PRIESTS AND BULLS

In July 2019, over 1.3 million people participated in Pamplona's San Fermín festival, best known for its encierro, or running of the bulls. Popularized largely through the writings of Ernest Hemingway, this Navarrese religious festival is today mostly associated with nine days of parades, parties, hard drinking, bullfights, and injuries. Today, as in the sixteenth century, the running of the bulls is a means to an end:Footnote ¹⁰ logistically, the bulls must be run from their pens outside of town into the central plaza where they are fought (and killed), and the entire process (today and in the past) is fraught with ethical controversy.Footnote ¹¹ Shaped by a long history of pre-Christian sacrifices, Roman games, Spanish military training, and religious celebrations, the Iberian bullfights have been justified according to different rationales and associated with very different meanings throughout their history.Footnote ¹² Since the medieval period, and certainly in the early modern period, bullfighting was the capstone to festivals in honor of the saints, and often associated with specific vows to local saints.Footnote ¹³ In the sixteenth century and during the Catholic Reformation, bullfighting came under the scrutiny of reform-minded prelates who sought to cultivate a more professional clergy and a more pious laity. Decrees emanating from the papacy and Spanish episcopate in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries attempted to outlaw the practice, or at least disassociate it from religious festivities.Footnote ¹⁴

The first substantive post-Tridentine attempt in Spain to curb bullfighting with the express purpose of directing religious fervor into calmer and more focused channels occurred at the twenty-fourth Council of Toledo (1565–66).Footnote ¹⁵ Though the bishop of Pamplona did not attend this council, the Council of Toledo made far-ranging decisions that deeply shaped the trajectory of reform for all dioceses in Spain.Footnote ¹⁶ Controversial from the outset, it read portions of the Tridentine decrees pertaining to holding synods and to the necessity of clerical residency and, in its second session, published thirty-one articles relating to reforming Catholicism at the diocesan level and below. Among these, it forbade priests from participating in spectacles and it nullified any vows associated with fighting bulls in honor of the saints. In the third and final session of the council held in March 1566, it went further yet, ordering towns to change the days they ran the bulls so that they could not coincide with religious festivals.Footnote ¹⁷

The Council of Toledo's stance on bullfighting predicted subsequent reforms. In 1567, directly through the papal bull De Salute Gregis Dominici, Pope Pius V (r. 1566–72) banned the practice entirely for all Catholics.Footnote ¹⁸ The Council of Trent had forbidden dueling in its twenty-fifth session,Footnote ¹⁹ and, in the 1567 bull, Pius clarified the overlap between duels of honor and bullfighting. The bull stated that “although the abominable use of the duel, introduced by the Devil to gain ruin of souls through the cruel death of bodies, was forbidden by a decree of the Council of Trent, up to now in many cities and places, so as to demonstrate their strength and courage at public and private spectacles, many individuals have not ceased engaging with bulls and other wild animals, frequently resulting in the death of men, in mutilation of body-parts and endangering souls.”Footnote ²⁰ The burden of enforcing this very unpopular prohibition was placed in the hands “of each and every Christian prince,” whom, under “pain of ipso facto excommunication and anathema,” were ordered to “prohibit the carrying out of spectacles of this nature in their provinces, cities, lands, castles and places where spectacles of this kind are realized, where bullfights and similar sports with other wild animals are permitted.”Footnote ²¹ Bowing to reality, however, the papal bull also reminded priests and bishops that it was their responsibility to publicize the ban and to alert their superiors if anyone in their jurisdictions was ignoring it.Footnote ²²

Anticipating various loopholes and exceptions, the bull forbade the use of bullfighting in its traditional martial training context and prohibited “military personnel and other persons from daring to join such spectacles, whether on foot or on horseback, to confront bulls or other animals.”Footnote ²³ More importantly, it laid out explicit penalties for members of the clergy who not only condoned bullfighting among their flocks, but who also risked their own lives in “these cruel and base spectacles of the Devil and not of man.”Footnote ²⁴ Any and all “churchmen, both regular and secular, with ecclesiastical benefices or constituted in Holy Orders,” were forbidden from participating in bullfights, under pain of excommunication.Footnote ²⁵ Anyone who died in a bullfight (whether they were lay or religious) would be denied ecclesiastical burial.Footnote ²⁶

Finally, recognizing that it was itself in direct contradiction of many important vows and religious devotions (and echoing the Council of Toledo's earlier decisions), the bull informed devotees that effective immediately it declared, “forever invalid, null and useless all obligations, oaths and vows made by persons, communities or groups of persons to this date, or which may be made in the future, related to bullfights, even though they may have erroneously thought that they were honoring the saints or giving greater splendor to ecclesiastical solemnities and festivities. Such festivities must be celebrated with divine praise, spiritual joy, and pious works and not with similar sports.”Footnote ²⁷ Both the Council of Toledo and the 1567 bull expanded upon the underlying Tridentine issue; that is, they sought to curb embarrassing priestly activities and professionalize the face of the Catholic Church and, in doing so, to strengthen the legitimacy of Catholicism amid the continuing threat of Protestantism. Catholics may have had the best intentions when they thought they were honoring the saints by fighting bulls on feast days but, as the papacy now impressed, these were at best distractions from true pious worship and, at worst, opportunities for full-scale demonic mischief.

Advisers to Pius expected pushback in Spain, and even before the bull was officially published in August 1567 they had reached out to the Spanish nuncio and prelates to prepare them, as well as to try to gauge reactions. Spanish prelates warned that the Spanish church, as well as the Spanish Crown, would do their best to ensure that the bull would never be published in Spain. The pope's own nuncio summarized the prevailing opinion in Spain, pointing out that “not a single saint has called it a sin … and if it were a sin, so many saintly pontiffs would not have permitted it [in honor of other saints].”Footnote ²⁸ At the Spanish court, the Franciscan friar Antonio de Córdoba drew upon his close relationship with King Philip II (r. 1556–98) to head off publication of the bull by promoting his new book, De Difficilibus Quaestionibus (The difficult question, 1567), which further expanded upon why bullfighting could not constitute a sin and should not be outlawed. The papacy ordered the nuncio to reprimand the friar and suppress publication of his book.Footnote ²⁹

Ultimately, bowing to such pressure from the royal court, De Salute Gregis Dominici was never formally published in Spain. Nonetheless, the Spanish nuncio insisted in his correspondence with Rome that though he did not believe that the Spanish prelates had published the bull in formaliter, he understood “that it was something very publicly known everywhere” and that, moreover, authorities were taking steps to make bullfights “less dangerous.” This was no small matter, he remarked, “considering how seriously everyone takes [bullfighting].”Footnote ³⁰

Pius's bull carried the enforcement classification “ad perpetuam rei memoriam,” meaning that it technically was to be active until overridden by a subsequent bull. In 1575 and 1585, under pressure from King Philip II, Pius's successor Pope Gregory XIII (r. 1572–85) did nullify portions of the ban—but not the entire bull—allowing the laity but not clergy to participate. Moreover, when bullfights were held, authorities were to ensure that they did not coincide with feast days and that they were to do their utmost to prevent “disgraces.”Footnote ³¹ However, this partial ban effectively meant that it was all the harder to enforce the prohibition among the clergy, who now had to steel themselves against the constant temptation to join in the bullfighting their flocks enthusiastically resumed (or continued).

