Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/31

7 INQUISITION IN ARAGON. 7 in that place, in April, 1484 ; and a rojal order chapter was issued, requiring all the constituted authorities ! throughout the kingdom to support the new tri- bunal in the exercise of its functions. A Domin- ican monk. Fray Gaspard Juglar, and Pedro Arbues de Epila, a canon of the metropolitan church, were appointed by the general, Torquemada, inquisitors over the diocese of Saragossa ; and, in the month of September following, the chief justiciary and the other great officers of the realm took the pre- scribed oaths. ^ The new institution, opposed to the ideas of independence common to all the Aragonese, was particularly offensive to the higher orders, many of whose members, including persons filling the most considerable official stations, were of Jewish de- scent, and of course precisely the class exposed to the scrutiny of the Inquisition. Without difficulty, Remon •' ' •' ' strance therefore, the cortes was persuaded in the following year to send a deputation to the court of Rome, and another to Ferdinand, representing the repug- nance of the new tribunal to the liberties of the 5 Llorente, Hist, de I'Inquisi- to convene a central or general tion, torn. i. chap. 6, art. 2. — Zu- cortes at Fraga, or Monzon, or rita, Anales, lib. 20, cap. 65. some town, which the Catalans, At this cortes, convened at Ta- w^ho were peculiarly jealous of ra<;ona, Ferdinand and Isabella their privileges, claimed to be experienced an instance of the within their territory. It was still haughty spirit of their Catalan more usual, to hold separate cortes subjects, who refused to attend, of the three kingdoms simultane- alleging it to be a violation of their ously in such contiguous places in liberties to be summoned to a each, as would permit the royal place without the limits of their presence in all during their ses- principality. The Valencians also sion. See Blancas, Modo de Pro- protested, that their attendance ceder en Cortes de Aragon, (Zara- should not operate as a precedent goza, 1641,) cap. 4. to their prejudice. It was usual strancea of Cortea.