Hello and Welcome to Western CIV. Episode two hundred and seventy eight. The
Inquisition and the Reformation. It's likely, if not certain, that the Inquisition
would have led a much more sheltered existence had it not been for one thing,
the Reformation. Suddenly there was heresy, real heresy, a lot of
heresy, at least from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church. The Church,
i guess, really, for the first time ever, or at least
for the first time in about twelve hundred years, found itself on the defensive.
Anything that was not strictly orthodoxy had to go. Heresy had to be
exercised from the land, root and branch. For example, there was a
movement in fifteenth century Spain that emphasized a passive union between God and the soul.
The method was known as abandonment, but this highly mystical movement was much
more often referred to as Illuminism and its followers Illuminists absent the Reformation and Martin
Luther. This movement probably just escapes the notice of Rome, and it did
for a long time. No one cared. But with everything and everyone on
a high alert, the Inquisition stepped in and completely eviscerated the Illuminists in fifteen
twenty four. Or I mentioned this during the Galileo episodes, but it is
worth remembering that the Reformation impacted all of Europe, whether or not there were
any Protestants in said kingdom. The elimination of the Illuminists is a great example
of this phenomenon. Oh and by the way, nearly every person charged with
heresy in the Illuminist controversy was a converso to be clear, there had been
nothing remotely Jewish about the Illuminist movement, which is interesting because stamping out secret
Judaism was ostensibly what the inquisitors were supposed to do. The threat, it
seemed, had changed. The threat was now Lutheranism, and as a result,
one of Europe's leading intellectuals found his works under increasing scrutiny in Spain Erasmus.
His last surviving letter, directed to the Spanish was in fifteen thirty three.
He died three years later. While never expressly banned, Erasmuicism was looked
upon with suspicion by the Spanish Inquisition. To many, his movement and his
ideas smacked too much of Protestantism to be tolerated. This Lutheran threat, however,
took a long time to develop. In fifteen twenty, Luther had probably
never been heard of in Spain. Lutheran books were first sent to the Peninsula,
with what result we do not know, by Luther's publisher in fifteen nineteen.
The first Spaniards to come into contact with his teachings were those who accompanied
the emperor to Germany. Some of them, seeing him only as a reformer,
were actually favorable to his ideas. However, a full generation went by
and Lutheranism failed to take brute in Spain. There was in those years no
atmosphere of restriction or repression. Before fifteen fifty eight, possibly less than fifty
cases of alleged Lutheranism among Spaniards came to the notice of the inquisitors. In
most of them it's difficult to identify specifically Protestant beliefs. There was some curiosity
about the heresies that Lutheran was propounding, but there was little sign that anyone
took an active interest in his notions. What explanation can be offered for this
astonishing inability of Protestant ideas to ever come to Spain with its unreformed church A
somewhat backward clergy, and a decidedly medieval institution i e. The Inquisition in
full force. Spain should have been ripe for conquest by the Reformation, but
in one major respect, Spain was peculiarly unfertile ground. Unlike England, France
and Germany, Spain had not, since the early Middle Ages experienced a single
popular heresy. All its ideological struggles since the reconquest had been directed against the
minority religions Judaism in Islam. There was consequently no native heresy like the followers
of John Wycliffe in England, on which German ideas could be built. Moreover,
Spain was the only European country to possess a national institution the Inquisition dedicated
to the elimination of heresy. Because of its vigilance and by coordinating its efforts
throughout the peninsula, it's possible that the Inquisition checked the seeds of heresy Lutheranism
before they could be sown. In the fifteen forties, possibly the only Spanish
intellectuals to come directly into contact with Lutheranism were those in foreign universities. Certainly,
i'mong the peasant class Spaniards would occasionally come into contact with immigrant workers from
someplace like France or perhaps the Netherlands, who had direct contact with these new
beliefs. But it seems that ideas transmitted at this level were either confused,
disorted, or just frankly unlikely to strike root anywhere. But to Charles the
Fifth, who by the middle of the century was living in retirement, the
threat was real. In May fifteen fifty eight, he wrote a scathing letter
to Juana, his daughter and regent in the absence of Philip IOND in the
Netherlands, that the only answer to the Protestant menace was repression. I think
the letter speaks for itself. Quote, I'm very satisfied with what you have
written to the King informing him of what is happening about the people imprisoned as
Lutherans, more of whom are being daily discovered. But believe me, my
daughter, this business has caused and still causes me, more anxiety and pain
than I can express. For while the King and I were abroad, these
realms remained in perfect peace, free from calamity. But now that I have
returned here to rest and recuperate and serve our Lord, this great outrage and
treachery implicating such notable persons occurs in my presence and in yours. You know
that because of this I suffered, and I went through great trials and expenses
in Germany, and lost so much of my good health. Were it not
