Francisco de Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria is one of the most important representatives of the so-called School of Salamanca. He was born in Burgos, in 1483 or 1492, and died in Salamanca in 1546. The emperor Charles V had nominated him as a delegate to the Council of Trent in 1545, but Vitoria was too sick to travel to Italy. The Dominican friar was a contemporary of two of the most important events of his epoch, i.e., the conquest of Central and South America and the split within the Christian world due to Luther’s Reformation. Though the latter event receives relatively little attention in Vitoria’s writings, his theses about the former, as they are developed in his two most famous lectures—De Indis and De iure belli—will assure him a lasting fame and make him a central figure in the development of the law of nations and the law of war. Especially some of his views concerning the claims of the Spanish Crown to the rightful possession of territories on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean led the king of Spain, who also happened to be the emperor Charles V, to warn the prior of the monastery of San Esteban, in which Vitoria lived, that he should be more careful about what some of his monks said in public. To these two events could also be added the end of the Muslim caliphate of Al-Andalus in 1492 and thus also the end of the Reconquista. He studied in Paris, where he received his doctorate and where he also did some teaching. After his return to Spain, he first teaches theology at the university of Valladolid, before being nominated, in 1526, to the Catedra de Prima de Teologia of the university of Salamanca. Until his death, Vitoria will teach Thomistic theology to more than 5,000 students, who, it is said, were very enthusiastic about the teaching of their master. Vitoria introduced two innovations in teaching, viz. the commentary on Thomas Aquinas rather than on Petrus Lombardus’ Sentences—though he also still lectured on this canonical text—and the dictatum. The lectures or relectiones were public presentations of about two hours and it was expected of the teachers that they give such a relectio once a year. Between 1528 and 1540, he gave lectures on political and legal questions (1528: De potestate civili; 1538 or 1539: De indis recenter inventis; 1539: De iure belli), on questions relating to the Church and to papal power (1532: De potestate Ecclesiae prior; 1533: De potestate Ecclesiae posterior; 1534: De potestate Papae et Concilii) and on several theological questions (1530: De homicidio; 1531: De matrimonio; 1535: De augmento caritatis; 1535: De eo ad quod tenetur; 1536: De simonia; 1537: De temperantia; 1540: De magia).