TRIDENTINE REFORM IN THE DIOCESE OF PAMPLONA

Not long after the close of the last session of the Council of Trent, the diocese of Pamplona inaugurated a series of policies intended to introduce and enforce reformed Catholicism throughout the lowest reaches of its parish clergy. These continued the programs that had been in formation since the 1520s, though following the close of the council the diocese approached reform with clearer purpose and greater fervor. While visitation records for the diocese are incomplete until the eighteenth century, frequent references to visitors, so-called surprise visitations, and related mandates indicate that they occurred regularly in the post-Tridentine period. Without these records, the best glimpses into the diocese's vision and program of reform come through synods and the diocesan court proceedings.Footnote ³²

Called by Bishop-Cardinal Bernardo Rojas y Sandoval (1546–1618) and celebrated in 1590, the diocese's first major post-Tridentine synod laid the groundwork for years of reformed diocesan policies.Footnote ³³ As Henry Kamen has established for elsewhere in Spain, synods were highly politicized, and internal pressures within the Spanish dioceses, as well as pressure from the Crown, made holding—let alone enforcing—synods difficult.Footnote ³⁴ The diocese of Pamplona covered areas that were culturally and linguistically very different from the rest of Spain, yet politically—and particularly in terms of central church authority—Navarre was closely tied into and responsive to broader policy.Footnote ³⁵ Moreover, the combined existence of unique Basque cultural traditions, a strong regional government, a very ambitious diocesan church, and particularly good record preservation, mean that the diocese of Pamplona is not a peripheral example of the implementation of reform in Iberia. Rather, it is exemplary of the direction reform took when implemented by an aggressively legal-minded diocese, working hand in hand with equally enthusiastic secular institutions.Footnote ³⁶

The 1590 synod was firm in its positions and wide-ranging, reiterating much of what had been addressed at the council and, indeed, going further on certain issues (namely, the imperative of clerical residency). Some of the synod's most vivid (and idiosyncratic) language dealt with clerical misdemeanors and the imagined ways in which certain creative priests might seek to circumvent the decrees. Among many other things, the synod expressly forbade priests from participating in Basque festivities, bearing arms, donning traditional costume, and running with the bulls (or dressing like they might). Drinking with their parishioners—whether at home, in a tavern, or even in a shrine—was also condemned under no uncertain terms. Some priests had taken to cracking jokes and “dressing up to act out profane scenes” in front of their congregations;Footnote ³⁷ whatever this entailed exactly was forbidden, as were the costumes and instruments that went along with it. Such things, even if they meant well, led “the laymen to esteem [the clergy] very little,” and must be avoided at all costs.Footnote ³⁸

Moreover, the diocese was exceptionally interested in making sure not only that the synod's content would outline a general diocesan policy of reform, but also that these policies would be transparent and widely publicized and disseminated. Thus, shortly after the conclusion of the synod, the entire constitution was printed and bound, and a copy sent to each parish in the diocese. While it is not likely that the average parishioner was actively seeking out these decrees and reading them—let alone caring much about their actual content—the cost and effort of dissemination speaks to the efforts of the diocese in calibrating reform to the peculiarities of rural Basque village life. However, the decrees were there, as was the signal that the diocese cared about what was going on at the parish level and sought a level of uniform respectability among its clergy. Equally important, parishioners in the diocese of Pamplona saw immediate advantage in a number of aspects of the reform program, especially as they pertained to redrawing a balance of power between them and their clergy.Footnote ³⁹ Increasingly, through a process of positive reinforcement in the Diocesan court, litigious parishioners developed a good sense of the kinds of crimes the diocese was most interested in prosecuting, as well as the kind of language that helped lead to a guilty verdict.

Though certainly initially coached along by ecclesiastical lawyers (indeed, witness queries tended to be quite leading and repetitive), parishioners began adopting the language and attitude of Tridentine reform both in their complaints about their clergy and within their idealized visions of what the relationship between the laity and their clergy ought to resemble. Witnesses and litigants frequently justified their claims or made demands of the diocese based on an understanding of their rights as Christians with vague but strategic explanations based on “what the Holy Council of Trent says” (“cómo dice el Santo Concilio de Trento”). For example, the town council of Estella invoked the articles of Trent to argue that the town and not the local monastery should be in charge of organizing processions, on the grounds that the monks had been violating degrees concerning claustration. The bishop agreed, and ordered the monks to cede control to local authorities, enabling them to stay put within their monastery.Footnote ⁴⁰ In Arzoz, parishioners tried to use the decrees to dislodge a priest they disliked, on the grounds that Trent guaranteed them a priest who could “explain scripture to them … in the Basque language.”Footnote ⁴¹ This was beside the point in Villava, where there were no parishioners to even hear the Mass, regardless of the language: the Villavans were so absolutely repulsed by their “loathsome” pastor Don Juan de Iribas that they fled his presence whenever he approached the front of the church to say Mass.Footnote ⁴² The situation was complicated by ancient privileges in which the canons of Roncesvalles claimed the right to name parish priests in this small suburb of Pamplona. In perfect half-compliance with the new Tridentine reforms, the canons refused to relinquish their naming rights to either the bishop or the parish, but apparently attempted to name a native Villavan to fill the vacancy, according to diocesan precedents regarding the preference for appointing local priests first.Footnote ⁴³ Separated from the close village life of Villava by some forty kilometers up in the Pyrenees, the canons clearly failed to appreciate the complexity of local politics, and accidentally named a son of one of the most quarrelsome families in the town. The town sued, alleging a more substantial portfolio of disqualifications than just being loathsome, including nepotism and simony.Footnote ⁴⁴