for the conviction I have that you and members of your councils will find a
radical cure to this unfortunate situation, punishing the guilty throughout, to spreading and
prevent it. I do not know whether I could restrain myself leaving here to
settle the matter. Since this affair is more important for the service of our
Lord and the good preservation of these realms than any other, and since it
is only in its beginnings with such small forces that they can easily be put
down, it is necessary to place the greatest strength and weight on a quick
renemedy and exemplary punishment. I do not know whether it will be enough in
these cases to follow the usual practice by which, according to common law,
all those who beg for mercy and have their confession accepted are pardoned with a
light penance. If it is a first offense. Such people, if set
free, are at liberty to commit the same offense, particularly if they are
educated persons. One can imagine the evil consequences, for it is clear they
cannot act without armed organization and leaders, and so it must be seen whether
they can be preceded against as creators of sedition, upheaval, riots and disturbance
in the state. They would then be guilty of rebellion and could not expect
any mercy in this connection. I cannot omit to mention what was and is
the custom in Flanders. I wanted to introduce the inquisition to punish the heresies
that some people had caught from neighboring Germany and England and even France. Everyone
opposed this on the grounds that there were no Jews among them. Finally,
an order was issued declaring that all people of whatever state and condition, who
came under certain specified categories were to be ipso facto burnt and their goods confiscated.
Necessity obliged me to act in this way. I do not know what
the King, my son, has done since then, but I think that
the same reason will have made him continue as I did, because I advised
and begged him to be very severe in dealing with these people. Leave me,
my daughter. If so great an evil is not suppressed and remedied without
distinction of persons from the very beginning. Cannot promise that the King or anyone
else will be in a position to do it afterwards. End quote. This
letter marks a turning point in Spanish history, and frankly a turning point when
we're talking about the relationship between governments and religion. Thanks to the fear Charles
expressed, anything outside one hundred percent Catholic Orthodoxy was to be considered a dire
threat and must be destroyed. Charles just poured gasoline on the fires of the
Inquisition, and the effect was rather immediate. In fifteen sixty two alone,
the Inquisition pursued eighty eight cases against Protestants or alleged Protestants. Of these,
eighteen were burned, a whopping twenty point four percent of those charged. I
suppose the proof was in the pudding, though from the Inquisition's perspective. With
those burnings, Protestantism was almost completely extinguished in Spain. The fifteen sixty two
burnings also instilled within the Spanish population a tremendous fear of Lutherans. They saw
Lutherans everywhere, and they were not shy about coming forward with accusations against their
neighbors, especially if they were cavalier enough to make anti clerical statements. Now
they needn't be. Of course, by the late fifteen sixties, neither Judaism
nor Protestantism was much of a threatn in Spain. Somewhat ironically, I suppose
less people died in Spain as a result of religious conflict in those years than
elsewhere in Europe. The Spanish Inquisition condemned to die just under one hundred people
between fifteen fifty nine and fifteen sixty six, and of those, remember,
eighteen died in fifteen sixty two. Bloody Mary executed three times that number in
England, Henry the second twice as many in France, and in the Netherlands
over ten times that number would die. So oddly, I guess the Inquisition
worked, though the real answer was probably that Spanish society was simply more insular
at this point than elsewhere in Europe. There were just less Protestants to begin
with. Protestantism never developed in Spain. There were Spanish Protestants, of course,
but most emigrated. You could find pockets of Spanish Protestants dotted throughout Europe.
The just weren't any in Spain, at least none that we know of.
Of course, there must have been some, we just don't know about
them. The real brunt of the attack of so called Lutheranism was born by
foreign visitors like traders and sailors, and by foreign residents in Spain. The
heresy scare intensified xenophobia among many sections of the population, and it made Spain,
at least for a time, unsafe for foreigners. The hole the Office
had been active against foreigners from as early as fifteen thirty. Spain's extensive trade
with Northern Europe made contact with outsiders inevitable, especially in the ports. The
first Protestant foreigner to be burnt by the Inquisition was young John Tack, an
Englishman of Flemish origin. He was burnt in Bilbao in May of fifteen thirty
nine. Up until fifteen sixty nine, other foreigners were arrested and quote unquote
reconciled by the inquisitioners. Throughout its existence, the Spanish Inquisition remained almost inherently
racist and xenophobic. It once pointed the finger exclusively at the Moor, then
the Jew, then at the Converso, and finally at the foreign Protestant though
again, of course I hate to keep pointing this out, but this was
mainly in Castile. Even in Aragon, most of the inquisitors were Castilian,
and there they tended to treat even the native Aragonese with suspicion, especially those
from Catalan or the Basque region. Now, the failure of the Protestant cause
in the Mediterranean inevitably raises the question of why no Reformation occurred in Spain.
