community. Finally, in 1746, he returned to Spain, which he had visited twenty years earlier, and was baptized at Cádiz, Granada, Córdoba, and Valencia, where he lived for a time in the archbishop's palace. Horstmann's spectacular career finally came to an end when the Valencia tribunal arrested him on June 23, 1752, after receiving a letter from the Seville tribunal describing him and his activities. After his arrest, Horstmann told his story fully and without showing any remorse. He claimed to have always been a devout Catholic and only pretended to be a Protestant in order to get money and tutoring jobs. By February 1752, however, he was seriously ill, and as death approached, this religious chameleon and mountebank showed his true allegiance by refusing confession and the last rites of the church. When one of the priests who had gathered in his cell asked the by now mute prisoner to indicate whether he wanted to die as a Calvinist by squeezing his hand, Horstmann gripped it so hard that the priest had to call for assistance to loosen it. Immediately after his death on February 28, Horstmann was buried in a box of quicklime in the courtyard of the Inquisitor's palace, and at an auto de fé held on August 26, 1753, he was burnt in effigy by express order of the Suprema.^[61]

Of much greater concern to the tribunal than the far-off German Lutherans were the French Protestants, especially after the Huguenot movement began to gain strength in southwestern France in the mid-1560s. The opportunities provided by Valencia's expanding economy provided a powerful lure for French immigrants, and modern estimates of the number of Frenchmen in the kingdom range as high as 30,000 for the period around 1600.^[62] Certainly, the dangers of Protestant subversion appeared greater wherever the French settled in considerable numbers, especially in the northern part of the inquisitorial district. In 1574, the tribunal favored placing an additional commissioner in Morella because of the large number of French immigrants in that region.^[63] In 1566, Sebastian Gutiérrez, who had stumbled across what appeared to be an entire Huguenot conventicle among the French living in Teruel, declared that the "very air" was infested with heresy in many places and that if the French were not watched carefully, the "infection would spread from Catalonia and Aragon to the rest of Spain."^[64]

Apart from the fact that there were Huguenots among the French immigrants, there was also the ever-present danger of book

smuggling from France. In 1567, for example, Cardinal Granvelle wrote to warn that the Huguenots were hoping to provoke disorder in Spain by sending quantities of subversive books. In June 1568, the Suprema wrote provincial tribunals to take extra precautions because of an alleged plot by the Huguenots to smuggle Protestant books into Spain utilizing compartments ingeniously fitted into wine casks.^[65]

Given this degree of apprehension, which was no doubt heightened by fear of Spain's traditional enemy, the actual threat posed by the French immigrants seems to be weak. Certainly, an analysis of the cases of Frenchmen tried for Lutheranism by the Valencia tribunal reveals some who were strongly in the Protestant camp and had a good understanding of Protestant beliefs. The vast majority, however, occupied a kind of religious gray area, neither Catholic nor Protestant, frequently filled with anxiety about their religious position and willing, sometimes even eager, to reconcile themselves with the religion of their adopted country.

One of the very few French immigrants who can be said to have been a firm Protestant was Mateo Alari, who was sentenced to death at the auto de fé of April 19, 1587. Alari, who rejected confession, papal authority, indulgences, and the worship of saints, resisted all of the many efforts to convert him and declared that he intended to live and die as a Lutheran.^[66]

In contrast, the case of Jerónimo Martorell, who was executed for the same offense in 1583, appears to be that of a person with a weak religious affiliation who was trapped by an unfortunate family situation. Martorell, who was a linen weaver, had left his native village some thirteen years earlier and served as an apprentice in Catalonia before setting up his own shop in Villafames. According to testimony by a number of defense witnesses, he lived as a Catholic while in Villafames, attending mass regularly, performing pious works, and going to confession. Unfortunately for him, the two young apprentices that he hired were Frenchmen who had been exposed to one degree or another to the Huguenot movement. Goaded by his apprentices who boasted of their disdain for Catholicism, Martorell began opening expressing Protestant or heretical views in conversation with them. The situation was further complicated by the fact that both young men were suitors for his daughter's hand. Since Martorell did not wish either of the men to be his

