The School of Salamanca was a school of diverse intellectual areas created in the Spain of The Renaissance, based mostly on the University of Salamanca and to a lesser degree in the universities of Alcalá and the Portuguese Coimbra. A prolongation of the medieval scholasticism of Thomas Aquinas, it could be essentially considered the main body of law, philosophy and science of the Spanish Empire, with an influence that lasted almost as much as the empire itself and got directly involved with all of its politics, only being displaced and succeeded by the Spanish Universalist School in the 18th century.
This school might be considered the greatest branch of thought you have never heard about, especially due to the persistent impression, often repeated in pop culture, that the 15-19th century Spain was an intellectual wasteland where merely claiming that the Earth was round could get you burned in the stake as a warlock by the rarely expected Spanish Inquisition. In reality, far from falling behind the rest of Europe during the Renaissance, Spain produced its own vibrant variation of the intellectual revolution that was taking place in the continent, not only affecting its own course through history, but also directly shaping the thought of many to follow. The influence of the School of Salamanca on the topics of law, philosophy, physics, medicine, economy and astronomy is just as great as its mainstream obscurity, and the list of its overlooked accomplishments reads almost like an Alternate History.
Among other fields, the school's postulates about the value of money are basically the bread and butter of what Adam Smith and the Austrian school would be doing centuries later, while Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz themselves would also find on Salamanca the origin of their own scientific researches. Philosophers like Descartes, Schopenhauer and Heidegger were also inspired by members of the school and their own currents of thought. The very calendar we use today, the Gregorian Calendar, was partially achieved through Salmantine brainpower. Even Marianne, the Anthropomorphic Personification of the French Republic, is believed to have been named after one of those guys from Salamanca.
Not any less important, the School of Salamanca was also a vital part of the history of international relations, as well as the modern debate about colonialism and human rights, which was codified for the first time in the Valladolid Debate. In a massive strike of irony given the popular reputation of the Spanish Empire, this point would be a true historical oddity in which an empire stopped its conquering machinery and actually pondered about the moral validity and consequences of its conquests, and ultimately acted with all of its power in an attempt to curb their worst excesses.
Members of the school
- Pedro Ciruelo (1470-1548): the original master of Salamanca, Ciruelo was an accomplished mathematician and theologian with a tenure in the Sorbonne of Paris. Upon his return to Spain, he became famous as a professor of Thomist philosophy, teaching some of the names mentioned below, and was eventually chosen by the Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros to be a founding member of another college, the University of Alcalá. The latter would turn out one of the main medical investigation centers of the time, soon churning out pioneer physicians like Francisco Díaz (considered the father of modern urology) and Francisco Vallés de Covarrubia (the creator of anatomical pathology). He is sometimes not cited as a member of the school, being rather seen as a proto-member or a predecessor.
- Francisco de Vitoria (1483-1546): the founder and greatest exponent of the School of Salamanca, as well as the best candidate to be called the father of international law, economy and modern ius gentium. Vitoria wrote extensively about natural law and freedom of circulation of ideas, goods and commerce, and was also a staunch defender of the indigenous, whom he considered the righteous owners of their lands and as such full-fledged vassals that should not be submitted by force, a role vital for the creation of the 1542 Laws of the Indies, which regulated those rights. To the chagrin of King Charles V, who nonetheless had him as his advisor for a long time, Vitoria also established the limits and nature of the concept of just war, partially refuting the idea of Might Makes Right, and preceded Hugo Grotius and Alberico Gentili in a lot of ideas about international community. Due to his contributions, the modern United Nations named the council hall of the Palace of Nations after him.
- Luis de Alcalá (1490-1549): a Franciscan, rather than a Dominican like several of his colleagues listed here, Alcalá was one of the most notable economists of his time. He deepened the work of his mentor Juan de Medina and developed long tracts about concepts like loan, prices, value of money and economic growth.
- Martín de Azpilcueta (1492-1586): nicknamed the "Doctor Navarrus" due to his Navarran billing, he obtained his degree in canon law in the University of Toulouse, after which he had to re-graduate in Salamanca because degrees weren't internationally equivalent at the time; he didn't have to do the same in Coimbra, thought, because by then he was a massively influential scholar in economy, ethics and moral theology. Aside from pioneering the modern quantity theory and the time value of money (it has been proposed Adam Smith was almost certainly inspired by him), he spoke about the necessary separation between kings and popes, and preached against xenophobic nationalism, abuse of the indigenous, and judicial torture, especially while acting as a consultant for the Spanish Inquisition.
