Cardinals and the Inquisition

The involvement of cardinals with the Inquisition since medieval times did not, as early modern texts suggested, constitute an unbroken line of succession. However, even if the medieval and early modern inquisitions were strictly separate, the frequent elevation of Spanish and Portuguese general inquisitors to the cardinalate in the 16th century can be interpreted as a curial attempt to try to reduce the royal impact on this fundamentally ecclesiastical office, to which royal confessors and other courtiers were often appointed. At the same time, the Spanish and to a lesser extent the Portuguese kings strove for papal recognition of their appointees, and through that recognition also a signal of curial approval of them via elevation to the purple. Therefore, the cardinalate was not a prerequisite for the functioning of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisition, but it definitely served all parties involved. Once the Holy Office had been created in the Roman context in 1542, the position of its senior members became defined by their membership of the Sacred College. Indeed, the creation of the Holy Office was based on the concept of delegating legal duties from the pope to the cardinals, who educated either as theologians or as canon lawyers, were eminently suited to fulfil this task. Moreover, the positioning of the Holy Office above all other Cardinals’ Congregations in Sixtus V’s curial reform shows how central this institution was, and increasingly became, within the Church’s administration. As a result, being a member of the Inquisition demarcated a cardinal’s centrality to the curia’s networks, and his proximity to the reigning pope or one of his immediate predecessors. And for those prelates who were not yet cardinal—in particular members of religious orders—the position of consultant presented the ideal career path towards this more exalted rank. So, apart from the external image of the Holy Office as the institution for the extirpation of heresy, for the Church the Holy Office constituted the centre of the ecclesiastical network of power, and underlined the cardinals’ senatorial pretensions, elevated above the bishops, even if other factors were eroding them at the same time.