Efficiency of repression can't be the only answer. Of course, repression was,
as we'll see, more efficient and more brutal in some other countries, notably
the Netherlands, but the persecution there didn't end the Reformation. Now, Philip
the second was convinced that it was timely repression and continuous vigilance that kept the
inquisition in Czech Consider what he wrote in fifteen sixty nine quote, had there
been no inquisition, there would be many more heretics in the country would be
much more afflicted, as are those where there is no inquisition, as in
Spain end quote. Perhaps this is what the Spanish king believed, but historians
don't think it's true, nor is there any possibility to maintain that Spain was
simply sealed off from heresy sort of fortress Spain. The outdated image of an
iron curtain or a great firewall of China back in the sixteenth century of the
Inquisition descending on the country and cutting it off from the rest of the world
simply bears no relation to reality. In the fifteen sixties and fifteen fifties,
very many Spaniards were traveling abroad. More Spaniards than ever before, published,
most of them their books in foreign areas. Tens of thousands, mainly Castilians,
served overseas in the army, where they often rubbed shoulders with people of
other faiths. The land frontier and the Pyrenees was occasionally watched, sometimes because
of the danger of military intervention by the French, but it was never and
it could never be closed. Indeed, there was never any great wall,
nor ever even any Hadrian's wall across the Pyrenees. Throughout the late sixteenth century,
Spaniards drifted at will over the frontier. Some went to trade, some
to be educated, some even wanted to join the Calvinists in Geneva. At
the same time, many foreigners, principally artisans, came to Spain it was
a handful of these men, through careless actions, often on their part,
again criticizing the clergy and open who fell into the hands of the Inquisition.
Now, the difficulty in controlling the Pyrenees Frontier, which was Spain's chief overland
link with the outside world, comes through in the anxious correspondence of the ambassador
of France in the fifteen sixties, a man by the name of Francis Dealva.
In fifteen sixty four and fifteen sixty five, he sent reports to the
King about booksellers in Saragosa, men who had come to Leon and to loose
to purchase books on law and philosophy and then take them home. In one
of the cases, he said the bookseller had links to Geneva. This importation
of foreign books, as we may observe, was carried out in contravention of
the laws of Castile. Alva also confirmed that quote many books, catechisms and
psalters in Basque had passed through to loose to Spain end quote. I suppose,
somewhat ironically, de Alva was a Basque, so he understood what he
was talking about. Books in Catalan, he also reported, had been taken
into Catalonia and other heretical books had gone to Pamblona. In those same weeks,
the Archbishop of Bordeaux border a report on a citizen of Burgos who had
quote taken four or five loads of heretical books in Spanish and in Latin through
the mountains of Jaca. Despite the open frontier, heresy failed to penetrate it
all. The Reformation in the end, for Spaniards remained a phenomenon that did
not affect them. For the balance of today's show, I want to talk
about the Inquisition and its relationship to the arts and sciences. Obviously the latter
has a lot of relevance when it comes to Galileo. Now. Early on,
there's some evidence of major book confiscations throughout Spain, especially in a place
like Salamanca. Clearly Hebrew books were off limits and would be seized by the
Inquisition. The inquisitors also seemed to have frowned on magic and astrology, though
it's not clear why. But it was the printing press again I know again
that really changed the game. Quickly the Church and especially the Inquisition realized it
had to be involved with the printing process. Given the changes in scale,
you could just produce so many more books, so much quicker, And this
was new. The advent of the printing press brought the invention of pre publication
censorship. It just didn't exist in Europe prior to that invention. It didn't
need to. The Council of Trent gave bishops the right to oversee book production
starting in fifteen sixty four, but by then the various European states were already
deeply invested in the policy of censorship. England passed censorship laws in fifteen thirty
eight, and throughout Italy censorship had become a mainstay by the end of the
fifteen forties. Now, technically the institution itself of the Inquisition had no power
to license or prevent the licensing of books. Everything it did was through other
institutions. But it was very aggressive in coming after books with which it disagreed.