- Domingo de Soto (1494-1560): another big man in campus, Domingo de Soto was a theologian, lawman, economist and physicist with quite a resume. Apprentice to the prestigious polymath Juan de Celaya, De Soto replaced his colleague Francisco de Vitoria in the Council of Trent as the Spanish imperial representative, participated in the Valladolid Debate, and later became the confessor of King Charles V himself. He worked extensively on economy, teaching about just price, natural law and counter-usury, although his work in mechanical physics is perhaps more relevant: he was the first to state that a body in free fall accelerates uniformly, forming the base for both Galilei and Newton.
- Bartolomé de Carranza (1503-1576): a theologian immensely influential during the Counter-Reformation, to the point he was the confessor of Mary Tudor. He worked as a consultant to the Spanish Inquisition, which didn't save him from being oddly accused himself of Lutheranism by the Inquisition due to his own discussions on the topic. His trial was the event of the time, involving Popes, kings and several people from this list, and it dragged for more than a decade, during which Carranza passed more time in prison than free. He was finally acquitted, but he died shortly after for all the trouble, leading to some My God, What Have I Done? from everybody. He was also known for his works of charity.
- Alonso de la Vera Cruz (1507-1584): a keen disciple to Francisco de Vitoria, Alonso de la Vera Cruz was the main exponent of the School of Salamanca in the overseas territories of the Spanish Empire. He traveled to New Spain (modern México) by invitation of the locals and stayed there for the rest of his life as a missionary, professor of philosophy and administrator; he founded the first library in America and was a founding member of a couple of the first universities (the Colegio de San Pablo de México and the modern Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo). He worked in a re-conceptualization of Aristotle and a huge recompilation of a physics, math, biology, meteorology and botany.
- Melchor Cano (1509-1560): a member with a combative resume, Cano participated in both the Council of Trent and the Valladolid Debate, later became a professor in the thoroughly Erasmist Alcalá despite being himself a Thomist (Rival Dojos, basically), and became infamous for being the bitter rival of Bartolomé de Carranza (he had apparently nothing to do with Carranza's inquisitorial affair, although he did jump in the bandwagon against him). A sworn enemy of dogmatism, he advised King Philip II to screw Pope Paul IV and seek political independence from him, which earned Cano the perpetual enmity of Rome and the delightful nickname of "The Son of Perdition". He also postulated criterions of believability in historiography.
- Diego de Covarrubias (1512-1577): a lawman that also served four mandates as an Archbishop. Like his mentor Domingo de Soto, he preached against the abuse of indigenous and worked in the just price theory, a field he shared with Luis de Molina, and later engaged in long reforms within the University of Salamanca, which were kept for a long time after he was gone. He was known as the Spanish Bartolus due to his genius and lucidity in all regarding law, to the point a legend claims there was not a single book in the great library of Oviedo that Covarrubias had not excellently annotated. He was the son of Alonso de Covarrubias, the architect of the Cathedral of Toledo, and the big brother of Diego de Covarrubias, a famous humanist, Hellenist and professor of law. Moreover, as a curiosity, the whole family was connected to famous painter El Greco, who did paintings of all of them.
- Bartolomé Frías de Albornoz (1519-1573): a linguist and historian, considered one of the bests in the entire Europe, as well as a lawman, being an apprentice to Covarrubias. He adopted a stance against forceful Christianization, so hardline for the time that the Spanish Inquisition banned his main book about the topic. He was also an early anti-slavery advocate, even if he didn't fully attack the whole concept. He moved to the current University of México and opened there the first classroom of law in the history of America.
- Jerónimo Muñoz (1520-1591): although he was also a geographer, mathematician, engineer and scholar of Hebrew (the last because it's suspected he or his lineage were conversos), Muñoz became especially relevant as an astronomer. He had the chance to observe the SN 1572 supernova, like the famous Tycho Brahe, and did calculations about its parallax, whose results led him to clash with other scientists in Spain, but which Brahe himself incorporated to his 1603 treatise about the topic. He was also one of the first Spaniards to defend the Copernican system, designed the water supply system of Murcia, Lorca and Cartagena, and also left notes on which Galileo would later capitalize.
- Tomás de Mercado (1523-1575): the biography of this one remains pretty obscure, and it's doubted whether he was born in México or only passed most of his youth there, but in any case, he was an enormously influential economist of his day. He was connected to the business circuit of Seville, in which, like Azpilcueta, he wrote texts about the quantitative theory of money and the ethics related to trade. He also made contributions in the just price theory and Aristotelian logic, for which he translated directly texts from the original Greek to Spanish, and was also an outspoken critic of the Atlantic slave trade, although like Albornoz, he worked under Roman-like nuances that might not be very transferable to modern mindsets (for instance, he saw nothing inherently wrong in slavery itself, he only complained that slaves were not being treated humanely and that the sell was destabilizing African kingdoms).