A less serious but more representative example of how parishioners might try to coat their complaints with a Tridentine veneer occurred in Usurbil in 1591. In this year, the small village's priest, Don Juan Gómez Corta, failed to lead the members of his flock into better behavior via patient instruction, instead choosing to shame them into submission by embarrassing them in front of the rest of the congregation. The parishioners of Usurbil appear to have long harbored resentment against their priest in this matter, but the case that finally drew the diocese's attention involved a particularly ugly altercation in which Don Juan physically attacked a number of teenagers during Mass. Ursubil practiced a local tradition in which the youths came to Mass on Saint John the Baptist's Day in disguise “with their faces covered or otherwise [painted] in black.”Footnote ⁴⁵ Don Juan ostensibly had been trying to suppress this tradition, to no effect. Thus, when the youths came to Mass in their costumes and tried to approach the altar to receive communion, Don Juan “fell to pieces,”Footnote ⁴⁶ responded by publicly slandering them as “traitors, thieves, and the sons of traitorous thieves,”Footnote ⁴⁷ and then proceeded to snatch one of their wooden swords and beat them around the church. He was slapped with a rapid and coherent group lawsuit brought by the mayor, city council, jurors, citizens of Usurbil, and the diocesan fiscal (the bishop's prosecuting attorney), who claimed that contrary to Don Juan's allegations, the Usurbilians were “sons of loyal people, none of whom had been noted as traitors.”Footnote ⁴⁸ Moreover, they took advantage of the situation and used it as a tool to accuse their clearly unpopular priest on terms his superiors could not ignore: Don Juan, they alleged, had “sinned a great deal … [by] having illicit interactions and conversations with a local woman.”Footnote ⁴⁹ Witnesses eagerly contributed statements about the public nature of the relationship, the scandal it was generating, and (by extension) the harm it was causing the spiritual wellbeing of the parish. Don Juan was admonished to “stay away from and not talk to the said [woman],”Footnote ⁵⁰ but more importantly, “to take his [vocation more seriously] and not to be quarrelsome nor rude and not to insult anyone as his priestly vestments require.”Footnote ⁵¹

Some strategies to evoke Tridentine sympathy regarding abusive pastoral care were more piecemeal: for instance, a lawsuit initiated by several beneficed clergy against one of their colleagues alleging general clerical misconduct offered parishioners of Deba an opportunity to introduce a number of unrelated complaints. On Christmas Day 1631, Don Pedro de Lizaola yelled at the sacristan for not having some ornamentation properly prepared. Another priest, named Don Francisco de Andonega, intervened, telling Don Pedro to “quiet down, and not to talk so loudly in the church.”Footnote ⁵² Don Pedro responded by telling him “he didn't need to quiet down, and in this way [the sacristan] would actually hear him.”Footnote ⁵³ The altercation escalated quickly, with all three attacking each other and several parishioners joining in, and finally resulted with Don Francisco biting Don Pedro; Don Pedro then bled all over the church, which was a sacrilege and therefore became the immediate legal problem.Footnote ⁵⁴

As the bishop's fiscal went about collecting evidence, he admitted a number of other complaints about Don Pedro, including claims that he had fathered several children with a local woman and mocked the secrecy of confession. Specifically, a man named Domingo de Yturbite reported that the previous July he had been so gravely ill that he had called for Don Pedro so he could administer the last rites. Don Pedro did so, but then Domingo recovered, only to discover that Don Pedro had been telling everyone about his confession: “[Don Pedro] got down on his knees and pretended to beat his chest and acted the buffoon and made fun of the things that [Domingo] had wanted to confess.”Footnote ⁵⁵ Domingo was deeply ashamed, and stated repeatedly that he “said the things that the sick tend to say,” and according to what he thought he was supposed to do when dying.Footnote ⁵⁶ That the accusations were first lodged by their priests shielded the parishioners from the trouble (and potential costs) of beginning their own lawsuit. Equally important was their apparent ambivalence about pursuing their complaints quickly; the crimes the parishioners alleged (the concubinage and mockery) occurred months and years earlier, while those introduced by the other priests (the tumult and sacrilege) occurred only a week before. Moreover, the witness statements were clearly split: the parishioners provided the most substantial testimony about only the two former crimes and the clergy largely refrained from commenting on the sexual escapades of their colleague.Footnote ⁵⁷

In this way, complaints gradually became more complex.Footnote ⁵⁸ In both first and second stage testimony, parishioners articulated a mix of violations of specific decrees, as well as more general dissatisfaction with how priests interacted with their parishioners, how they failed to fashion themselves as members apart, and, particularly, the degree to which they neglected to successfully remember “their priestly offices and, correspondent to this, treat others with humility and peace.”Footnote ⁵⁹ Pamplonese bishops were generally sympathetic to a wide range of complaints from parishioners, but they were also overworked: compared to neighboring dioceses, the diocese of Pamplona devoted much more of its attention to civil and criminal litigation. In the 1630s, for comparison, the neighboring diocese of Zaragoza heard on average two to three criminal cases each year, but handled around 250 matters pertaining to vicars and benefices every year; whereas in 1635, the diocese of Pamplona's Ecclesiastical Tribunal (including cases litigated by the bishop's prosecutor and pastorate) heard approximately 67 cases pertaining to benefices and licenses to say Mass and 131 other sorts of cases including criminal cases, matrimonial and cohabitation matters, testamentary quarrels, and disputes over payments.Footnote ⁶⁰ As they fought for room on this busy docket, parishioners endeavored to present concrete examples of how priests were seriously embarrassing themselves or were physically harming them; without such evidence, cases were often shuffled aside and left pending for years to come.

Still, there was no shortage of these more exceptional transgressions, probably to both the horror and amusement of the bishop's legal team charged with investigating them. In the years following the 1590 synod, the diocese heard frequent cases of priests engaging in questionable behavior with their parishioners or failing to withdraw fully from the secular life. To cite a few examples, in Tafalla in 1594, Don Esteban Romeo and various other clergy were tried for their obsession with playing ball in “breeches and jerkins” and missing Mass to do so.Footnote ⁶¹ Don Juan de Labayen beat up one of his parishioners in Biurrun in 1601 after being accused of rigging a cockfight; during the proceedings other parishioners came forward with similar stories of the harm they had suffered in (and by) Don Juan's hands.Footnote ⁶² At the same time, Don Joan de Ochoa of Artabia scandalized his parishioners by being “restless and revolting” and falling down drunkenly three times on the way to say Mass.Footnote ⁶³

The diocese's investigations were thorough, and when the evidence was substantive, the penalties swift and consistent with their goals to foster professionalism. Yet ultimately, their success rested in cooperation and coordination with the parishioners and people that were most familiar with (and most often a victim of) their priests’ misbehavior. Keeping priests in their parishes—and making sure they acted like priests while they were there—quickly became the diocese's primary Tridentine project. Overlapping with the 1590 synod and following through the next century, the diocese handled hundreds of cases involving absent, violent, drunken, or simply fun-loving clergy. Through these cases, the program of reform radiated outward, enlisting the help of many other individuals who did not initially figure into the official program of reform.

GENDER AND THE RULES OF THE GAME

Priestly failings tended to concentrate around communal festivities, falling broadly within patterns of behavior that Scott Taylor calls “aggressive male sociability.”Footnote ⁶⁴ Though parishioners reported a variety of pastoral scandals and general lapses in judgment year round, major feast days saw more than their fair share. Locally chosen priests were increasingly preferred following the 1590 synod, which meant better chances for continuous and attentive clerical residency. On the other hand, these policies also meant that priests were well acculturated into local traditions, and that they had a deep friend group with which to celebrate them.

