Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros

Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros (born 1436, Torrelaguna, Castile [now in Spain]—died November 8, 1517, Roa, Spain) was a prelate, religious reformer, and twice regent of Spain (1506, 1516–17). In 1507 he became both a cardinal and the grand inquisitor of Spain, and during his public life he sought the forced conversion of the Spanish Moors and promoted Crusades to conquer North Africa. See also Spanish Inquisition.

Jiménez was the son of a poor hidalgo (lower nobility) tax collector and was christened Gonzalo. He studied at the University of Salamanca and, after taking holy orders, spent a number of years in Rome (1459–66), where he disliked the humanists at the papal court but was impressed by their learning. Pope Paul II gave him an “expective letter” for the first vacant benefice in the archdiocese of Toledo. The archbishop, Alfonso de Carillo, refused to accept the letter and, in 1473, when Jiménez insisted on his rights, threw him into prison. Refusing release at the price of giving up his claims, Jiménez remained in prison until 1479, when Carillo gave way. In 1482 Cardinal Pedro González de Mendoza, impressed by Jiménez’s ability and strength of character, made him vicar general of the bishopric of Sigüenza. In 1484 Jiménez gave up this post and, apparently, a brilliant career and became a monk in the Franciscan monastery of San Juan de los Reyes at Toledo, taking the name of Fray (Brother) Francisco.

In 1492, on Mendoza’s recommendation, Isabella I the Catholic, of Castile, appointed him her confessor. From then on his influence grew rapidly. In 1495 he succeeded Mendoza as archbishop of Toledo. This position gave Jiménez the opportunity to initiate the reform of the Spanish clergy. At synods of Alcalá (1497) and Talavera (1498) he promulgated a series of orders: the clergy had to give up the common practice of concubinage, and they were required to reside in their parishes, to go to frequent confession, and to preach and explain the gospel to their parishioners every Sunday. A simple catechism was published with the decrees. The monks, first of Jiménez’s own order of the Franciscans and then of the other orders, were required to observe their traditional rules. Aristocratic ecclesiastics resented this interference with their lifestyle and appealed to Isabella and to Rome; 400 monks from Andalusia even fled to North Africa with their “wives” and became Muslims. But gradually the reforms became effective, at least in the monastic orders.

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Against the advice of Hernando de Talavera, archbishop of Granada (who wanted to convert the Moors of Granada slowly by education), Jiménez introduced forced mass conversions. The Moriscos (Spanish Muslims who had previously accepted baptism), although now nominally Christians, were neither willing to be assimilated to the Christian Spaniards nor were they accepted as equals by the latter. Jiménez’s intervention was the direct cause of a Moorish revolt in 1499–1500, and he must be held largely responsible for making the Morisco problem insoluble. In 1609 the Moriscos were finally expelled from Spain.

Jiménez spent the last years of Isabella’s reign mostly at her court as her principal religious and political adviser. Upon her death, in 1504, he supported the claims of Ferdinand II the Catholic, of Aragon, against his son-in-law, Philip of Burgundy, but helped to mediate the Agreement of Salamanca, which left Philip as king of Castile. On Philip’s death (1506) Jiménez set up a regency government for Ferdinand, who was in Naples at the time, and stopped the intrigues of a group of high nobles who wanted to make over the regency to the Holy Roman emperor Maximilian I. Ferdinand made him grand inquisitor and obtained for him the cardinal’s hat in 1507. As grand inquisitor, Jiménez insisted that the inquisitors observe the inquisitorial rules strictly, but he also extended the authority of the Supreme Council of the Inquisition (the “Holy Office”) over the local inquisitorial courts. It was said that he offered from his own resources to pay Ferdinand the sum of 600,000 ducats, which the conversos (converted Jews) had offered the king for the abolition of the Inquisition.

Jiménez was the guiding spirit behind the Spanish campaigns in North Africa (1505–10), which he helped finance from his archiepiscopal revenues. But, because of a greater interest in Italy, Ferdinand was content with the capture of Oran and other ports and refused to support Jiménez’s plan for a Crusade to conquer all North Africa.

Jiménez knew that the reform of the morals and pastoral work of the clergy could not be effective without a parallel intellectual reform of the church. He thus began planning the foundation of a new university at Alcalá de Henares in 1498. It opened in 1508. Apart from the usual chairs in Thomist theology, Jiménez also established chairs in Scotist and Nominalist theology, as well as in Oriental languages. He attracted some of the finest contemporary scholars to Alcalá (although Erasmus refused his invitation). These scholars cooperated in the production of the famous Complutensian Polyglot Bible (completed in 1517 and published c. 1522).

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At the death of Ferdinand (1516) Jiménez once more became regent of Castile. The old antagonisms between the nobility and the cities and between the Castilians and the Aragonese broke out again. Some of Ferdinand’s Castilian opponents had previously gone to the court in Brussels. They were now joined by Ferdinand’s Aragonese ministers, who tried to secure their position with the prospective new ruler, Ferdinand’s grandson, Charles of Burgundy (later Charles I of Spain and Emperor Charles V). They were bitterly resented by those who remained in Spain. A group of Castilian nobles plotted to place Charles’s young brother Ferdinand on the throne, but Jiménez forestalled them and obtained the general recognition of Charles in Castile. It was largely due to the cardinal’s efforts that Charles could take over his new kingdom without open opposition (September 1517). But Jiménez died without seeing the new king.