- Luis de León (1527-1591): better known as Friar Luis de León, this is the only member of the School of Salamanca the average reader might be loosely familiar with, likely on the Theme Park Version that he was some poor friar imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition for speaking up against oppression or something alike. In reality, De León was one of the greatest poets and humanists of the Spanish Renaissance, a master of the ascetic religious literature, and one of the experts that created the Gregorian Calendar for Pope Gregorius XIII. His clash with the Inquisition came when some other clergymen, envious of his success, slandered him with the accusations of being a heretic, criticizing the Bible, and translating a text from Hebrew without license, which got him imprisoned for four years in a long judicial process... in which he was ultimately declared innocent and freed. He was famous for keeping writing even in prison and for beginning his first post-prison university lecture with the amazingly matter-of-factly quote "as we were saying yesterday..."
- Domingo Báñez (1528-1604): a successful theologian and Thomist scholar, who was the director and confessor of Saint Teresa of Jesus, as well as an enemy of Friar Luis de León who was among his accusers. Ironically, he was not free from flirting with the Inquisition himself, as he participated in an argument about free will that turned out dangerous, and later De León himself accused him of being a Lutheran due to his ideas about predetermination. Báñez was also part of the committee of the Gregorian Calendar reform.
- Luis de Molina (1535-1600): another enemy to Báñez, Luis de Molina was a strong proponent for free will in theology, trying to reconcile Augustinian ideas about divine will and the Renaissance love for freedom in a current later named Molinism. His ideas turned out inflammatory to both Catholics and Protestants, to the point Pope Clement VIII had to intervene and organize a debate that, to nobody's surprise, ultimately solved nothing. It's much more notable, however, his political contribution that the power doesn't really belong to the king, the latter being just an intermediary for the people; essentially, a predecessor of the 18th and 19th century thought. Like many others in this list, he also investigated about economy, developing the topics of contract law and price inflation put by Azpilcueta.
- Juan de Mariana (1536-1624): a historian and philosopher, considered one of the greatest of the school, even if ironically he didn't study in Salamanca himself. He is famous for writing a monumental 30-volume history of Spain, as well as treatises on politics against Niccolò Machiavelli, although his politic ideas were quite varied, and some of them landed him in prison. His surname might have given origin to Marianne, the personification of the French Republic.
- Francisco Suárez (1548-1617): nicknamed "Doctor Eximius et Pius" ("Doctor Exceptional and Pious"), Suárez was one of the greatest members of the school, as well as possibly the finest thinker of his time, to the point his work is considered a turning point between Renaissance and Early Modernity. He made great developments in metaphysics, in which he combined Thomism, Scotism and nominalism, but he also developed philosophy of law, in which he called for resistance against tyranny and criticized both the divine right of his time and the concept of social contract that would become cool later (although his own ideas weren't so far away, and in fact some adepts of Locke would find Suárez appealing). His current of thought, Suarism, would ironically clash against the enlightened absolutism defended in the 18th century by Bourbon monarchs, who eventually banned it from a Spanish Empire already in disintegration. People as varied as Leibniz, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Heidegger and Grotius cite Suárez as a source of inspiration.
- Gabriel Vásquez (1549-1604): Suárez's main enemy. An immensely cultured scholar, Vásquez defended a philosophy that mixed Augustinian and Thomist ideas. Although his own school of thought was short-lived, he is considered a massive influence on Christian theology, being called the "Light of Theology" by Pope Benedict XIV and still cited nowadays.
- Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592-1667): philosopher and mathematician, Arriaga sought to expand the knowledge of Salamanca through Europe, and for this purpose he moved to Prague, where he taught for most of his life. His knowledge of theology and natural philosophy made him so famous that three consecutive popes were fans of his, and there was an entire meme dedicated to him, "Pragam videre, Arriagam audire" ("To go to Prague, to listen to Arriaga"). He defended freedom and modernity, and was a proponent of the Copernican heliocentrism. Like Suárez, Leibniz admired him, and it's argued he colored much of Descartes' though.
Also in this era, the university of Salamanca featured other men of philosophy and science that are not always included in the school.
- Francisco López de Villalobos (1473-1549): a converso, he always had to put up with envious people accusing him of using weird Jewish magic to achieve his goals. In reality, he was an accomplished physician, physicist, humanist, translator, writer and philosopher. Especially known for his research about syphillis, he would be the first of several great medics based in Salamanca, like Cosme de Medina (who might have created the first anatomical theatre, even before the University of Padua made their own) and Juan Tomás Porcell (an apprentice of the previous, pioneer of anatomical pathology).
