Imperial Spain 1469-1716

by John H. Elliott

  Charles's flight to Villach in 1552 symbolized the failure of his great Imperial experiment. The failure had been precipitated by the defection not only of Maurice of Saxony, but also of the Imperial bankers, who had finally lost confidence in the Emperor and had failed to advance the money that was needed to pay his troops. The bankers were correct in their assessment, for the claims on the Emperor had been too great and his resources ultimately too few. The Spanish royal finances, which had borne the full strain of the Imperial policies during the last reckless decade, were now moving inexorably towards bankruptcy, while the Empire itself was visibly splitting into two parts. Nothing now could keep the German lands under the control of the Spanish royal house, and Philip, who succeeded his father as King of Spain in 1556, would preside over an empire that was inevitably very different from that inherited by his father.

  It was in the hope of making this new empire a viable unit that Charles married Philip to Mary Tudor in 1554. There was about the English match an imaginative boldness typical of the Emperor, coupled with a greater awareness of economic and strategic realities than had characterized some of his previous grand designs. In place of the vast and cumbersome geographical monstrosity that passed for an empire under Charles V, Philip II would rule an empire of three logical units: England and the Netherlands, Spain and Italy, and America.

  Having arranged for his son an incomparably more manageable inheritance than he had ever obtained for himself, Charles removed himself to Spain, to spend his declining years in the land which had come to mean more to him than any of his other possessions. His retreat to Yuste, and the accession of his Spanish-born son, fittingly symbolized the hispanicization of the dynasty. The verdict of Villalar was at last reversed, and the Castile that had been threatened with foreign captivity had itself taken the foreigner captive. But Philip himself was still far from his native land, and his presence was needed in Castile to reassure his subjects that the cosmopolitan Imperial experiment of his father would never be repeated. His return, however, could only be a matter of time. The Emperor died on 21 September 1558. Less than two months later his daughter-in-law, Mary Tudor, died childless, and her death brought to an abrupt end any hope of the union of England, Spain, and the Netherlands beneath a single crown. In future, the Netherlands would be an isolated outpost of an empire whose heart would inevitably be Spain.

  The peninsular kingdoms were now clamouring for Philip's return. The financial and economic situation had become increasingly precarious since Philip suspended all payments to the bankers in January 1557, and it was essential that the King come home. At last, in August 1559, he left Flanders for Spain. The King's anxiously awaited homecoming to Castile was something more than the return of the native. It symbolized the end of the universal imperialism of Charles V, and a turning-away from a Flemish-based central European empire to a Spanish-based Atlantic empire, with all the resources of the New World at its command. But the new Spanish-American empire of Philip II, which differed in so many ways from the European empire of his father, was never quite to break free from the circumstances of its origin; for it was under the double sign of bankruptcy and heresy that the empire of Philip II was born.

  Race and Religion

  1. THE ADVANCE OF HERESY

  PHILIP II returned in the autumn of 1559 to a restless and uneasy Castile. The desperate financial problems of the preceding years had compelled the Regency Government to resort to all manner of fiscal expedients which had tended to lower the standard of administration and weaken the royal authority. Municipal offices had been sold, and Crown lands and jurisdiction alienated. The nobles had attempted to turn the Crown's difficulties to their own advantage; and the populace, already subject to heavy taxation by the Crown, saw itself further threatened by the covert extension of aristocratic privilege.

  The prevailing sense of unease was much increased by the discovery in 1558 of ‘Protestant’ cells in Valladolid and Seville. Was even Castile, the most Catholic land in Christendom, to be tainted by the Lutheran heresy? In the feverish climate of the 1550s the discovery of ‘Protestants’ in the heart of Spain seemed very alarming, threatening as it did new dangers at a time when the Church and the Inquisition thought themselves to have successfully barred the gates against the advance of heretical doctrines. But the alarm was, in fact, unnecessary. So far from being an ominous new development, the alleged heresy of the little communities in Valladolid and Seville was merely the rather pathetic finale to a story of heterodox practices which had begun many decades before.