Now, generally, in what I'm meant there, we're really talking about
post publication. Starting in the fifteen thirties and fifteen forties, the Inquisition attempted
to stop the entry of heretical literature into the Peninsula. And I hope it
goes without saying, but every time I say the word heretical literature throughout the
rest of this episode. I mean subjectively from the perspective of the Inquisition.
As the only Spanish tribunal with authority over all of Spain, it was able
to act in areas like seaports where state officials could not. The government took
no direct initiative over controlling literature until the shock discovery of multiple Protestants in Spain
in fifteen fifty eight. That event stung the Regent Juana because Charles was absent
into action. On the seventh of September fifteen fifty eight, she issued a
radical decree of control. The law banned the introduction into cast Deal of all
books printed in other realms in Spanish, obliged printers to seek licenses from the
Council of cast Deal, and laid down a strict procedure for the operation of
censorship. Contravention of any of these points would be punished by death and confiscation,
not that you would care about the latter given the former. At the
same time, the Inquisition was allowed to issue licenses when printing for its own
purposes. According to the new rules, manuscripts were to be checked and censored
both before and after publication, and all booksellers were to keep by them a
copy of the Index of prohibited books. So wide ranging was the decree of
fifteen fifty eight that it remained theoretically in force until the nineteenth century. Now
Philip was in Brussels, Philip the King of Spain, from which he wrote
approvingly about all these measures taken by his sister. Heresy was spreading, he
said, throughout the European universities, and so as a consequence, just before
returning to Spain, the king banned the Netherlands subjects from studying in France.
When he arrived in the peninsula in fifteen fifty nine, he issued an order
on the twenty second November to all subjects of the Crown of Castile studying abroad
or teaching abroad, that they must return within four months. Of course,
there were a few chinks in the armor of this censorship, and it's really
almost idea censorship legislation. First, it only impacted Castilians. Philip could just
order the legislation to be carried out in Castile, but to do so in
Aragon he would need to summon the courtes which he refused to do so.
The entire eastern half of the Iberian Peninsula was exempt from all of these laws.
Second, control over imports again applied to Castile and Castile alone. Outside
Castile, the government had to rely solely on the inquisition and the methods within
its disposal to oversee the book trade. Third, the fact of the matter
remained that even in the sixteenth century, Spain had virtually no printing industry of
its own. It relied almost exclusively on foreign imports for books. Hence,
the Spanish government had a lot less control over book printing because no books were
actually being printed in Spain. And reality, as you can probably tell,
all of these laws amount to little bit more than a trade embargo. But
of course the biggest problem was enforcement. Most Spaniards simply ignored the law.
It was an easy law to get around, especially because it had a huge
loophole. It did not cover reprints, so if you wanted to import a
banned book, all you had to do was branded as a reprint and it
was exempt from censorship laws. So you could make substantial changes to a book,
call it a reprint, and you were good. Imagine this, You
could have a sixteenth century cookbook that's been approved and then you just stuff Protestant
literature into it, call it a reprint, and you get exempted. You
can see why this didn't work, and in the end, of course,
it didn't. Throughout Europe, the Reformation generated both hopes and fears, ushering
in a period of precaution. One of the biggest changes the Reformation brought was
the end of academic unity. The old idea of an international, pan European
community of men of letters simply melted away. Academics now never left their home
countries, and what was tolerated varied dramatically from kingdom to kingdom. Institutions began
to give classes in the vernacular now rather than Latin, because there was no
need for a universal language. The frontiers, of course, between France and
Spain in reality, never really closed, given that Castilians were the only ones
ever subject to these new restrictions. Hence, in the late fifteen forties,
a veritable storm of unlicensed Bibles flooded into Spain. Between fifteen fifty one and
fifteen fifty two, the Inquisition finally stepped in and it tried to crack down
on these unlicensed publications, and the sheer scale of what they found proved how
pointless the endeavor was. In Seville alone, the inquisitors rounded up four hundred
and fifty illegal volumes, and clearly this was a tip of the Iceberg situation.
Exasperated, the Inquisition simply issued a blanket prohibition of sixty five unlicensed editions
in fifteen fifty four. Once again, the evidence suggests this did nothing to
stem the tide of new bibles, and censorship encouraged a practice which soon became
common, the burning of books. Book burning was not new, and Burr
Constantine had burned all Aryan books that he could find in the fourth century CE.
