IN 1233, when the Inquisition in France had received the established form which was bestowed on it by St. Louis, Spain was divided into four Christian kingdoms, besides the Mahometan states. Castile was under the dominion of St. Ferdinand, who added to it the kingdoms of Seville, Cordova, and Jaen. James I. governed Aragon, and conquered the kingdoms of Valencia and Majorca; Navarre was possessed by Sancho VIII., who died in the course of the following year, and left his crown to Theobald I., Count de Champagne and de Brie. Sancho II. reigned in Portugal.
Many convents of Dominicans existed in these kingdoms after the establishment of the order, but there are no authentic records, to prove that the Inquisition was introduced before the year 1232, when Pope Gregory IX. addressed a brief to Don Esparrago, Archbishop of Taragona, and to his suffragan bishops, in which he most earnestly exhorted them to oppose the progress of heresy by every means in their power.
The archbishop sent the bull to Gil Rodriguez de Valladares, first provincial of the Spanish Dominicans; he also sent it to Don Bertrand, Bishop of Lerida, in whose diocese the first Spanish Inquisition was founded. Pope Innocent VI. conferred many privileges on the Dominican Friars, and in 1254 extended the rights of the Inquisitors, and in the same brief decreed that the depositions of witnesses should be considered valid, although their names were unknown. Urban VI. and Clement VI. also augmented their privileges.
The Kings of Aragon continued to protect the Inquisition, and James II., in 1292, published a decree, commanding the tribunals of justice to assist the Dominicans, to imprison all who might be denounced, to execute the judgments pronounced by the monks, to remove every obstacle which they might meet with, &c. The hatred which the office of an inquisitor everywhere inspired in the first ages of the Inquisition caused the death of a great number of Dominicans and some Cordeliers: the honours of martyrdom were assigned to them, but St. Peter of Verona was the only one canonized by the pope. Nothing certain is known of the state of Portugal during this period: it appears that in the thirteenth century the Inquisition was established only in the dioceses of Taragona, Barcelona, Urgel, Lerida, and Girona.
The convents of Dominicans having multiplied in Spain, a chapter-general of the order decreed, in 1301, that it should be divided into two provinces; that the first in rank should be named the province of Spain, and comprise Castile and Portugal; and that the second should have the title of Aragon, and be composed of Valencia, Catalonia, Rousillon, Cerdagne, Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza.
The provincial of the Dominicans of Castile, designated as the provincial of Spain, possessed the right of naming the apostolical inquisitor in the other provinces. In 1302 Father Bernard was inquisitor of Aragon, and celebrated several autos-da-fé in the same year.
In 1308 Pope Clement V. commanded the King of Aragon and the inquisitors to arrest all the knights templars who had not been prosecuted, and to confiscate their property for the use of the holy see; the templars in Castile and Portugal were also arrested.
In 1314, other heretics were discovered in the kingdom of Aragon; Bernard Puigceros, the inquisitor-general, condemned several to banishment, the others were burnt. Many who abjured were reconciled.
In 1325, F. Arnaldo Burguete, inquisitor-general of the kingdom, arrested Pierre Durand de Baldhac, who had relapsed into heresy, and he was burnt alive in the presence of King James, his sons, and two bishops.
In 1334, F. William da Costa condemned F. Bonato to the flames, and reconciled many persons who had been perverted by that monk.
In 1350, Father Nicholas Roselli discovered a sect of heretics named Begards, whose chief was named Jacobus Justis; they were all reconciled, and Jacobus was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. The bones of three of these heretics who had died impenitent were disinterred and burnt. Roselli being elected Cardinal in 1356, Nicholas Eymerich succeeded him. Eymerich composed a book entitled “The Guide of Inquisitors,” in which the most minute details of his judgments, and those of other inquisitors of Aragon, are found.
It is not certain whether the provincial of Castile exercised his privilege of naming inquisitors; perhaps heresy had not penetrated into the states of Castile.
Pope Gregory IX. dying in 1378, the Romans named Urban VI. as his successor; but several cardinals assembled out of Rome, and elected another Pope under the name of Clement VII.
The great schism of the West then began, and lasted till the election of Martin V., in the Council-general of Constance in 1417, where Don Gil Muñoz, who had been elected as Clement VIII., renounced the papacy. This revolution influenced the state of the Inquisition as much as the other points of ecclesiastical discipline. Castile followed the party of Clement VII., and Portugal that of Urban VI. The order of Dominicans was equally divided, and elected different vicars-general. Urban VI. died in 1389, and his party elected Boniface IX., who appointed F. Rodrigo de Cintra apostolical inquisitor-general of Portugal. He afterwards named F. Vicente de Lisboa inquisitor-general of Spain. Castile, Navarre, and Aragon were under the dominion of Benedict XIII., who was elected Pope after the death of Clement VII. Such was the state of the Inquisition in Spain towards the end of the fourteenth century.
It is uncertain if the Inquisition existed in Castile in the beginning of the fifteenth century; for, though Boniface IX. appointed F. Vicente de Lisboa inquisitor-general, his authority was not recognized, as that kingdom belonged to the party of Benedict XIII., who, after the Council of Constance, was designated as the anti-pope Peter de Luna. The town of Perpignan was the seat of one of the provincial Inquisitions of Aragon, whose jurisdiction extended over the countships of Rousillon and Cerdagne, and over the islands of Majorca, Minorca, and Iviza. Benedict XIII., who was recognized in this part of Spain, divided this province and appointed two inquisitors, who celebrated several autos-da-fé, and burnt a considerable number of people.
The election of Martin V. having put an end to the great schism of the West, the Portuguese monks ought to have submitted to the authority of the Provincial of Spain, who was then a monk of their nation, named F. Juan de Santa Justa; but the Dominicans who were at Constance persuaded the Pope that his jurisdiction was too extensive, which induced the pontiff to subdivide the province of Spain into three parts: the first part was named the province of Spain, and comprised Castile, Toledo, Murcia, Estremadura, Andalusia, Biscay, and the Asturias de Santillana; the second, Santiago, was composed of the kingdom of Leon, Galicia, and the Asturias of Oviedo; and the third, that of Portugal, extended over all the dominions of the monarch.
Martin V. established a provincial Inquisition at Valencia, in 1420, at the request of Alphonso V., King of Aragon; hitherto commissioners had only been sent there.
The Inquisitor of Aragon, 1441, was F. Michael Ferriz, and that of Valencia, F. Martin Trilles, who reconciled in their districts several Wickliffites, and condemned many others to be burnt. Several inquisitors succeeded these till 1474, when Isabella, wife of Ferdinand of Aragon, King of Sicily, ascended the throne of Castile, after the death of Henry IV. her brother. John II., King of Aragon, dying in 1479, his son, Ferdinand, united that kingdom to Sicily; he soon after conquered the kingdom of Grenada, which belonged to the Moors, and lastly that of Navarre, which was secured to him by the capitulation of the inhabitants.