  As long ago as the closing years of the fifteenth century there had been hints in Spain, as in other parts of Europe, of certain deviations from the traditional stream of orthodoxy. The close contacts of late medieval Spain with the Netherlands and Italy had naturally introduced into Spain new ideas, not all of them in strict accordance with traditional canons of belief and behaviour. In the Netherlands, Christianity had developed a strong pietist strain, which tended to stress mental prayer at the expense of forms and ceremonies; and in Savonarola's Florence it had acquired a visionary, apocalyptic character which made a deep appeal to a number of Spanish Franciscans at that time in Italy. Both these types of Christianity found their devotees in Spain, particularly among devout women (beatas) and among Franciscans of converso origin. It was only in the early years of the sixteenth century, however, that they began to inspire any form of religious movement. The decisive event appears to have been the conversion of a sister of the Franciscan Order, Isabel de la Cruz, who set about organizing devotional centres in such towns as Alcalá and Toledo. Under her influence the Alumbrados or Illuminists, as her followers were called, abandoned the visionary approach of Savonarola for a kind of mystical passivism known as dejamiento, which aimed at the direct communion of the soul with God by means of a process of inner purification which would end in total submission to the divine will. This brand of illuminism was in particular to triumph at Escalona, in the household of the Marquis of Villena, where in 1523 one of Isabel's disciples, Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz, a layman of converso origins, succeeded in implanting the practice of dejamiento in place of the highly emotional Illuminism preached by a friar of the apocalyptic variety, Francisco de Ocaña.

  The remarkable success of Isabel de la Cruz and Alcaraz, and the spread of Illuminism to many towns and villages of New Castile, soon became a source of concern to the Inquisition, which had recently emerged from a severe testing-time with its authority enhanced. As long as Ferdinand had lived, the Holy Office had been kept under strict royal control, but during the regency period it had managed, under the protection of Cardinal Cisneros, the Inquisitor General, to extend its hitherto limited powers and prerogatives, and to establish direct control over the local tribunals. The increase in the powers of the Inquisition and the extent of its abuses made it many enemies, who placed strong pressure on Charles V, while on his first visit to Spain, to authorize a drastic programme of reform. But he was dissuaded from immediate action by Adrian of Utrecht, the Inquisitor General of Aragon, and by the time of his second visit to Spain it was already too late. The intervening period had seen the rapid spread of Lutheranism in Germany, and an organization which at one moment seemed to have completed its task with the elimination of Judaism from Spain, now found in the rise of Lutheranism a potentially vast new field for its activities. The Emperor therefore decided, in spite of the continued complaints of the Cortes of Castile, to leave the powers of the Holy Office intact.

  The fact that the inquisitors had at this time only the most shadowy ideas as to the nature of Lutheranism only served to make them the more zealous in their desire to uncover it in Spain. Chilled by the spectre of heresy and rebellion hovering over the German lands, they were determined to prevent its appearance at home. This entailed a more rigorous definition of orthodoxy than hitherto, and a greater degree of vigilance in detecting and following up the slightest hint of religious dissent. In these circumstances the Holy Office naturally turned its attention to the acti
vities of the Alumbrados, and in 1524 arrested both Isabel de la Cruz and Pedro de Alcaraz for heresy. The arrests were followed in 1525 by the condemnation of forty-eight Illuminist propositions, and a decree was promulgated by the Inquisition of Toledo in the same year against the heresies of Luther. Even though a distinction was still being drawn between Lutheranism and Illuminism (and there were indeed fundamental differences between them), the Inquisition suspected that they were closely connected, especially as both movements emphasized internal religion at the expense of outward ceremonial. To leave Illuminism untouched would therefore be a grave danger to the Faith.

