The immense power and social influence wielded by the clergy was one of the most striking features of Spanish history during the colonial period. Religious enthusiasm among all classes had been maintained at a high pitch by the long wars against the Moors, by the great movement for religious unity and reform under the Catholic monarchs, and by the appearance of the Lutheran menace under Charles V. There were few families in sixteenth-century Spain which could not count a cleric among their members, and the power of the Church affected the whole economic life of the nation, through the vast area of land held in mortmain—a situation against which the Cortes protested in vain, since to the mass of the people the riches of the Church were a source of genuine pride.

If the Church was powerful, however, it was by no means independent. Its peculiar strength lay largely in its close alliance with the Crown. In 1523 Charles V secured from his old tutor, Adrian VI, a perpetual grant of the right to present to bishoprics and abbacies in Spain, which right was used under pressure from the Cortes to confine ecclesiastical preferment in Spain to Spanish subjects. This royal patronage was at all times jealously guarded, and as a corollary the wide judicial powers of both episcopal courts and Inquisition in Spain were exercised under strict royal control and supervision.