- Fernán Pérez de Oliva (1494-1531): engineer, humanist and philosopher. He had parallel careers as a writer, being especially prolific at translating Greek and Roman theatre works to Spanish, and as a scientist, being a strong proponent of technological advances on the idea that Man's divinity was found in science. He also preceded William Gilbert in researching magnetism, to the point he actually proposed that magnets might be used some day to communicate through long distances a la Nikola Tesla.
- Gómez Pereira (1500-1558): obscure and even more ignored by History than the rest of the school, Gómez Pereira studied philosophy and medicine in Salamanca, although he didn't become a teacher, instead gaining fame as a merchant, engineer and doctor. He did a couple inventions of windmills that were never taken up, but more famously predated Descartes by 80 years by stating an equivalent to "I think, therefore I am" (in his case, "I know that I know something; all that knows is; therefore, I am"), to the point Descartes was literally accused of plagiarism by a later commentator, Pierre Daniel Huet, who also accused Descartes of plagiarizing yet another Spaniard, Francisco Sánchez the Skeptic, in his Cartesian doubt.
The Valladolid Debate
This 1550-1551 affair, actually several debates celebrated in the mentioned city with the involvement of many members of the School of Salamanca, were basically the first moral discussion in European history about the rights and treatment of conquered people. It remains one of their most known and relevant instances, and a turning point not only in the treatment of the natives of the Spanish Empire, but also in the history of international law.The Spanish conquest of America had been kickstarted under the 1493 Papal bulls of Pope Alexander VI, which authorized them to conquer new lands with the obligation to evangelize the natives, but monarchs Isabella I and Ferdinand II modulated this by banning native enslavement and demanding that the indigenous would be justly treated. By the influence of Friar Antonio de Montesinos, a defender of the indigenous, they further mandated the 1512 Laws of Burgos, which tried to balance the rights of the conquerors and the conquered through the encomienda system. However, over the years, more clergymen warned that the difficulty to enforce those laws and the system's own loopholes were allowing abuses to continue, which coincided with a series of debates in Salamanca, headed by Francisco de Vitoria, about what did exactly those rights entail. Influenced now by Bartolomé de las Casas, the most outspoken and spectacular of the next batch of defenders, King Charles V consulted Vitoria and his colleagues and wrote the 1542 New Laws, abolishing the previous legislation, but this only caused encomenderos to literally revolt against the crown. Sick and tired of the topic, Charles called Salamanca again and demanded a process to solve it once for all.
The debates took place in Valladolid in 1550, in a great event that included personalities like Domingo de Soto, Melchor Cano and Bartolomé de Carranza, although not Vitoria himself, as he had died some years before. On one side of the debate, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda defended the classical, Aristotelian White Man's Burden, arguing that the natives' paganism, cannibalism and Human Sacrifice were calling for the Christians to civilize them by any means necessary (he even cited Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, a chronicler with the fringe, proto-racist idea that natives were subhuman). On the other side, Bartolomé de las Casas countered by claiming that the natives were not more brutal than ancient western men, argued that not even Christians had legitimate right over other peoples, and demanded that evangelization should be peaceful, never by force (citing Vitoria's own arguments). Notwithstanding the reference, it must be noted this was not a debate about racism, as by this point, no mainstream view in the Iberian Peninsula or Rome contemplated indigenous as anything but uneducated humans, proof of which is interracial marriage having been common since the first day. What was in the stake was whether conquest and force were rightful ways to save the souls of the natives, and although there was no official result, De las Casas emerged as the spiritual victor and the answer ended up being a surprising no.
The transcendence of the gathering was unexpected for what we are accustomed to read about evil empires. Incredibly, the Spanish monarchs took the result to heart and stopped gratuitous military expansion, with the next King Philip II officially forbidding new conquests in 1573, allowing only for defensive warfare, pacification of politically unstable territories, and protection of evangelizing activities. While one could cynically say that this was not a great concession after the Hispanic Monarchy had already assimilated the richest indigenous empires of America, not to mention how exploitable the whole allowed terms were, they also followed with the creation the Protectoría de los Indios, an entire department dedicated to prevent abuses in the overseas territories, as well as a regularized system of inspection named visita. It also elevated De las Casas as the main exponent of this stance, becoming a figure famous for his zeal and dedication (albeit controversial by his exaggerations and outright lies, which would later backfire against Spain by giving a ton of fuel to the Black Legend) to the defense of their subjects.
In media:
- The 1992 French film La Controverse de Valladolid recreates the eponymous debate, although, perhaps unsurprisingly, it isn't very accurate. Among other things, it portrays it as a debate oriented to discover whether those pesky indigenous were human beings or soulless animals, which in real life was a theologic issue that had been answered twenty years earlier in the Sublimis Deus bull.
- The documentary Spain, the first globalization mentions the school and the Valladolid debate, as well as its consequences.
