THE BULLS OF THE CRUSADES.1

I.

IT is not without feelings of deep regret that I am compelled to charge the editor of the the editor of the North American Review with having done serious injustice to my religion in his number for July last. I hope, I trust it was on his part unintentional; yet, whatever might have been his motive and his impression, the fact is that he has libelled the Roman Catholic religion. Were the facts which he alleges true, I should not dissent from his conclusions; for some of those he adduces the authority of writers whom he, I suppose, believed to be good witnesses. I would then exculpate him from so much; but he states other facts as if he had before him the documents upon which he rested as authority; and if he had those documents, and read them with the slightest attention, upon reperusing his own article he must perceive a total aberration in his statements.

The article of which I complain is Art. x, p. 158, on South America. In all that he writes concerning the political bondage of the Spanish colonies, whatever my convictions or feelings may be, I at present have no concern. In all his hopes and wishes for the welfare and prosperity of our neighboring republics, I most heartily concur. But in all that he has written concerning my religion, I beg to

1 This Essay, occasioned by an article in the North American Review for July, 1824, in which were contained some vague and general denunciations of the corruption of the Catholic religion in the South Am rican States, is chiefly d voted to an exposure of some of the historical fallacies and misrepresentations of laws, usages. and doctrines, upon which such charges are usually founded. The greater parts occupied with an accurate explanation of the Bulls of the Crusades and the Bu' of Composition, with the special privileges enjoyed by force of these in the dominions of the King of Spain. The Essay was published in the United States Catholic Miscellany, vol. iii, 1824.

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inform him that he does not appear to be sufficiently acquainted with the subject of which he treats, and that he assumes as facts many things which are untrue.

In p. 164 he informs us:

"In the future pages of our journal, we hope to exhibit from time to time as full and minute a view of the revolutionary history of South America as the nature of our work will admit. We have access to materials which we trust will enable us to do reasonable justice to a subject which is much less understood in this country than its merits deserve, or than our interests as a nation would seem to require, especially when relations of the most intimate kind are daily gaining strength between the United States and the new republics at the South."

This is a reason why I am the more anxious that he should be better informed as regards my religion; for we do not wish to be misrepresented to our fellow-citizens and to the reading world by an authority which is deservedly respected. I am aware that the editor condemns my religion as corrupted and superstitious; I am aware that he is under what I will call an erroneous impression, that it is unfavorable to republicanism. Upon these topics I think very differently from him; but this is not the ground of my complaint. I do not even object that in p. 192 he writes of Roman Catholics: "The spiritual guides of the people were the worst enemies to their peace and happiness; precept and example conspired to scatter poison in the hearts of the unsuspecting, to corrupt the springs of good principle, and extinguish the light of moral truth." I do not complain of this, and more than this: I should blush to write it of the Unitarians; and when I designate this division of persons, it is not to charge them with being more corrupt than others, but to ask the editor of the Review what would be his feelings did I wantonly thus attack that body to which I understand he belongs.

But I do complain that the whole portion of his article which describes the Bulls of the Crusades is a palpable

misstatement. As yet, I acquit the editor of the moral turpitude of intentional misrepresentation; but he but he must permit me to prove my assertion; and though my feelings have been deeply wounded, I shall, I trust, avoid that sort of disrespectful, I may call it contemptuous, language with which it is not even, by scholars and gentlemen, deemed illiberal to assail my Church.

Here is the first extract:

"But the most extraordinary imposition in the whole catalogue was the tax levied through the instrumentality of the Church, which practiced on the credulity, corrupted the morals, and degraded the character of the people, at the same time it picked their pockets. As long ago as the time of the Crusades, bulls were granted by the Pope to certain Spaniards, allowing dispensations for the zeal they displayed in exterminating the infidels, and as an inducement to perseverance in so pious a work. Custom, which establishes everything, brought these bulls into general use; and for many ages they have been palmed off on the people in Spain, ignorant and wise, as possessing a virtue and a power which could only come from heaven. And, as if to fix the last seal of degradation on the Americans, these precious devices of superstition and crime were scattered profusely over the whole extent of the New World, and there employed, by alarming the religious fears of the people on the one hand, and encouraging their vices on the other, to wring from them the little that remained after the torturing engine of taxation had done its heaviest work.