Younger priests in their twenties, chaplains, and clerical students were overwhelmingly represented among the clergy charged with being too fanatical about playing ball or roaming around the streets at night drinking and singing with lay friends.Footnote ⁶⁵ Similarly, it was these younger—and presumably less established—clerics who seem to have had more trouble affording and maintaining a proper clerical wardrobe.Footnote ⁶⁶ They were also particularly prone to shedding or modifying their essential vestments in order to facilitate related activities such as dancing, sports, and, of course, bullfighting. For example, Don Luís de Echave got drunk at a running of the bulls in the beach town of Zarautz and allegedly “ran about inside the caves, only to come out of them very indecently, and provide [everyone] with the worst possible example.”Footnote ⁶⁷ Don Miguel de Zabalegui, beneficed priest from Artaxoa, was prosecuted for indecency resulting from having rolled his alb up too far while playing ball.Footnote ⁶⁸ Don Juan de Torres of Allo was reprimanded for marching in a procession wearing white stockings and a layman's hat, the sight of which was apparently so ridiculous that it caused his parishioners to dissolve into fits of giggles.Footnote ⁶⁹ Don Lázaro Ruiz de Celedón of Oteiza remembered to wear proper clerical attire, but did so while fighting a bull in Estella in 1634. Unfortunately, his robes may have slowed him down, and he was caught by a horn while trying to stab the bull. Dragged behind the bull, his alb was torn and ruined. Astonishingly, Don Lázaro was unhurt, and the subsequent trial focused more on the shame he had brought himself in exposing himself and having spoiled his priestly vestments.Footnote ⁷⁰ In a world in which outward signs were key to indicating interior perfection and composure, enforcing reputable clerical garb was an understandably pressing issue for diocesan authorities intent on cultivating a professional lower clergy.

Moreover, all these failings (involving bulls or otherwise) were exacerbated by demographic and communal pressures in the Basque Country that at once accentuated and limited displays of masculinity; when parishioners reported (or concealed) these behaviors, they were implicitly expressing their own ideas about clerical masculinity. Basque gender dynamics have traditionally been stereotyped as matricentric, with households and extended families controlled by strong-willed and dominant matriarchs.Footnote ⁷¹ While more serious historiography and anthropology rejects these tropes, these depictions do help remind historians to consider seriously some of the consequences of deep-rooted and complex familial strategies of dictating which children would inherit and reproduce the family legacy. These are particularly important when considered alongside historic Basque patterns of New World emigration, deep-sea fishing and whaling, and migratory animal husbandry that took many men out of the community and away for years at a time (or for life).Footnote ⁷² Moreover, by the early seventeenth century, more and more Basque estates became entailed, with single designated sons or daughters inheriting the entire household and farmstead.Footnote ⁷³ Unmarried siblings usually were allowed to remain at home and were provided for, but not in a capacity that would allow them to set up their own households. Celibate brothers and sons in this position were tagged for nonreproductive roles and, with few other options, many chose to emigrate or seek employment away from their villages.Footnote ⁷⁴ Others entered the clergy with or without a preexisting call to the vocation.

In some key ways, the positions available for unmarried women allowed them to express themselves through more clearly established gender codes than did the concurrent positions available for unmarried men. In sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Basque Country, unmarried women could become seroras, or devout laywomen licensed by the diocese to care for local churches and shrines.Footnote ⁷⁵ The seroría was prestigious, required a dowry, carried a stipend, and even offered a version of ecclesiastical immunity for women who chose this path. It was certainly not a dumping ground for excess women, but it did help alleviate a gender imbalance by providing a respectable place outside marriage and monasticism for young and older women alike. Though seroras could not be married at the time of appointment and were expected to remain chaste, the vocation was decidedly feminine and domestic, consisting largely of cleaning the church and maintaining vestments and liturgical items. The seroría encouraged female autonomy and celebrated the ways in which women were uniquely qualified to contribute to local religious life.

By contrast, corollary positions for celibate Basque males suppressed traditional demonstrations of masculinity, pressing them to express their masculinity in more subversive ways.Footnote ⁷⁶ This was also true for the men who entered the clergy as parish priests or in minor orders. Apart from heading families and having sexual relationships, Basque males expressed masculinity through dress, hairstyle, participation in public festivals, hunting, playing ball, carrying weapons, and running with the bulls—all activities forbidden to the clergy and increasingly enforced following the 1590 synod.Footnote ⁷⁷ Many Basque clergy chafed under these restrictions and seem to have had little problem allowing themselves exceptions to the rule, particularly regarding leisure activities and the lure of weapons. Surrounded by friends who had inherited households and living in the shadow of relatives who had emigrated to the New World and were now sending back remittances from their conquests in Peru, Mexico, the Philippines, and elsewhere, many young priests appear restless and bored.Footnote ⁷⁸ Hunting, sports, and carrying swords and guns allowed the clergy brief moments to reclaim and express masculine identity. Less socially acceptable (but nonetheless common in the Pamplona records) were related aggressive and boisterous behaviors, such as carousing, heavy drinking, fighting, and, of course, rape and other sexual crimes.Footnote ⁷⁹ The risks of participating in these activities and being caught likely added to the appeal. Being a priest could never truly be an ungendered role, as much as diocesan authorities and parishioners jointly might try to restrict modes of performing priestly gender identities.Footnote ⁸⁰

The relationship between these masculine activities and honor is harder to track. As Androniki Dialeti has observed, male honor revolved around a “cultural construction of women's defenders and enemies.” Defense and service to women was an essential component of elite honor and, in the early modern period, this definition was deftly appropriated by wider swaths of the male population who sought to confirm their own masculinity—priests were no exception.Footnote ⁸¹ By definition, priests had honor, but not in the sense that other men did: priests could certainly lose honor but they were not supposed to defend it publicly, in the way other males were.Footnote ⁸² They could embarrass themselves, and they certainly could involve themselves in dishonorable behavior, but they were expected to refrain from violent demonstrations to regain honor. Nonetheless, priests sometimes sought to protect their masculine honor by extension, particularly via honor disputes involving family members. For example, in 1628, the priest Don Miguel Marín was exiled from Mendigorria for attacking his former friend, Francisco Pérez. Pérez—who was married—had taken advantage of his friendship with Don Miguel to seduce and later “abduct” Don Miguel's sister, Catalina, and stash her at the home of his cousin.Footnote ⁸³ Catalina refused to come home, citing abuse on the part of her brother and mother. About a week later, after performing a baptism and joining the procession that followed, Don Miguel spotted Pérez in the crowd. Removing a heavy wooden stick he had been carrying beneath his cassock, Don Miguel beat Pérez, while “shouting that each blow ‘was what honor felt like.’”Footnote ⁸⁴ Pérez drew his sword on Don Miguel, and both were dragged off to jail by the constable and his men.Footnote ⁸⁵ Existing in the liminal and tightly controlled world of the celibate while also living among friends and family, Don Miguel had tried to assert his masculine honor within his community, at least insofar as to control his sister's sexuality. Don Miguel's aggression landed him in the diocesan court, which ultimately exiled him into the secular world, meaning that his attempt to occupy both gendered and ungendered roles as a priest ultimately failed.

