School of Salamanca

1. The University of Salamanca

In order to understand the theoretical aspects of the School of Salamanca, it is necessary to give a short introduction to the history of the University of Salamanca. The focus will then turn to two Dominicans, Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto, and two Jesuits, Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez, though there were, of course, many other extremely important participants in the various fields of discourse in which the School engaged.

The University of Salamanca is the oldest institution of higher education on the Iberian Peninsula. A cathedral school, located in Salamanca by 1130, received a charter from King Alfonso IX of León in 1218 as a “general school” for his realm. The regulations for this school were promulgated by King Alfonso X “el Sabio” in 1254. Pope Alexander IV, in 1255, confirmed the foundation of the studium generale and conferred on it the licentia ubique docendi, a universally valid license to teach. Thereafter, Salamanca was recognized as a university. Courses in theology and law were offered, with many graduates receiving employment by the crown of Spain. Lectures on authoritative texts were the most common means of teaching. Starting in the fifteenth century, professors also offered relectiones, treating in greater depth a particular topic previously covered during lectures. Disputations were also held. Christopher Columbus made his case for a sea route to Asia to the university before his voyage in 1492.

Two notable learned men, Juan de Segovia and Alfonso Tostado de Madrigal, were affiliated with the University of Salamanca in the fifteenth century. A short account of their careers will highlight the range of views that characterized Spanish theology at the university in those years. Juan, a professor of theology (1422–1435), participated in the Council of Basel (1431–1449), beginning in 1432. He defended conciliar supremacy and supported the doctrine of Mary’s immaculate conception. His writings include polemics on behalf of the council against Pope Eugenius IV (1431–1447) and a History of the General Council of Basel. Juan was made a cardinal by the antipope Felix V (1439–1449); but he retired after Felix yielded to Eugenius’ successor, Nicholas V (1447–1455). In retirement, Juan wrote on the need for dialogue with Islam. Aware of his impending death (c. 1458), Juan bequeathed his library to the university.

Alfonso Fernández de Madrigal, “el Tostado”, taught theology before becoming a bishop in 1454. He, too, supported the Council of Basel, and he displayed his knowledge in extensive writings on Scripture and ecclesiastical history. His tract on the polity defended popular regimes in a realm whose intellectuals usually embraced monarchy. Alfonso also wrote against clerical concubinage. Certain controversial opinions of his were denounced to both pope and council. The Castilian Dominican Juan de Torquemada wrote, on behalf of the Council of Basel, a critique of Alfonso’s views, to which he replied. Alfonso later defended his teachings in Rome before Pope Eugenius. “El Tostado”, on his death, left behind a reputation for great learning.

The Dominican order had established itself in Salamanca by 1244, when a provincial chapter was held in that city. The convent of San Esteban, chosen as the site of a studium generale of the order in 1299, offered courses in grammar, logic, and theology. During the fourteenth century, the Dominican convent gained control of two of the university’s four chairs of theology. In 1489, Salamanca’s Dominican studium received from the papacy the right to award academic degrees. The building now associated with Vitoria and his school was begun in 1524 but not finished until 1610, when the university was falling into decline. By that date, other Iberian universities, especially Alcalá and Coimbra, had become competitors of Salamanca for intellectual leadership. In addition, the Jesuits had become competitors of the Dominicans as leading philosophers and theologians. In Vitoria’s century, distinguished scholars at Salamanca included the jurist Martín de Azpilcueta, who is known for developing a monetarist theory, and the Scripture professor Gregorio Gallo, who considered the possibility that the Apostle Thomas had preached in the New World.

