During all this period there had been an Inquisition in Aragon which, of course, could not interfere with Jews as such, for they were beyond its jurisdiction, but which stood ready to punish more or less veritable efforts at propagandism or offences of fautorship. The crown had no objection to using it as a means of extortion, while preventing it from exterminating or crippling subjects so useful. A diploma of Jaime II, October 14, 1311, recites that the inquisitor, Fray Juan Llotger, had learned that the aljamas of Barcelona, Tarragona, Monblanch and Vilafranca had harbored and fed certain Jewish converts, who had relapsed to Judaism, as well as others who had come from foreign parts. He had given Fray Juan the necessary support, enabling him to verify the accusations on the spot and had received his report to that effect. Now, therefore, he issues a free and full pardon to the offending aljamas, with assurance that they shall not be prosecuted either civilly or criminally, for which grace, on October 10th, they had paid him ten thousand sueldos. In this case there seems to have been no regular trial by the Inquisition, the king having superseded it by his action. In another more serious case he intervened after trial and sentence to commute the punishment. In 1326 the aljama of Calatayud subjected itself to the Inquisition by not only receiving back a woman who had been baptized but by circumcising two Christians. Tried by the inquisitor and the Bishop of Tarazona it had been found guilty and it had been sentenced to a fine of twenty thousand sueldos and its members to confiscation, but King Jaime, by a cédula of February 6, 1326, released them from the confiscation and all other penalties on payment of the fine.[282]
Although Castile was slower than Aragon to receive impulses from abroad, in the early fourteenth century we begin to find traces of a similar movement of the Church against the Jews. In 1307 the aljama of Toledo complained to Fernando IV that the dean and chapter had obtained from Clement V bulls conferring on them jurisdiction over Jews, in virtue of which they were enforcing the canons against usury and stripping the Jewish community of its property. At this time there was no question in Spain, such as we shall see debated hereafter, of the royal prerogative to control obnoxious papal letters, and Fernando at once ordered the chapter to surrender the bulls; all action under them was pronounced void and restitution in double was threatened for all damage inflicted. The Jews, he said, were his Jews; they were not to be incapacitated from paying their taxes and the pope had no power to infringe on the rights of the crown. He instructed Ferran Nuñez de Pantoja to compel obedience and, after some offenders had been arrested, the frightened canons surrendered the bulls and abandoned their promising speculation, but the affair left behind it enmities which displayed themselves deplorably afterwards.[283]