As Pamplona's post-Tridentine diocesan court records attest, one of the diocese's biggest unresolved problems was restraining and taming an active (and athletic) parish clergy during these years. Michelle Armstrong-Partida has examined clerical concubinage in late medieval Iberia as an expression of clerical masculinity, in which priests’ communities tacitly accepted or even encouraged domestic partnerships between their clergy and local women because they saw such behavior as befitting adult males.Footnote ⁸⁶ In the early modern Basque Country, the diocese heard a case alleging concubinage twice a year or so; lost visitation records may have uncovered and suppressed far more incidents.Footnote ⁸⁷ Whereas concubinage may have therefore been underreported by ambivalent parishioners or overlooked by overworked visitors, it was most likely to appear alongside collected other charges or when it finally reached a point where it became disruptive.

Specifically, allegations of bullfighting helped draw the bishop's attention to standard and vague complaints about concubinage, even if neither charge had much substance. For instance, the diocese intervened in Peralta in 1617 after villagers complained that Don Matteo de Rabanera was causing more scandal than they could handle. All charges (even after they had been drawn up by the bishop's fiscal) were rather vague, and witnesses provided little information about the nature of their complaints, other than that they were generally dissatisfied with Don Matteo's behavior and service. The two main charges presented alleged that Don Matteo “had been having dishonest relations with a single woman, entering and exiting her house, night and day, and causing much scandal.”Footnote ⁸⁸ Additionally, and more substantively, parishioners reported that Don Matteo “contravening the synodal constitution, had been fighting bulls publicly, even though priests are not supposed to do such things, and he has also committed other crimes.”Footnote ⁸⁹ Only one witness, named Baltasar de Zalduendo, actually testified to the effect that Don Matteo had been present at any bullfights and, even so, Don Matteo appeared to have kept “behind the barriers,”Footnote ⁹⁰ even though the witness did spot him “poking at the bulls with a long [lance] that he was accustomed to carrying.”Footnote ⁹¹ None of the other witnesses had anything to say about bullfighting; they instead limited their testimony to vague complaints about the scandal Don Matteo was causing with his girlfriend. Without more direct evidence, the bishop gave Don Matteo a standard admonition and relatively minor fine of three ducats, entreating him “to live with more honesty, and not to talk, interact, or communicate with the woman with whom he is said to have united himself.”Footnote ⁹² Though the bullfighting charges were unproven and apparently added as part of a matter of form, the bishop also forbid him from “going to bullfights, because of the inconvenient things that might occur during such events.”Footnote ⁹³

Aside from the few cases of concubinage, many of the diocese's investigations into clerical misbehavior centered around inappropriate demonstrations of masculine prowess in sports, weaponry, and displays of honor, all of which appeared in various ways within the related charges of bullfighting. For instance, in the early decades of the seventeenth century, Navarre and Gipuzkoa saw heavy traffic of soldiers passing through their territory on the way to wars with France and the Netherlands; many of these regiments billeted in or nearby Basque villages. Contact with these soldiers seems to have awakened a desire in some priests to demonstrate their prowess with weaponry, and the diocese of Pamplona handled a number of bizarre trials in which priests picked fights with soldiers stationed in their communities. In Los Arcos in 1628, Don Martín de Torres was investigated for shunning the “dignity he was supposed to have as a priest and for being in the habit of wandering the streets at night in indecent clothing and armed with pistols and other dangerous weapons.”Footnote ⁹⁴ Don Martín wore his hair “long, like that of a soldier”Footnote ⁹⁵ and was also famously “daring and volatile,”Footnote ⁹⁶ and frequently started “arguments with many principal people” of the area.Footnote ⁹⁷ More importantly, on one of these nocturnal rounds, he allegedly started a fight with the “cavalry officer, San Martín,” whom he stabbed in the face before onlookers intervened.Footnote ⁹⁸ Similarly, the following year in Hernani, Don Juan de Alzega was investigated for violence and misconduct that largely resulted from an uncontrolled anger problem. He was “arrogant, volatile, and rowdy,”Footnote ⁹⁹ and for “no reason he started a fight with a poor beggar named Petrierba who had arrived to town to plead for alms,” resulting in the man's death four days later.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ Additionally, “lacking in the modesty, composure, patience, and docility required of a priest, and as if he were instead a ruffian … he went out in public with a sword and sparred with a soldier who was passing through town with his regiment.”Footnote ¹⁰¹ Don Juan was stripped of his benefice and exiled from the diocese.Footnote ¹⁰²

These themes of gender, boredom, competition, and the close-knit nature of early modern Basque communities that characterize many of the trials involving clerical misbehavior are central to explaining the high frequency of investigations regarding priests and bullfights. This was certainly the case in 1600 in Estella, when Don Remiro de Unzue was charged with chasing a bull throughout the streets with a bull rod during the Saint John the Baptist festival.Footnote ¹⁰³ As it turned out, Don Remiro and Don Bartolome de Muez had been eating dinner in their house with the door open, probably to watch the bulls run by, when the bulls ran into their house. The priests tried to fight the bulls off with their dinner utensils, which only served to anger the bulls further. The bulls then chased the two priests out of their house and around the plaza. Later, possibly because he was embarrassed by the first incident, or simply to get revenge on the bulls that had ruined his nice Saint John's Day dinner, Don Remiro interrupted Mass to again chase one of the bulls around town—though this time he was better armed with a bull rod instead of a napkin. Called later in front of the bishop's court and charged with generally providing a poor example for everyone, the two priests tried to excuse themselves on the grounds that they had left their door open in order to try to contravene and impede the running of the bulls. The bishop ordered them to, from there on out, “live more honestly and in a more withdrawn manner, as they are required to do as priests.”Footnote ¹⁰⁴ To assist them with this, they were slapped with penances, a fine, and exile for two years, “which will be doubled in the episcopal tower [if they disobey].”Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Similarly, in 1639, the town of Zirauki decided to cancel their yearly bullfight due to the ongoing wars with France (which meant that there were not enough men around to safely corral the bulls).Footnote ¹⁰⁶ The priest Don Martín de Liriarte got so upset that he would have to miss the bullfights that he decided to take matters into his own hands. Insisting that his parishioners were simply being cowards, he proceeded to pull down the bell-tower rope and attempted to lasso one of the town's communal stud bulls, and thus acquire it for a fight.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ When his parishioner Joan Portal made fun of him and told him he was being an idiot, Don Martín responded by punching him in the face and telling him “to go with God.”Footnote ¹⁰⁸ Several other parishioners had to get involved and were only finally able to subdue Don Martín by knocking him out. Don Martín was banned from saying Mass or administering any of the sacraments until he requested and received absolution for his crimes. The sentence provided a cooling-off period for everyone involved, and it particularly emphasized that Don Martín needed to practice some personal introspection regarding his behavior around his parishioners.Footnote ¹⁰⁹

TWO SIDES TO EVERY BULLFIGHT

Simple fistfights might not have attracted much immediate diocesan interest, especially as the bishop was faced with equal or graver crimes by clergy all over the diocese. However, in associating the abuse with more general disorderliness surrounding bullfighting—not to mention directly contravening synodal decrees as well as secular ordinances—parishioners were able to attract the bishop's attention and convince him to get involved quickly. The documentary records suggest that most parishioners did not really mind when their clergy sometimes drank, danced, ran with the bulls, and occasionally undressed themselves during these activities. However, parishioners did have a problem when their priests prevented them from accessing the sacraments, robbed them, put them in physical or spiritual danger, or assaulted them physically or sexually.

