PROTESTANTISM - The Library of Iberian Resources Online

Q. Have those who established themselves in Spain, in virtue of the royal order of 1791,
complied with the formalities which it prescribes?
A. As no advice has been sent to this tribunal by the Junta del Comercio y Moneda, nor by the
Intendente of the kingdom, it is inferred that no non-Catholic artists have established
themselves, or else that the prescription to advise the tribunal has not been obeyed.
Q. Whether they (non-Catholic foreigners) contract marriage with Catholics and, in that case,
what is the religion of the children?
[474] A. But one case of such marriage is known--that of Juan Foch, a German of Lindau, who
called himself a travelling merchant, with Bernarda María Pellicer of this city. This was in
virtue of a papal brief, passed by the Council of Castile and with the royal exequatur, providing
that he should allow his wife to remain a Catholic and his children to be brought up in the same
faith, and she promising to persuade him to conversion. They were married privately, outside of
the church and without banns or other public ceremonies. We learn from the Vicar of Los Santos
Juanes, where they live, that they cause no scandal, comply with the obligations and that a boy
has been baptized.
Q. Since the royal order, about how many non-Catholic strangers have established themselves,
naming some of the principal ones and their nation or sect?
A. This could be answered only by examining the registers required to be kept by the captaingeneral
and royal justicias. This tribunal can only have notice by denunciations, which has
occurred only with Foch.
Q. How many autillos públicos have been held with strangers since 1759 when Carlos III
ascended the throne? State the name, country, religion and principal offences.
A. Since 1759 there has been no autillo público for strangers. (153)
This document has interest not only as showing the continued vigilance as to foreign heretics, but as
indicating how thoroughly successful had been the policy of exclusion. The district of the tribunal
embraced a long stretch of sea-coast, including such commercial cities as Valencia and Alicante, yet the
non-Catholic stranger was still almost unknown, as he had been when the report of 1785 was made.
Spain was a land to be shunned by all who were liable to be dealt with by the Inquisition, and it was
left to its isolation. For those who ventured it, concealment of heresy was worse than its avowal. David
Bonoran, a French Protestant, domiciled in Bilbao, succeeded in passing as a good Catholic. Becoming
converted, he applied to the tribunal of Logroño to abjure his errors and be incorporated in the Church,
when, in 1791, he was promptly prosecuted for having feigned Catholicism. (154)
This sensitiveness survived the Peninsular War and was vigorous to the last. In 1816 there is
considerable correspondence respecting the wife of Don Rufino de Acha, settled in Bilbao as a
merchant, who had married in England a Protestant named Doña Juana de Ancell--presumably Jane
Hansell. From this it appears that, after a discussion lasting nearly a year, she was given the alternative
of leaving Spain or of conversion and that she accepted the latter. (155)
[475] This persistent dread of heretics is vividly reflected in one of the last acts of the Suprema prior to
its suppression. In 1819 it issued an elaborate series of instructions for the guidance of commissioners
at the sea-ports in the visitas de navios, or examination of all ships on their arrival. This was principally
intended to prevent the introduction of prohibited books, which will be considered hereafter, but the
sections devoted to heretics show that the regulations adopted at the treaty of 1605 were still in force.
Foreign heretics were not to be prosecuted for acts committed abroad but, for anything done in Spain