Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/394

250 THE INQUISITION. PART I. Enforces the rapal bull. 14 8 0. Sept. 17. Inquisition at Seville. In consequence of this report the papal provisions were enforced by the nomination, on the 17th of September, 1480, of two Dominican monks as in- quisitors, with two other ecclesiastics, the one as assessor, and the other as procurator fiscal, with instructions to proceed at once to Seville, and enter on the duties of their office. Orders were also issued to the authorities of the city to support the inquisitors by all the aid in their power. But the new institution, which has since become the miser- able boast of the Castilians, proved so distasteful to them in its origin, that they refused any cooperation with its ministers, and indeed opposed such delays and embarrassments, that, during the first years, it can scarcely be said to have obtained a footing in any other places in Andalusia, than those belonging to the crown. ^° On the 2d of January, 1481, the court com- menced operations by the publication of an edict, followed by several others, requiring all persons to aid in apprehending and accusing all such as they might know, or suspect to be guilty of heresy,'^ troverted at length by Talavera, afterwards archbishop of Granada. The scandal occasioned by this ill- timed production undoubtedly con- tributed to exacerbate the popular odium against the Israelites. ■^ It is worthy of remark, that the famous cortes of Toledo, as- sembled but a short time previous to the abovementioned ordinances, and which enacted several oppres- sive laws in relation to the Jews, made no allusion whatever to the proposed establishment of a tril)u- nal, which was to be armed with Buch terrific powers. 31 This ordinance, in which LIo- rente discerns the first regular en- croachment of the new tribunal on the civil jurisdiction, was aimed partly at the Andalusian nobility, who afforded a shelter to the Jew- ish fugitives. Llorente has fallen into the error, more than once, of speaking of the count of Arcos, and marquis of Cadiz, as separate persons. The possessor of both titles was Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, who inherited the former of them from his father. The latter (which he afterwards made so illustrious in the Moorish wars) was confer-