For instance, when Don Joan de Ozcariz came to Pamplona in 1631 to see the bulls, the town watch turned him over to the bishop after they caught him roaming the streets at night, armed with an illegal pistol.Footnote ¹¹⁰ And in 1624, María Martín de Beasoayn complained to the bishop that the priest Don Martín de Berrio had rented a balcony from her to watch the bullfight, only to use this vantage to rob her house of most of its furniture.Footnote ¹¹¹ In a much more disturbing incident, in 1639 in Alsasua, the fourteen-year-old María de Zuffiaure reported that she had been violently raped during the Saint Peter's Day bull celebrations by the twenty-eight-year-old chaplain and seminary student Martín de Galarza. Galarza had made a straw-filled doll (dominguín) for the festivities and had hung it outside his window. When Zuffiaure and her friends went to see the figure, Galarza separated her from her friends and dragged her into his house, where “he threw her to the floor with much force and violence, knew her carnally, and robbed her of her flower and virginity.”Footnote ¹¹² Zuffiaure testified that she lost her voice out of fright, and though she had tried to fight back by scratching Galarza's face, Galarza, twice her age, was too big and strong.Footnote ¹¹³

In all these cases, the diocese acted swiftly, initiating charges, collecting witness statements, and making rulings (Galarza was eventually cleared of charges due to a technicality involving a question about whether the notary and witnesses had sufficiently been able to communicate with one another in Basque).Footnote ¹¹⁴ However, more importantly, these trials emphasized the direct and rapid interest the diocese took in trials involving violence and misbehavior that occurred in the context of bullfights and related celebrations. From a strategic standpoint, such examples of diocesan interest set a precedent and helped train parishioners how to effectively utilize the post-Tridentine court system. As parishioners learned via positive reinforcement, one of the most efficient ways to attract the bishop's attention was to link larger crimes to smaller misdeeds. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Pamplonese bishops had their hands full, and even though monitoring and professionalizing the clergy was a priority, there was no shortage of priests that could use a bit of reforming (or major criminal correction). The many complaints parishioners might have about their priests thus had to be calculated to resonate with the obvious goals of the bishop's prosecuting team, and to catch their attention quickly. And as parishioners learned by observing successes and failures in neighboring communities, the bishop and his court showed exceptionally little leniency for priests who were accused of running with the bulls, attacking the laity, or otherwise disgracing themselves during the taurine festivals. Parishioners were quick to grasp this fact and, when they employed it correctly, redirected it for a wide range of purposes in disciplining, restraining, and professionalizing their clergy. As the bishop's legal team often learned after reviewing dozens of items of witness testimony, the principal charges of bullfighting were often fabricated or exaggerated; instead, priests were typically involved in a range of other less urgent but still problematic behavior.

Two lengthy cases—with opposing verdicts—demonstrate the ways in which parishioners accumulated grievances against their clergy and strategically linked them with accusations of excesses during bullfights. This is exactly how the priest Don Andrés Lanberto of Miranda de Arga wound up in diocesan court in 1628. After a tip from purportedly concerned parishioners, the fiscal began an investigation of Don Andrés for causing his parishioners to suffer spiritually as he traveled the countryside from one bullfight to the next.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Moreover, as parishioners (helpfully) added, when he was home, he failed to “maintain the peace”Footnote ¹¹⁶ and instead insisted on “having evil and vindictive intentions particularly in approaching business dealings [as if he were] going to war.”Footnote ¹¹⁷ He had “offended important people in person and behind their backs with serious insults,”Footnote ¹¹⁸ and he had “been very impolite in not removing his hat or greeting these people, but instead turning his back.”Footnote ¹¹⁹ He also meddled in other people's business and, most troubling, he recklessly repeated what his parishioners had told him in confession.Footnote ¹²⁰

These charges formed the initial case against Don Andrés and, as is usual in such cases, they drew from both rumors and informal complaints against the priest. In diocesan criminal cases, pretrial discovery involved collecting a set of initial complaints—it was here that witnesses included complaints about bullfighting, often never to mention them again. If the fiscal felt that these initial complaints merited an investigation, they were compiled and condensed into formal charges, or points that the fiscal would seek to prove over the course of the trial. These charges were then followed up by formal witness testimony, in which witnesses were supposed to explain what they knew about the charges—or, essentially, to formally ratify their previous complaints about their priest. After having initially accused Don Andrés of bullfighting, these very parishioners provided conflicting second-stage testimony about Don Andrés's bullfighting habits, and instead chose to focus more upon the other charges.

Augustina Garzez, for instance, testified that she had seen “Don Andrés threatening and quarrelling with the mayor Domingo Romeo Hipolito” and then laying his hands on him, but that she didn't know anything else.Footnote ¹²¹ Juan de Aroztegui testified that Don Andrés had involved himself in a business deal between Ysabel de Ychasso and Miguel Fidalgo, accomplishing nothing but creating discord. Four years ago, Juan de Berian had “approached [the priest] on his knees in confession,”Footnote ¹²² but Don Andrés had instead yelled at him to “Get up, get up, I will never confess you under any circumstances!” and had instead moved down the line to confess someone else.Footnote ¹²³ Juan had been too mortified to try to confess to Don Andrés again.Footnote ¹²⁴ Domingo Romeo (the abused mayor) testified that Don Andrés had been giving people money so that they could travel to Pamplona to continue their lawsuits against one another, essentially fostering and bankrolling discord among his parishioners; when anyone confronted Don Andrés about this, he became violent and angry.Footnote ¹²⁵ Multiple witnesses affirmed that Don Andrés had been spreading their secrets, which “had been confessed sacramentally, and which no one else should have known.”Footnote ¹²⁶

Though absenting the parish to go to bullfights had formed the initial complaint, within the formal ratified testimony itself, bullfighting came up only later, as parishioners failed to point to any other instances in which Don Andrés had clearly and definitively violated canon law. After each witness described at length the social harm they had suffered through Don Andrés's insults, untrustworthiness, or involvement in their business affairs, they provided a rote affirmation that Don Andrés had been traveling the countryside, following the bullfights. However, no one seemed particularly bothered about this—Francisco Lopez, for example, suggested that these travels went hand in hand with devotional activities, and that Don Andrés had been also attending Mass in each of the towns he visited.Footnote ¹²⁷ Domingo Romeo provided a long list of the many bullfights he knew Don Andrés had attended “with the same liberty as a layperson,” but also did not elaborate further.Footnote ¹²⁸ Bullfighting was an eye-catching charge, and the parishioners used it to create an opening for themselves in which they could level other complaints and make sure the fiscal would pursue their case.

