The Sacrament of Penance and Religious Life in Golden Age Spain

4. Confession on Crusade

In 1585 Ysabel Martínez found herself in a predicament. Pedro de Ortega, her confessor, was making her feel uncomfortable. Rather than listen chastely to her sins, he made a habit of touching her face and speaking in an altogether inappropriate manner. Ysabel could have reported Ortega to the local representative of the Holy Office; technically, she should have, since sexual solicitation during confession fell under inquisitorial jurisdiction. But rather than take that drastic step, she initially sought to defuse the situation by turning to a popular indulgence for which she paid the modest sum of two reales. Unclear about the specifics, she consulted another cleric in the church, Juan de Belmonte , asking whether “by virtue of the bula de la cruzada” she could confess with someone other than Ortega. Belmonte assured her that she could choose any confessor, as long as he had an episcopal license.1 As we have seen, bishops and synods vigorously enacted programs to regulate confessional practice, while most Spaniards found ways to confess with whichever priest they wanted. The laity’s failure to comply with episcopal legislation more often entailed the exploitation of loopholes in the bureaucracy of confessional regulation than a wholesale refusal to work within the system. Ysabel’s indulgence, the bula de la cruzada, proved the most substantial of these loopholes. Its proliferation significantly undermined episcopal attempts to regulate the sacrament. While this situation greatly frustrated many bishops, it enhanced the flexibility of the confessional experience for many early modern Spaniards. † 4 confession on crusade Tener bula para todo: To take the liberty of acting at pleasure, according to one’s own fancy. —Neuman and Baretti’s Dictionary of the Spanish and English Languages (1851) 04chap4_Layout 1 9/5/2012 10:04 Page 91 Most historians have largely ignored the impact of the bull of crusade on religious practice. Instead, emphasizing its importance to royal income during the early modern period, they have typically described it as a tax.2 Others have viewed the bula as the dénouement of medieval crusading.3 Henry Lea, who always described indulgences in the worst possible light, saw it as a tool for oppressing the masses and a means of instilling fear in the people under the guise of religious devotion.4 Yet millions of bulas de la cruzada were taken every year. And the indulgence’s vibrancy suggests that viewing it merely from an institutional perspective—whether secular or ecclesiastical—fails to capture its popular significance. By the early sixteenth century, for most people, active crusading as an expression of piety had been replaced by contributing alms, which the Crown used to fund military campaigns against the enemies of the faith, who frequently happened to be Spain’s enemies as well. However, the indulgence was not just a function of growing state power. Available to anyone living in the Spanish dominions who contributed alms, the cruzada’s popularity suggests that we also need to consider those who stood outside the echelons of power.5 In fact, the indulgence became an integral part of life for most Spaniards, who, as the saying went, had their bula para todo, their bula for everything. This was particularly true when they went to confess. The proliferation of the bula de la cruzada transformed confessional practice in early modern Spain because it allowed bearers to elect their own confessor. The demands of royal finances engendered a peninsula-wide campaign that promoted an affordable and papally sanctioned opportunity for confessants to avoid their parish priest. As a consequence of the cruzada indulgence, enforcing a strict policy of confessional jurisdiction became virtually impossible. Only in remote locations with no alternative to the local parish priest, or among the destitute unable to acquire the indulgence, could a cura claim a monopoly even over the Easter duty. Instead, those clerics who felt a special vocation to confession jockeyed for prominence, hoping to attract the most devout and influential penitents to their confessional. The bula de la cruzada made this possible. The Medieval Background of the Cruzada Indulgence The bula de la cruzada flourished in the early modern period, but the indulgence ’s origins were rooted in Spain’s crusading past. The sign of the cross 92 penance and religious life in golden age spain 04chap4_Layout 1 9/5/2012 10:04 Page 92 toward which the cruzada gestured, explained Alfonso Pérez de Lara, author of the official manual on...