son-in-law, he alienated both of them and lost his daughter anyway: she eloped with Guillén Mateu, who was going to be the chief witness against her father. When Mateu and Juan Philippe, the other apprentice, were arrested by the tribunal, they had no compunction about denouncing their former master as a Protestant. Driven by a fear of torture, Martorell then confessed to the charges, only to partially revoke his confession a few days later. With this revocation, of course, his case became considerably more serious, and the charge of being a "feigned, counterfeit penitent" was added to the rest. In spite of the fact that the testimony of the two apprentices had been at least partially invalidated by defense witnesses who testified that they were the accused's mortal enemies, Martorell's revoked confession had sealed his fate. Like so many others, he was the victim of ignorance about the inner workings of the Holy Office.^[67]

Cut off from actively practicing their religion and exposed to the rich and splendid ceremonial of the Spanish Catholic church, French Huguenots settled in Valencia found themselves drifting back to the religion into which many of them had been baptized. In the ease of Juan Casanyosas, who had rebelled against his strict Catholic father and claimed to have been a Huguenot from age ten, the reversion to Catholicism took the form of growing doubts about Protestant beliefs such as the futility of prayers to the saints. According to Casanyosas's account, he had begun to waver in his beliefs after he had heard sermons that "touched his soul" while living in Valencia. It is curious to note that Casanyosas made no attempt to conceal his Protestant views while in the secret prison. In fact, he behaved in such a way as to almost invite punishment by arguing points of religion with Jerónimo Biosco, a priest who shared his cell, and by singing Lutheran songs so loudly that they could be heard by the other prisoners. The impression of a person seeking a kind of expiatory punishment is borne out by his rapid and complete confession and his refusal to present any formal defense.^[68]

In other instances, conversion to Catholicism was a much more open and conscious process in which the individual's confession at the bar of the Holy Office was an act of final and complete rejection of a Protestant past. David de Cabanès, a French journeyman who came to the Inquisition of his own accord in 1612, had been brought up as a Huguenot by his parents. After coming to Valencia

in 1606, Cabanès served several masters, all of whom taught him the rudiments of Catholicism. He attended mass and went to confession but never felt comfortable enough to mention his Huguenot past. For Cabanès, spontaneous confession before the Inquisition was evidently a way of removing the guilt that he felt and more firmly establishing his new religious identity.^[69]

From the perspective of the Valencia tribunal, therefore, it appears that the authorities' fear of religious subversion coming from the large group of French immigrants in the kingdom was largely unfounded. Dedicated Protestants with a sophisticated understanding of Protestant theology were rare among them, while the tug of Spanish Catholicism was strong even for someone like Martorell. Doubtless, some Frenchmen were able to communicate their religious ideas to Spaniards and others smuggled in prohibited books, but the impact that they could have on the native population was minimal because of their own internal divisions, isolation, and lack of strong commitment to the Protestant cause.

By the end of the sixteenth century, the decline in Protestant conversion efforts and the relative stability of European religiopolitical frontiers led to the emergence of a new policy with regard to foreign Protestants. This policy, which was to be followed with several interruptions until the final years of the Inquisition, involved tolerating their presence so long as they gave no offense to the Catholic religion. At the same time, Protestantism continued to be one of the Inquisition's principal enemies, so that vigilance remained high to prevent even the possibility of religious subversion. Moreover, at various times during the next two centuries of its history, the Inquisition helped the cause of Roman Catholicism by becoming a kind of conversion bureau for foreign Protestants, especially from places where Catholicism had retained its strength as a religious alternative.

