Money and Sway: Extending Control Over Spanish Church

As time went by, the King and Queen in Greater Spain drew more and more power for themselves from all quarters. By mostly traditional means, they were able to gain influence and then decisive power over old alcaldes, with new ministers of justice, as well as over the Orders that could maintain security. In addition, these brought fresh and renewing revenue streams. This same method would be applied to the Church who was wealthy beyond measure. With the precedent set at Granada in controlling offices, appointments, and other directives, the Monarchs could then demand more than just a third of the revenue. And this precedent could be extended far beyond Spain into the New World as well. A quick sketch and some scattered quotes should suffice.

Three concessions by successive popes (Alex VI in 1493, Julius II in 1508, and Adrian VI in 1523), gave the greatest of clerical authority to the Spanish Crown concerning the affirs of the Church in Spain. These authorities grew especially in those Spanish claimed lands in South and Central America. As Elliott puts it,

"In the New World... the Crown was absolute master, and exercised a virtually papal authority of its own. No cleric could go to the Indies without royal permission; there was no papal legate in the New World, and no direct contact between Rome and the clergy in Mexico or Peru; the Crown exercised a right of veto over the promulgation of papal bulls, and constantly intervened, through its viceroys and officials, in all the minutiae of ecclesiastical life." [p.102]

They had been granted the exclusive right to evangelize in the New World by Rodrigo Borgia, as Alex VI with his bull Inter caetera , as well as the right in 1501, for the Crown to perpetually keep tithes gathered for the Church in the western lands.

In 1508 Giuliano della Rovere, as pope Julius II, needed help against Venice. For this, Elliott tells us, he was willing to give up control of the presenting of Churchly benefices to the Spanish Crown. Though there would be fights on this very issue in various pockets of Greater Spain, this tool of extending benefices had already become a favorite for the King. A benefice could ensure loyalty. But providing an office that could be lucrative for the holder could also be lucrative for those bestowing it.

During the Reconquista of southern Spain, popes had granted bulls of cruzada allowing for the collection of indulgences from men, women and children. The very idea of it was the paying for the remission of sins, in order to finance a crusade against Spanish Moors, Ottoman Turks, or later, the locals who happened to live in Central America. In the sixteenth century this form of wealth extraction and its justification became very important to the Spanish Crown.

Yet it wasn't just wealth extraction that was important. The Spanish Church had its own internal problems that Queen Isabella worked to remedy as sovereign. Basic problems like absenteeism, and immorality wrestled with profligate concubinage among clerics with descendants commonly inheriting bishoprics and churchly estates, for eminence. [p. 103] First with the Jeronymite confessor Hernando de Talavera, then later with the austere Franciscan Jimenez de Cisneros, she would move to make both Granada Christian and Franciscans Observant.

"At a time when the desire for radical ecclesiastical reform was sweeping through Christendom, the rulers of Spain personally sponsored reform at home, thus simultaneously removing some of the worst sources of complaint and keeping firm control over a movement which might easily have got out of hand." [p.105]

The problems that pockets of Italy, much of Germany and all of Holland and England would suffer were greatly limited in Spain due to these actions from on high. This heavy hand of the Crown in Spain may have prevented troubles found elsewhere. But it also spawned the Inquisition.
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J.H. Elliott: Imperial Spain 1469-1716 : Penguin, NY, 2002