A Year: Day to Day Men: 17th of December
The Victory of a Clean Sweep
On December 17th of 1531 Pope Clement VII published a papal bull, an official decree, entitled “Cum ad Nihil Magis”, which introduced the Inquisition into Portugal at Evora, Colmbra and Lisbon. The Inquisition eventually extended into the Portuguese colony of Goa for the period between 1562-1563. Its influence was weakened severely by the late eighteenth-century under the government of the 4th Marguês de Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho Melo e Daun. The Portuguese Inquisition lasted officially until 1821.
Notes: Duarte de Paz was a representative in Rome of the Portuguese Marrano family. He had begun his career in diplomacy as the Portuguese military attaché for the Marranos. De Paz won the confidence of King John III of Portugal and the Algarves, who knighted him in 1532 and sent him on a secret mission. Instead, De Paz went to Rome to enlist the Curia’s intercession for the Marranos who were accused of lapses into Judaism.
De Paz had a relaxed and cunning style and plied the cardinals and Pope Clement VII with money made available for this purpose by the Marranos. His success was the issuance on October 1532 of a papal decree repealing the “Cum ad Nihil Magis” of 1531, which had introduced the inquisition into Portugal.
De Paz’s second success was the issuance of the bull “Sempiterno Regi” pardoning the Marranos for their lapses on the ground that their forced conversions were not valid. Under the new Pope Paul III, he achieved another success with a papal bull that extended the civil rights of the Marranos which resulted in the release of eighteen-hundred Marranos from Portuguese dungeons.
Duarte de Paz’s insubordinate activities was noticed by King John III who stripped him of his commission and honor. He narrowly escaped an assassination attempt, denied by the king, and proceeded to bring his affairs to a close. Accused by the Marranos of having taken a missing four thousand ducats, De Paz denounced the family and traveled to Italy. Surprised and imprisoned in Ferrara, he openly espoused Judaism upon his release and migrated to Turkey where, shortly before his death, he reportedly became a Muslim.
An extensive history and description of the Portuguese Inquisition process can be found at: http://www.jewishwikipedia.info/auto_de_fe.html