2. Francisco de Vitoria and His Disciples

Francisco de Vitoria (1486–1546) is usually regard as a late Scholastic, who employed Aristotelian thought in his philosophy and theology. Although Spanish Scholastics like Vitoria were primarily theologians, the topics they discussed went far beyond the limits of theology and even of the traditional philosophical companions of theology, such as metaphysics and logic. This is partly because Dominican theologians had to comment on the Summa theologiae of Thomas Aquinas (Sancti Thomae Aquinatis Doctoris Angelici Opera Omnia, volumes 4-12), with all the different topics it covered. The fifteenth and sixteenth centuries saw a revival of Thomism in Paris, Rome, and Salamanca. In Rome, Thomas de Vio (Cajetan) wrote the most influential commentary on the Summa theologiae. In Paris, Peter Crockaert, a pupil of John Mair, joined the Dominican order and became a zealous Thomist. Francisco de Vitoria, who studied in Paris, embraced this Thomist revival. When he began teaching in Salamanca in 1524, he supplemented Peter Lombard’s Sentences with the Summa theologiae as the textbook for the study of theology. Although the University of Salamanca was not a new foundation, Vitoria and his disciples, especially Domingo de Soto (1494–1560) and Melchior Cano (1509–1560), transformed it into a center for a revived Scholasticism, applying Thomism to such practical problems as the evangelization of the indigenous populations of the New World and the legality of slavery. In addition, the Dominicans of Castile influenced the intellectual development of the fledgling Jesuit order, which produced such luminaries as Luis de Molina (1535–1600) and Francisco Suárez (1548–1617).

Some works of these theologians can be seen as vast, overflowing commentaries on a number of questions from the Summa theologiae, especially on topics such as law and justice. Since they were confronted by a rapidly changing universe—the New World, populated by inhabitants who belonged to none of the traditionally known religions, and a globalizing economy (including the slave trade)—they had to deal with new opportunities and new problems, while still considering long-standing questions such as the legitimacy of charging interest. Because they were understood, or understood themselves, as confessors or as advisors of confessors—Domingo de Soto was Emperor Charles V’s confessor, Luis de Molina declared that he wrote for the confessors of those who hold power—they had to cope with political, economic, and legal reality, often in a quite detailed manner.

The authors of the School of Salamanca used traditional tools to deal with the new situations they faced. Besides the overarching influence of Thomas Aquinas—who became a Doctor of the Church in 1567 and whose works Ignatius of Loyola had obliged the members of his newly founded Jesuit order to study diligently—they engaged with other medieval traditions, including the glosses to the Decretum Gratiani, Franciscan authors (especially John Duns Scotus and William Ockham), Jean Gerson and even Marsilius of Padua, a banned author who was not even allowed to be cited, but nevertheless had a considerable impact on the conciliarist debate. Scholastic authors made a creative, instead of philologically correct, use of their authorities, interpreting and explaining them in their own sense. Molina and Suárez even overtly criticized Thomas Aquinas and his understanding of law.

Vitoria’s thought inevitably depended—but not slavishly—on Thomas Aquinas, not only in his commentary on the Summa theologiae, but also in his relectiones and other writings on law and society. His admiration for “Divus Thomas” had already begun when he studied and later taught theology at Paris and Valladolid. At Paris, he had assisted in the preparation of Crockaert’s edition of the Summa theologiae, published in 1515. His lectures commenting on the Prima and the Prima secundae of the Summa are lost, but must have been quite successful. His most famous works were published after he was elected to the first chair of theology at the University of Salamanca in 1526, the most important professorship in the Spanish kingdom; and, contrary to the statutes of the university, he took the Summa theologiae as the basis for his teachings (Vitoria, Vorlesungen 1995: 36). His reflections on political topics, such as the political status of the Church and the Conquista in Mexico and South America, were followed attentively in the highest circles, even if not always approved, as Emperor Charles V’s harsh reaction to Vitoria’s lecture De Indis showed.

Vitoria’s health became precarious in the 1540s, and the dominant role at Salamanca passed to his disciples. The most important of these was Domingo de Soto, who was born in Segovia 1494 of humble origins, studied in Alcalá and Paris, entered the Dominican order before he was thirty and was appointed to the second chair of theology, the Catedra de visperas, at the University of Salamanca in 1532. Later he became the prior of the Convent of San Esteban in Salamanca and was from 1548–1550 confessor to Charles V. After this, he returned to the university, where he held the first chair of theology. He died at San Esteban in 1560. Together with Melchior Cano, another important disciple of Vitoria, who later became bishop of the Canary Islands, he participated in the Council of Trent (1545–1563) by order of Spain’s privy council. Soto, although without a vote in the council, urged bishops to attend to the work of preaching; and he defended Scholastic theology against proposals to suppress it. Before returning to Spain, Soto helped with the preparations for Charles V’s Augsburg Interim (1548), which made concessions to the Protestants. One result of Soto’s presence at Trent was his tract De natura et gratia, which focused on the errors of Martin Luther, whose writings he called “diabolic” (Soto-DII VII, qu. 5 ad. 4; Grimm 2017: 64). In addition, he wrote an Apologia against a fellow Dominican, Ambrosius Catharinus Politus, concerning the certitude of grace.