This policy really began in 1597 when the Suprema issued an administrative order to all tribunals instructing them that merchants or sailors arriving from Hamburg or other German ports should not be molested because of their religion unless they had offended Roman Catholicism in Spain itself. Even if this had occurred, only the property of the individual who actually committed the offense was to be seized and not, as hitherto, the entire cargo of a vessel.^[70]

When peace was made with England in 1604, one of the provi-

sions of the treaty provided that King James's subjects would enjoy the same toleration as that extended to the Germans some years before.^[71] While in Spain, they were not to be prosecuted for an offense against Catholicism committed previously. They were not to be forced to enter churches, but if they did so, they were expected to show the same reverence to the Holy Sacrament as anyone in the congregation. If they encountered a religious procession, they were either expected to kneel out of respect for the Holy Sacrament or avoid seeing it by entering a doorway or going up another street.^[72]

Even before it had officially transmitted the relevant articles of the peace treaty to the provincial tribunals, the Suprema laid down the policy that was to be followed toward those English or Scottish Protestants who wished to convert. Those coming forward voluntarily could be heard by commissioners at the ports who would interrogate them as to their religious practices and refer them to the tribunal. After reviewing this testimony, the tribunal had two options: if the individual had had sufficient religious instruction or had once practiced Catholicism, he could be reconciled in the audience chamber and given spiritual penalties; if instruction was considered incomplete, they were to be absolved ad cautelam and remanded for religious instruction.^[73] In 1609, when the twelve-year truce was signed with the United Provinces, the Dutch received the same privileges previously accorded to the English and Scots.^[74]

Of course, such toleration, limited though it was, ran counter to the deepest social values of a society that had long prided itself on its fanatical opposition to any form of religious heterodoxy. Valencia's Archbishop Juan de Ribera expressed this attitude very well when he protested the 1604 peace treaty on the grounds that making peace with infidels is prohibited by divine law, while the evil example of the English Protestants openly practicing their religion might provoke heresy among the faithful.^[75]

For its part, the Suprema lost little time in introducing arbitrary and illegal modifications to the treaty provisions. In 1612, it asserted a distinction between transient and resident foreigners. Resident householders were expected to practice Catholicism and were subject to the Inquisition in matters of faith. In May 1620, the Suprema insisted that no foreigner living in the port towns could

maintain an inn and cautioned the tribunal that close watch should be kept on such persons so that "the plague of heresy" would not be revived.^[76]

With the renewal of hostilities between Spain and Holland (1621) and England (1624), the privileges contained in the earlier treaties became null and void, and the Inquisition once more took up the persecution of English and Dutch Protestants found in Spain. Even after peace was restored with those countries, the Suprema insisted that port commissioners and other officials furnish periodic reports of the activities of resident Protestants, including their religious practices, where they lived, and who they received in their lodgings.^[77]

On occasion, the hostility and ill-will fostered by years of conflict would burst forth in ways that made it difficult for Spain to disengage itself from the struggle with the Protestant powers. Given Spain's military weakness in the late 1640s and 1650s, the Treaty of Münster of October 24, 1648, by which Spain made peace with Holland in return for recognizing her as a sovereign state, was vital if she expected to continue the war against France with any degree of success. Serious violations of the treaty, one of whose provisions promised that Dutch subjects should not be molested on account of their religion unless they caused scandal, might have strengthened the anti-Spanish party in Amsterdam and brought the Dutch back into the war. Nevertheless, Philip IV's weak government found it extremely difficult to get the Inquisition to respect the provisions of the treaty. One of the most glaring examples of the Inquisition's disregard for Spain's international obligations during this period is provided by the Valencia tribunal's arrest of Paul Jerome Estagema in 1651. Estagema, a native of Hoorn, was evidently closely connected with the Dutch peace party as two of its leading members, the Dutch ambassador to Spain and the Dutch plenipotentiary at the Münster peace conference, repeatedly petitioned the king for his release. After consulting with the Council of State, Philip meekly wrote to the tribunal to request that the ease be resolved as quickly as possible paying due attention to the provisions of the peace treaty. This letter was ignored, and it was only in mid-December, after further petitions by the ambassador, that the Suprema ordered the tribunal to terminate the ease and report the sentence, which caused the tribunal no great concern since the trial

had already been concluded on September 7.^[78] In general, however, the majority of the ninety-one Protestants seen by the tribunal in the seventeenth century were soldiers. These were drawn from among foreigners in Spanish service, such as a German mercenary quartered with his regiment in Gandía who presented himself before the commissioner there in 1664.^[79]