"The bulls were issued every two years, sent over to America from Spain, and sold out by the priests under the direction of a commissary appointed to superintend this branch of the revenue. They were of four kinds: 1. The bull for the living, or Bula de Cruzada, so called because it has some traditionary connection with the Bulls of the Crusades. It was deemed essential for every person to possess this bull, and its virtues were innumerable. Whoever purchased it might

be absolved from all crimes, except heresy, by any priest; and even of heresy he could never be suspected with this shield to protect him. On fast days he might eat anything but meat, and on other days he was exempted from many of the rigorous injunctions of the Church. Two of these bulls, if they had been paid for, communicated double the benefits of one. 2. The bull for eating milk and eggs during Lent. This was intended only for ecclesiastics and persons not holding the first, which entitled the possessor to all the advantages of both. 3. The bull of the dead, Bula de de Defuntos, which was indispensable to rescue departed souls from purgatory. It was bought by the relations of a deceased person as soon as possible after death; and poor people were thrown into agonies of grief and lamentation, if they were not able to purchase this passport for the spirit of a relative suffering the miseries of purgatory. 4. The bull of composition, which released persons who had stolen goods from the obligation to restore them to the owner. One slight condition, it is true, was attached to this bull, which was, that the person, when stealing, had not been moved thereto by any forethought of the virtue of a bull to make the property his own and his conscience white. Bating this small condition, the bull converted all stolen goods into the true and lawful property of the thief. It had the power, moreover, to correct the moral offences of false weights and measures, tricks and fraud in trade; and, in short, all those little obliquities of principle and conduct, to which swindlers resort to rob honest people of their possessions. It assures assures the purchaser,' says Depons, 'the absolute property in whatever he may obtain, by modes that ought to have conducted him to the gallows.' The price of these bulls depended on the amount of goods stolen; but it is just to add that only fifty of them could be taken by the same person in a year.

"The price of the Bula de Cruzada was fixed by the commissary, and varied according to the quality of the

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purchasers. In the mandate of the commissary general for the year 1801, he says: The price is a little raised, but it is on account of the new expenses of government, and of the necessity of extinguishing the royal certificates, which the scarcity of money in a time of war has compelled the king to issue.' At that At that time a viceroy paid fifteen dollars and other persons of wealth and distinction paid five. If any man practiced deception in this matter, and bought a bull at a lower rate than his rank or property demanded, the bull was without virtue, and the purchaser had the comfort of reflecting that he had defrauded himself and thrown away his money. Such a deception was seldom known, even where the amount of a man's property had escaped the scrutiny of the officers; and no sources of the revenue were more certain and productive than this scandalous traffic in scraps of brown paper. It must be remembered that these bulls were available for two years only, and then the people were again to be plundered by this infamous, juggling artifice to stir up their passions and interests, and even to quicken their crimes, where this could be done with a better prospect of grasping their money. But this league of the powers of darkness is fast dissolving; religion could not be mocked nor justice outraged any longer; and if the revolution had done no other thing than relieve the minds of sixteen millions of people from a thraldom so barbarous and debasing, the deed would of itself be a good reward for the sacrifices and sufferings thus far endured by the South Americans in gaining their independence."

The history of the origin and continuance of these bulls might at first sight appear of no importance to their present nature; however, such an impression would be erroneous, for without some knowledge of their history, it would be impossible to have a correct idea of their nature. I shall, therefore, as briefly as possible, give such a sketch as will be, I trust, sufficient. In page 184 of the Review, the editor has the following passage: "The alcavalda origi