Most telling, the bishop found all charges insufficiently proven, and ordered Don Andrés cleared with no penalties. As was often the situation in these types of cases, the criminal charges leveled against one person radiated outward to involve the better part of the local community. Priests were parts of their communities through and through, and early modern village life was particularly close—most people were related to one another in several different ways. In this case, Don Andrés appears to have run afoul by involving himself too deeply in his parishioners’ (and neighbors’) business affairs. When they confronted him—sometimes in the confessional it seems—he defended himself, often aggressively. Charges of wrongdoing were not as clear-cut as the parishioners might have hoped, and in order to enhance their poorly articulated complaints about Don Andrés, they added on the additional allegations about bullfighting, only to backtrack later in their notarized statements. The bishop appears to have seen through these tactics and, rather than intervening, he kicked the conflict back to the local level, admonishing everyone to avoid “false and calamitous” accusations, and to try to live together more harmoniously.Footnote ¹²⁹

Five years later, the nearby town of Arguedas was struggling with their own priest over many of the same problems. Unlike Miranda de Arga's lawsuit, which was launched by the bishop's fiscal, charges against Arguedas's vicar, Don Miguel de Busto, were initiated by the parishioner Juan de Tafalla. However, the bishop's legal team judged Tafalla's complaints serious enough to merit immediate attention, and the case was quickly transferred to the fiscal. The fiscal and Tafalla's initial complaints were supported by an additional twenty-five secondary plaintiffs from the community who provided the preliminary evidence and supplemental witness testimony.Footnote ¹³⁰

Like the Mirandans, the Arguedasans found themselves under the spiritual care of a priest who failed to fully separate his duties as pastor from those as member of the community. To make matters worse, as a native of Arguedas, Don Miguel de Busto was closely related to a number of the secular government leaders, including the mayor, who was his brother. This brother also had certain judicial responsibilities, and one of Don Miguel's favorite pastimes was to follow his brother around to various audiences and tribunals, where “he would sit next to the mayor and [other] judges,”Footnote ¹³¹ watching sentences be carried out and menacing the condemned “with rough words.”Footnote ¹³² This legal voyeurism took up a considerable portion of Don Miguel's time, to the point that several of his parishioners allegedly died without the sacraments during his absences.Footnote ¹³³ As a “choleric and quarrelsome” individual,Footnote ¹³⁴ Don Miguel purportedly used his familial connections to intimidate his parishioners, “whom he kept frightened, abusing them with insults and harsh words.”Footnote ¹³⁵ The parishioners collectively attributed this abuse to the widespread belief that Don Miguel was unhappy with his lot in life as priest, and “with the arrogance of the rich and with the rich friends he has to defend himself, is able to get away with his bad behavior.”Footnote ¹³⁶

Discontented, Don Miguel reacted in familiar ways. Like his many clerical colleagues, Don Miguel flouted rules of traditional behavior and asserted his position in society by subverting codes of conduct and through disruptive masculinity.Footnote ¹³⁷ Physically and symbolically rejecting his role as priest, Don Miguel frequently shed his clerical vestments and “contravening the synodal constitutions, [he was in the habit of] leaving the town without [spiritual] care in order to go hunting in the fields and badlands with an harquebus.”Footnote ¹³⁸ Moreover, even when he was home, his behavior deviated from that expected of a priest. Counter-Reformation priests were supposed to offer advice to their parishioners and their conversations were supposed to be edifying and instructional. Yet Don Miguel's method of conversing was widely regarded as vulgar and “harmful,” since he was the habit of “swearing with notable liberty against God and making other scandalous oaths.”Footnote ¹³⁹

None of these complaints were particularly unusual for the time period but, more importantly, none of them were very specific. By themselves, none were very alarming, and alongside the diocese's long docket, none were particularly urgent. Perhaps sensing this fact, the plaintiffs added on one more final complaint, after the previous ones: “when there is a running of the bulls, [Don Miguel] goes about on the streets carrying a large stick or a pole, and it is indecent to see a priest wander about like that.”Footnote ¹⁴⁰ Don Miguel was not just failing as a priest in abstract and generalized ways, he was also actively defying and ignoring synodal and papal decrees which forbade such behavior.

Having arranged Juan de Tafalla's and the twenty-five other plaintiffs’ complaints in five neat charges, the fiscal moved forward with the case, and the court next admitted direct notarized witness testimony in order to corroborate the charges. It is here—as in the earlier case in Miranda de Arga—that the true motives of the parishioners emerged. Principal complaints separated from secondary annoyances and, like the case from Miranda, evidence concerning bullfighting dropped away in favor of the parishioners’ real grievances—namely, that Don Miguel had been using his prestigious family connections and his power in the community to involve himself in other people's business and try to influence the administration of justice.

Though the parishioners of Arguedas may have had their own motives in alerting the bishop to Don Miguel's lackluster performance, they nonetheless eagerly explained their position and provided copious amounts of testimony. Domingo de Jurio affirmed that Don Miguel was “irascible in his manner of talking and dealing [with his parishioners], and he turns this anger against his neighbors and terrorizes them,”Footnote ¹⁴¹ and that because of this, he, Domingo, “was afraid of him and his unpleasant ways and his harsh words.”Footnote ¹⁴² He also listed the many times he had seen the vicar leave town to go hunting in the badlands with his crossbow, but noted that he believed that this had only happened a few times in the current year. More importantly, he had seen him at court hearings with his brother two or three times that year, and Domingo believed that Don Miguel had swayed the proceedings with his presence by attempting “to mediate and participate in [the testimonies],” even though no one had asked him to do so.Footnote ¹⁴³ More concretely, Domingo was also able to list several of his neighbors and family members who had allegedly died without care during Don Miguel's absences, as well as when he had been in town: “Sebastiana Mallen, wife of Miguel de Grana,” reported Domingo, “died without receiving the most holy sacrament, as did one of [Domingo's] daughters who was only nine years old. … She received no sacrament from the said vicar. And even though this witness had seen the vicar, he shamelessly refused to provide the sacraments. [When asked] he had responded that the girl was perfectly angelic [un angelçoto] and didn't need any sacraments and so she died without receiving any.”Footnote ¹⁴⁴