  The Holy Office had little difficulty in dealing with the Alumbrados, most of whom were simple people without influential support. Anyone suspected of Illuminist practices was quickly taken into custody, and the net was thrown wide enough to ensnare even Ignatius Loyola, who was interrogated at Alcalá in 1526 and again in 1527, and forbidden to preach for three years. By these methods the Illuminist movement was effectively brought under control during the course of the 1520s, and the stamp of ecclesiastical disapproval was firmly placed upon it.

  In the course of its campaign against the Illuminists, however, the Holy Office became aware that Illuminism had a far more sophisticated counterpart in the Erasmianism which had recently become so popular among the Spanish intellectuals. Technically, there was nothing heretical about the doctrines of Erasmus, whose many adherents at Court and in the Church included Alonso Fonseca, Archbishop of Toledo, and the Inquisitor General himself, Alonso Manrique, Archbishop of Seville. Manrique and his friends could throw their protective mantle over the supporters of Erasmus, and encourage the printing of his books on the Alcalá presses, but even they could not make Erasmus respectable in the eyes of the narrowly orthodox. These feared and disliked Erasmianism on several counts. They believed that it gave aid and comfort to the Lutherans by emphasizing, as Illuminism emphasized, the inward aspects of religion at the expense of forms and ceremonies; and their suspicions were reinforced by the discovery of contacts between such Erasmians as Juan de Valdés and the Illuminist communities. Nor could an Inquisition dominated by the friars be expected to look with any approval on the doctrines of a man who devoted so much time and energy to denunciation of the Religious Orders.

  It is also possible that there was another, partially subconscious, explanation of the bitter hatred felt for Erasmus in certain orthodox circles in Castile. Erasmianism was an alien doctrine enjoying support among the courtiers and the advisers of an alien Emperor. The driving-force behind the revolt of the Comuneros had been hatred of the foreigner and of foreign ways and ideas; and it does not seem altogether fanciful to see in the vendetta against the Erasmians in the late 1520s a continuation of the campaign against foreign influences which had characterized the Castilian revolt at the beginning of the decade. The monks and clergy who had thrown themselves with such energy into the struggle of the Comuneros were fighting for a cause that went beyond the mere preservation of Castilian liberties; they were fighting to preserve the Castile they had known, a Castile pure in faith, and uncontaminated by the taint of alien influences. Although the Comuneros were defeated, it was natural enough that many of the ideas which inspired them should live on, defended and upheld as they were by the more conservative members of the Religious Orders – immensely powerful bodies in the Spain of the sixteenth century. Against these traditionalists were ranged all those, whether in the universities, the Church, or the royal administration, who had been excited by a glimpse of the outside world as the shutters surrounding Castile were lowered one by one. Attracted by the Europe of the Renaissance, and recently encouraged by the arrival in their country of a cultured foreign Court, they were determined to keep the shutters down. To these, Erasmus was the symbol of a New Learning that was all the more alluring for its cosmopolitan character.

  The battle between Erasmians and anti-Erasmians may thus have been in some respects a conflict between opposing ideas about the future course to be taken by Spain. The concept of a perennial struggle between two Spains is perhaps too frequently invoked as an explanation of the tensions in Spanish history, but this does not necessarily mean that it lacks all value in relation to specific periods. If it is unwise to search too closely for a continuity extending over several centuries, it is still possible to see a recurrence of divisions of a kind common to all societies, but which have been particularly sharp at certain moments in the history of Spain. The peninsula's geographical position and historical experience periodically tend to make it divide in particular over the question of its relationship – whether political or cultural – with the other parts of Europe. One such moment of division was to be found in the middle decades of the sixteenth century. At a time of great religious and intellectual ferment throughout western Europe, it was natural that many should feel that Spain would only be safe if it remained true to its own secluded past; but it was no less natural that others should react with enthusiasm to new ideas from abroad, and see in them fresh hope for the regeneration of society. Since there was no obvious compromise between these two points of view at a time when the European situation was itself unfavourable to compromise, the struggle was likely to be long and arduous. It was, indeed, intensively fought from the 1520s to the 1560s, and it ended in victory for the traditionalists: by the end of the 1560s the ‘open’ Spain of the Renaissance had been transformed into the partially ‘closed’ Spain of the Counter-Reformation. In retrospect, the victory of the traditionalists appears inevitable; but at the time when the struggle opened, their eventual triumph seemed very far from assured. They were helped, no doubt, by the weaknesses and the failings of their opponents, but above all it was the change in the international climate from the 1530s, together with the very insolubility of Spain's own racial and religious problems, which brought them ultimate victory.