The Medieval Inquisition had followed suit. In the sixteenth century. The practice
of book burning was common in both France and Italy. In fifteen sixty one,
an inquisitor wrote a letter asking what to do with all the books that
he had rounded up. There were many books of hours, he said,
which could be easily corrected and resold, But the inquisition replied, quote,
burn them. And what of the bibles? Burned them? And the books
of medicine, many with superstitious materials, burn them end quote. This drastic
solution, luckily, was not always applied. As I mentioned, the flow
of books was impossible to stop completely, since Spain depended on imports for much
of its literature. Quote. From one hour to the next, books keep
arriving from Germany end quote, commented the Inquisition. In fifteen thirty two,
its officials were ordered to keep watch at seaports. Special attention was paid to
the Basque coast. In fifteen fifty three, for perhaps the first time,
detailed instructions were issued to inquisitors about how to carry out visits to foreign ships
in Spanish ports, but few heretical books were ever found. The real victims
of the vigilance were the booksellers. From fifteen fifty nine, when a shipment
of three thousand books destined for Alcala was seized on a French vessel in San
Sebastian, booksellers in Spain had to put up with wholesale embargoes of their imports.
In general, the shipments were neither confiscated nor censored. They were simply
delayed until the bureaucracy had decided that no illegal imports were taking place. In
fifteen sixty four, the Inquisition ordered its officials in Bilbao and San Sebastian to
send on to booksellers in Medina two hundred and forty five bales of books imported
from Lyon three years later. Both books hadn't moved, they were still in
their ports. Hence, the impact on Spaniards on the ability to acquire literature
and books was dramatic, while the impact on howretical literature was negligible to nil.
The greatest damage of all in any system of censorship, or this one,
was suffered by the book itself. Some books probably disappeared altogether, exclusively
through the fault of the Inquisition. A report drawn up for them at the
end of the sixteenth century says that quote many, to avoid taking their books
to the inquisitors, burn not only those prohibited and to be expurged, but
even those that are approved and harmless, or else get rid of them or
sell them for a pittance. In this way, an infinite number are neither
examined nor corrected, but are eventually lost to nobody's advantage. For their owners
suffered the great losses, and what is more important, a great many books
disappear end quote. And this brings us to one of the myths of the
Inquisition, that it's set out to crush intellectuals. Sure, it was inevitable
that an independent minded thinker and a body designed to ensure a unitary system of
thought would have conflict, as it's going to with Galileo. But those conflicts
were surprisingly few and far between. And I have to admit, after reviewing
all the evidence on the Inquisition, by and large, which science wasn't its
target, Protestantism was now in part, the lack of conflict was because writers
simply steered clear of the Inquisition, while its inquisition tried to deal sensibly with
most authors. As we're going to see with Galileo, he met multiple times
with different officials and had every opportunity to publish his book from their perspective the
correct way. He simply didn't. And so in that way, Galileo is
very much an exception to the rule. There are two distinct opinions about the
impact of the Inquisition on literature. One, strongly supported by traditionalists, denies
any negative influence at all. Historian Menendez de Perro asserted that quote never was
there Moore written in Spain, or better written then in the two golden centuries
of the Inquisition end quote. The other, reflected in many modern studies claims
that the Spaniards virtually ceased to write and think. Another historian argued, quote,
it would seem superfluous to insist that a system of severe repression of thought
by all the instrumentalities of the Inquisition and state is an ample explanation for the
decadence of Spanish learning and literature end quote. For the English Catholic historian Lord
acton the injury inflicted on literature by the Inquisition, quote was the most obvious
and conspicuous fact of modern history. End quote. Another historian put it rather
succinctly that quote not to think, or learn or read became habitual for Spaniards
faced by the sadism and lust for plunder of those of the Holy Office end
quote. These, of course, are extreme views, and the evidence doesn't
support either one of them. Both assume, of course, that censorship functioned
effectively in Spain, which it didn't. One view claims it worked for the
better purging heresy, the other that it worked for the worse, suppressing creativity.
In reality, it did neither. It simply wasn't effective or efficient enough
to do so in the early modern period. Next time we start to take
a look at the Inquisition, itself, how did it function, what were
its systems like? And that will allow us to segue back to Galileo and
his infamous trial. As always, if you'd like more content, check out
the links in the show notes. Got a link to the website there,
Got to link to all kinds of free trials of Patreon pages in westerns of
two point zero, All kinds of good stuff which is there for the taking
if you so choose. No