Finally, responding to the query about bullfighting and “harmful conversations that offend,”Footnote ¹⁴⁵ Domingo dwelled on various financial infelicities that had occurred under Don Miguel's supervision, but notably had very little to say about whether Don Miguel frequented bullfights. Instead, he related a rather convoluted sequence that ultimately boiled down to dissatisfaction with Don Miguel's stewardship of the church's ornamentation. Candles were often not lit in the church when they should have been, and there was never enough oil to replace them with lamps. The failure to keep the lamps lit coincided with several years of general hardship in the village, but Domingo still believed that the parishioners’ donations should have amply covered the church's lighting. He approached Don Miguel about this discrepancy, but Don Miguel appeared to believe that Domingo was suggesting he was guilty of embezzlement. He turned and attacked Domingo “with very offensive words,”Footnote ¹⁴⁶ accusing Domingo of meddling and told him “he didn't have the grounds to accuse him of embezzlement since he wasn't involved and he didn't serve God [as Don Miguel did].”Footnote ¹⁴⁷ According to Domingo's telling, he had not originally accused Don Miguel of anything like embezzlement, but the altercation inspired him to investigate further. However, the man who was supposed to be in charge of the collection bag did not have it, leading Domingo to believe that Don Miguel in fact had it. The whole episode was messy, and Domingo ultimately concluded (generously) that Don Miguel had the bag because he did not trust anyone in the parish due to “his various enmities and enemies, and that [whatever had happened] it still looked very bad for the vicar to proceed as he did.”Footnote ¹⁴⁸ Only after recounting this sequence did Domingo turn to the primary part of the question concerning bullfighting: “And sometimes this witness had seen the said vicar running with some bull throughout the town, with a staff in his hands and not behind the bull as most people do.”Footnote ¹⁴⁹ Importantly, these episodes had occurred in Arguedas (meaning that Don Miguel had not had to absent himself). Moreover, Domingo was not able to recall any concrete incident and provided no details which could link rumor with specific event. The bullfighting was ultimately secondary, not just within Domingo's ratified testimony but, more importantly, within Don Miguel's ongoing problems with his parishioners and neighbors.

Equally revealing, many of the witnesses presented by the fiscal to verify the content of the five charges provided ratified statements regarding only the first four charges. In fact, only Domingo and one other witness testified to having seen Don Miguel run with the bulls or attend a bullfight. Like the parishioners of Miranda de Arga, these witnesses provided ample details to support their statements, but failed to provide any confirmation whatsoever about the second part of the fifth charge of bullfighting, excusing themselves by stating merely that they “know not a thing about that.”Footnote ¹⁵⁰ For example, Lucas de Azcona explained that he had observed numerous instances in which Don Miguel had publicly abused lay and religious people. These episodes caused Don Miguel “to lose everyone's respect.”Footnote ¹⁵¹ He had also seen Don Miguel “sitting next to his brother the mayor in audience three or four times, helping him and advising him on various things.”Footnote ¹⁵² One of his friends had also told him that his daughter had died without the sacraments, though Azcona admitted “that he did not know whether this was the fault of [Don Miguel].”Footnote ¹⁵³ He had also seen Don Miguel wandering around the fields “carrying an harquebus,”Footnote ¹⁵⁴ but again, this could have had other explanations than hunting, such as protecting his brother's sheep and other livestock. Finally, when asked the fifth and final question about whether he had seen Don Miguel run with the bulls, Azcona merely stated that he “knew nothing about that.”Footnote ¹⁵⁵

Though it is possible that some of the witnesses may have been lying—or otherwise trying to downplay misbehavior they did not really care about—Azcona was a royal notary and it would have been a professional liability for him to perjure himself about something so straightforward. At least one incident of running with the bulls likely did occur, but it apparently caused no great scandal in the small village of Arguedas. Instead of trying to comb the witness statement for gaps or perjury, the simplest explanation for the imbalance in witness testimony vis-à-vis general misbehavior versus running with the bulls is that the latter's inclusion was strategic on the part of the parishioners. In the evidence-gathering stage they submitted gossip and general annoyances. Aware that participating in the bullfights was forbidden for clergy, they added this flashy charge to their long list of grievances. The strategy worked, and the allegation caught the fiscal's attention. He gathered all the grievances together, condensed them into five simple groups of charges, including bullfighting, and remitted them back to the parishioners. When asked to submit official notarized witness statements, the parishioners chose either not to perjure themselves on more tenuous charges, or, more likely, chose to use this platform to expand on their principal grievances. Most men of their community did run with the bulls from time to time, so that Don Miguel had run with the bulls was not a serious problem in their eyes. Instead, and now with a direct line of communication to the bishop, they made sure that he was well aware of the problems that they themselves judged needed correction and punishment.

Perhaps most significantly, the Arguedasans’ strategy paid off, and Don Miguel was found guilty on three of the five charges (including running with the bulls). As the bishop ruled, “considering that he wears the habit of a priest, he is required to provide good example to his parishioners.”Footnote ¹⁵⁶ Such a good example, the bishop specified, involved “not swearing scandalously, or in another other way,”Footnote ¹⁵⁷ as well as maintaining basic decency, “particularly when they run bulls through the streets, [and when they do this] not going about in the streets with a pole or [creating] any other obstacle, since this is unbecoming and scandalous.”Footnote ¹⁵⁸ The hunting trips also must stop, since it was contributing to the “neglect of his church.”Footnote ¹⁵⁹ Don Miguel was ordered to pay a fine and to split court costs with the fiscal, though the bishop also stated that these would not actually be collected. Most importantly, Don Miguel was reminded that the bishop was acting with leniency in his sentence, and that if he did any of these things again, he would be punished with much severity.Footnote ¹⁶⁰ Don Miguel then appealed the ruling, with no success.Footnote ¹⁶¹

Of course, from the perspective of the Arguedasans, this ruling might have been a disappointment. The bishop evidently felt the charges of interfering with village justice and intimidation insufficiently proven, and Don Miguel was not ordered to desist following his brother around to the various audiences. Likewise, though the accusation that Don Miguel had not provided the sacraments to Sebastiana Mallen or to the little “angelçoto” was troubling (and, in the second case, technically heretical), the bishop refrained from ruling on these cases, perhaps feeling that the admonition to better tend to his church and provide a better example to his parishioners covered these lapses. Yet from a pragmatic standpoint, the ruling was still helpful. It created a paper trail in order to track past (or continuous) misbehavior, and it called the bishop's attention to Don Miguel. If he misbehaved again—or continued to harass his parishioners—they would be able to more easily bring subsequent charges. Though Don Miguel was cleared on the parishioners’ principal complaints, the accusation of running with the bulls had successfully helped propel the case through the administrative hurdles of post-Tridentine diocesan justice. It simultaneously helped solidify a minor conviction, all the while clearly and forcefully reminding Don Miguel that the bishop was interested in reforming the lower clergy, and would not hesitate to listen to lay grievances against their priests.