  2. THE IMPOSITION OF ORTHODOXY

  In 1527 Archbishop Manrique, hoping to draw the sting of Erasmus's opponents, summoned a conference at Valladolid to pronounce upon his orthodoxy. Although the conference ended inconclusively, Man-rique hastened to forbid any more attacks on Erasmus, and it seemed that the Erasmians had triumphed. But the conservatives were not prepared to acknowledge defeat. By introducing an element of doubt about the orthodoxy of Erasmus they had already succeeded in putting their opponents on the defensive, and an opportunity soon presented itself for resuming the attack when Charles V – the great patron of the Erasmians – left for Italy in 1529. This time the anti-Erasmians adopted the device of accusing the Erasmians of Illuminism and Lutheranism. They received invaluable assistance from a certain Francisca Hernández, formerly the director of the Alumbrados of Valladolid, who turned informer after her arrest, and denounced, one after another, the leading Erasmians in Spain. Armed with this useful testimony the Inquisition felt itself strong enough to bring to trial certain influential Erasmians, including the famous Valdés brothers and Miguel de Eguía, the printer of Erasmus's works at Alcalá. The series of trials reached its climax in 1533 with that of the Greek scholar Juan de Vergara, a friend of Erasmus and a leading personality in Spanish humanist circles. Denounced as an illuminist and a Lutheran by Hernández, Vergara was compelled in 1535 to abjure his sins publicly in an auto de fe and to spend a year in the seclusion of a monastery.

  The campaign to smear Erasmianism by linking it with Lutheran and Illuminist heresies was brilliantly successful and the condemnation of Vergara virtually put an end to the Spanish Erasmian movement. Some Erasmians, like Pedro de Lerma, abandoned Spain, where they saw no future for scholarship and learning, while others were rounded up during the later 1530s. They, like their colleagues in other parts of Europe, were in effect victims of the times in which they lived – exponents of a tolerant humanist tradition which was everywhere collapsing before the advance of religious dogmatism. But they were also victims of the particular situation inside Spain, where the intermingling of Christians, Jews, and Moors had created religious and racial problems of u
nparalleled complexity and had prompted the organization of a tribunal dedicated to a solution along the only lines that seemed feasible – the imposition of orthodoxy. The Spanish Inquisition, operating in a land where heterodox views abounded and where the new heresies might therefore easily take root, was naturally terrified at the least hint of subversive practices, and dared not tolerate even the slightest deviation from the most rigid orthodoxy, in the fear that any deviation would open the way to greater heresies. For if the friars who ran the Inquisition were animated by hatred of alien beliefs, they also acted under the impulse of fear. The Holy Office was essentially the product of fear – and inevitably, being the product of fear, it was on fear that it flourished. In the 1530s and the 1540s it transformed itself into a great apparatus operating through delation and denunciation – a terrible machine that would eventually escape from the control of its own creators and acquire an independent existence of its own. Even if, as seems probable, most Spaniards had come by the middle of the sixteenth century to consider the Holy Office as a necessary protection – a ‘heaven-sent remedy’, as Mariana called it – this does not necessarily imply that they were not terrified of it. Fear bred fear, and it was a measure of the propaganda success of the Inquisition that it persuaded the populace to fear heresy even more than the institution which was designed to extirpate it.