In the eighteenth century, 87 of the 148 foreign Protestants seen by the tribunal were soldiers. The situation was a little different from the previous century, however, because the Protestant conversions began with the arrival of Allied forces in late 1705. At first, the tribunal was filled with apprehension and issued several decrees forbidding fraternization with the Allied army. In the end, these fears were exaggerated; Archduke Charles, who resided in Valencia from September 30, 1706, to March 7, 1707, sought to gain popularity through a fervent display of piety and regular church attendance.^[80] As a result, Protestant influence on the native population was nil, while the Inquisition reaped a harvest of conversions.

Given the fact that no significant Protestant movement arose on Spanish soil, it is no surprise that modern historians of sixteenth-century Spain have been extremely skeptical of the depth and severity of the Protestant threat to Spanish Catholicism. Nevertheless, the alarm voiced by contemporary observers like Charles V must be placed within a contemporary context and not dismissed simply because we have the benefit of hindsight. The Seville and Valladolid conventicles were not merely "isolated pockets" but emerged from a society that had been well prepared to receive Protestant ideas by the native Illuminist movement and by the Erasmianism that became so widespread in intellectual circles during the 1520s and 1530s. At least potentially linked with these movements, especially with their stress on greater egalitarianism in religion, was popular anticlericalism and the rejection of certain Catholic dogmas by the popular masses. Since Spain, like the rest of Catholic Europe during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, harbored powerful forces critical of the Catholic church as then constituted, the failure of Protestantism was not because it was essentially alien to the Spanish or Latin mentality. Instead, that failure was the result, above all, of prompt and effective action by the Inquisition.

The Inquisition's efforts to neutralize this threat included the selective repression of native sympathizers and potential sympathiz-

ers and the identification of "Lutheranism" with Judaism and Islam, which were already detested by the majority of the Old Christian population. This was done, above all, through the regular readings of the Edict of Faith in the cathedrals and churches of Spain where the Inquisition's version of Protestantism was given its place just after a description of the Judaic and Islamic heresies.^[81] All three of these "sects" were presented in opposition to "Christianity," which was made synonymous with "what is believed and upheld by our Holy Mother the Roman Catholic Church."^[82] The success of this strategy of "inoculation" may be seen from the testimony of Gaspar Coscolla, an Old Christian merchant, regarding a conversation he had had with a member of the Morisco Abenamir family concerning the relative merits of Catholicism arid Islam. When the Morisco expressed astonishment that Coscolla could still maintain the supremacy of Catholicism when he "knew the truth" about Islam, Coscolla replied that for him "Mohammad was just like Martin Luther."^[83]

In confronting the challenge of Protestantism, therefore, the Inquisition had to deal with a difficult and complex problem. In the Spain of the 1520s and 1530s, with the Comunero Revolution of Castile and the Germanía of Valencia a very recent memory and with a growing wave of criticism of the Catholic Church an everyday reality among all classes, the chances for religiopolitical subversion were good. The failure of the incipient Spanish Protestant movement was the result of the Inquisition's success in applying its triple strategy of selective repression, inoculation, and absorption. The defeat of Spanish Protestantism, moreover, served to enhance the authority and prestige of the Inquisition both at home and abroad. Within Spain, the Inquisition had proven its worth to a nervous royal government that now moved to place the tribunal's finances on a permanent basis. Abroad, the growing reputation of the Spanish Inquisition as a bulwark of Catholicism made it the first resort of foreign Protestants who wished to join the Catholic church while resident in Spain.