Melchior Cano was less involved in controversy at Trent, concentrating instead on preaching and sacramental theology; however, another Dominican present at the council, Bartolomé Carranza (1503–1576), the future archbishop of Toledo, participated in the discussion of justification, arguing for “twofold justification”. Carranza was reported to be reading Luther’s works, a sign of future troubles in which his Commentary on the Christian Catechism was criticized by both Cano and Soto. Eventually, Carranza was condemned by the Inquisition for his views on nature and grace and underwent a long imprisonment, despite Soto’s efforts to defend him with a more balanced opinion, which Carranza cited in his own defense (Tellechea 1962).

Vitoria and his disciples engaged in arguments over Spain’s rights in the New World. The debate began when the Dominicans in the Antilles criticized the conquerors’ treatment of indigenous peoples. In a sermon given by the Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos on December 21, the fourth Sunday of Advent 1511, in Hispaniola (today’s Haiti and Dominican Republic), the Spaniards who attended were told that they lived and died in mortal sin because of the cruelties they had inflicted upon the Amerindians. One of his listeners was Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566), who joined the Dominican order and was converted by Montesinos into the most severe critic of the Conquista (Las Casas 1992).

A Junta of Burgos (1513) declared that Charles V had a sound title to the Indies. One argument in that context, grounded in Aristotle’s thought, was that the Amerindians were slaves by nature. This view did not remain uncontested; and, eventually, on June 2, 1537, Pope Paul III, influenced by Las Casas, issued the bull Sublimis Deus, declaring the indigenous peoples to be fully human with souls and just title to their possessions. The ongoing debate climaxed in the disputation between Las Casas, defending the liberty of the indigenous populations, and the humanist Aristotelian Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda (1494–1573), who defended the Spanish title to the Indies because of the Amerindian’s sins and because they were slaves by nature. This took place in the Junta of Valladolid (1550/51), which Charles V had assembled with a number of other leading scholars on both sides.

3. The Role of the Jesuits

After the deaths of Domingo de Soto and Melchior Cano, the reputation of Salamanca’s Dominicans declined. Domingo Bañez (1528–1604), a pupil of Cano, is the best known of their successors. When his commentary on Thomas’ Summa appeared (1584), admitting of no dissent from its doctrines, it provoked a controversy over the theology of grace and free will. Bañez—also the confessor of St. Theresa of Avila—was opposed by the Jesuit Luis de Molina, who accused him of being overly deterministic.

Molina was born in Cuenca (Spain) in 1535, entered the Jesuit order at the age of 18, studied in Salamanca and Coimbra, taught theology in Évora (Portugal) from 1568 to 1583 and later in Lisbon. In 1591 he was sent to the Jesuit college of his home town of Cuenca and was elected in 1600 to the chair of moral theology at the Jesuit College in Madrid, where he died in the same year. In 1588 Molina published a volume entitled Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia (Molina 1588 [1953]), usually abbreviated as Concordia, in which he tried to reconcile free will with grace, God’s pre-knowledge, providence, etc. It produced a devastating effect (see below and MacGregor 2015), a passionate debate between Dominicans and Jesuits, raising accusations of both Pelagian and Calvinist heresy, both of which were extremely dangerous for Catholic theologians. This controversy continued until a congregation De auxiliis meeting in Rome under Paul V decreed (1607) that Dominicans and Jesuits could hold their own opinions on efficacious grace. The conflict did not end, however, and in 1611 the Roman Inquisition forbade the publication of any further books on the topic—the most drastic case of ecclesiastical censorship in the seventeenth century (Knebel 2000: 170).

In general, the Jesuits felt less bound than Dominicans to the opinions of Thomas Aquinas, which meant that Molina and Suárez were allowed a greater degree of originality in their teachings. For this reason, some modern scholars emphasize the differences between the Dominican School of Salamanca and the Jesuit School of Coimbra, which came after it, though both belong to the broad tradition of Spanish Scholasticism.