Erasmus was considered in Spain as a supporter of the Catholic faith against the doctrine of Luther, and his enemies were only a few scholastic theologians, who were not acquainted with the Greek and Hebrew tongues. The Spanish theologians who wrote against him were, Diego Lopez de Zuñiga, Sancho de Carranza, professor of theology in the university of Alcala de Henarés, Brother Louis de Carjaval, a Franciscan, Edward Lee, the English ambassador, and Pedro Vittoria, a theologian of Salamanca.
After this first attack, in the Lent of the year 1527, two monks denounced several propositions in the works of Erasmus, as heretical. Alphonso Manrique (although he was then the friend of Erasmus) was obliged to submit these propositions to the examination of qualifiers; but he appointed the most learned men of the kingdom to that office.
This assembly of doctors lasted two months, when the plague, which then desolated some parts of the kingdom, obliged them to separate, before they had decided on the judgment to be pronounced; it appears from several letters written by Erasmus about that time that he hoped it would be favourable to him.[4]
But the Supreme Council qualified his _Colloquies_, his _Eulogy of Folly_, and his _Paraphrase_, and prohibited them from being read. In later times, this prohibition was extended to several other books of the same author, and the Inquisition recommended in its edicts that the works of Erasmus should be read with caution.
The emperor Charles V. commissioned the University of Louvain to form a list of dangerous books, and in 1539 he obtained a bull of approbation from the Pope. The index was published in 1546 by the university in all the states of Flanders, six years after a decree had been issued to prohibit the writings of Luther from being read or bought on pain of death.[5]
This severe measure displeased all ranks. The princes of Germany openly complained of it, and offered to assist Charles in his war against the Turks, if he would allow the people liberty in matters of religion. Charles paid no attention to their remonstrances, and this bad policy accelerated the progress of Lutheranism.
In 1549, the inquisitor-general, with the approbation of the Supreme Council, added some new works to the list of those which had been prohibited, and addressed two ordinances to the inquisitors, enjoining them in the first, not to allow any person to possess them, and in the second, commanding the consultors of the holy office neither to read nor keep them, though the execution of the decrees might throw them into their hands.