JIMENEZ DE CISNEROS, FRANCISCO, CARDENAL

(Cardinal) born 1436, Torrelaguna, Castile [now in Spain] died Nov. 8, 1517, Roa, Spain prelate, religious reformer, and twice regent of Spain (1506, 151617). 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. Jimnez 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 (145966), 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 Jimnez insisted on his rights, threw him into prison. Refusing release at the price of giving up his claims, Jimnez remained in prison until 1479, when Carillo gave way. In 1482 Cardinal Pedro Gonzlez de Mendoza, impressed by Jimnez' ability and strength of character, made him vicar general of the bishopric of Sigenza. In 1484 Jimnez 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 Jimnez the opportunity to initiate the reform of the Spanish clergy. At synods of Alcal (1497) and Talavera (1498) he promulgated a series of orders: the clergy had to give up the common practice of concubinage; 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 Jimnez' 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. Against the advice of Hernando de Talavera, archbishop of Granada (who wanted to convert the Moors of Granada slowly by education), Jimnez introduced forced mass conversions. The Moriscos, although now nominally Christians, were neither willing to be assimilated to the Christian Spaniards nor were they accepted as equals by the latter. Jimnez' intervention was the direct cause of a Moorish revolt in 14991500, and he must be held largely responsible for making the Morisco problem insoluble. In 1609 the Moriscos were finally expelled from Spain. Additional reading Reginald Merton, Cardinal Ximenes and the Making of Spain (1934); and Walter Starkie, Grand Inquisitor (1940), are both useful biographies. There is an excellent short account of Jimnez' ecclesiastical reforms in Marcel Bataillon, rasme et l'Espagne, new ed. edited by Charles Amiel, vol. 1 (1991). Some of Jimnez' correspondence is collected in Diego Lpez de Ayala, Cartas del Cardenal Don Fray Francisco Jimnez de Cisneros (1867); and Vicente de la Fuente, Cartas de los secretarios del Cardenal D. Fr. Francisco Jimnez de Cisneros . . . (1875).