TheSchool of Salamanca(Spanish:Escuela de Salamanca) is theRenaissanceof thought in diverse intellectual areas bySpanishandPortuguesetheologians, rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work ofFrancisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th century the traditionalCatholicconception of man and of his relation toGodand to the world had been assaulted by the rise ofhumanism, by theProtestant Reformationand by thenew geographical discoveriesand their consequences. These new problems were addressed by the School of Salamanca. The name refers to theUniversity of Salamanca, where de Vitoria and others of the school were based.

Francisco de Vitoria,Domingo de Soto,Martn de Azpilcueta(or Azpilicueta),Toms de Mercado, andFrancisco Surez, all scholars ofnatural lawand ofmorality, founded a school of theologians and jurists who undertook the reconciliation of the teachings ofThomas Aquinaswith the new political-economic order. The themes of study centered on man and his practical problems (morality, economics, jurisprudence, etc.), but almost equally on a particular body of work accepted by all of them, as the ground against which to test their disagreements, including at times bitter polemics within the School.

The School of Salamanca in the broad sense may be considered more narrowly as two schools of thought coming in succession, that of theSalmanticensesand that of theConimbricensesfrom theUniversity of Coimbra. The first began with Francisco de Vitoria (14831546), and reached its high point with Domingo de Soto (14941560). The Conimbricenses wereJesuitswho, from the end of 16th century took over the intellectual leadership of the Catholic world from theDominicans. Among those Jesuits wereLuis de Molina(15351600), the aforementioned Francisco Surez (15481617), andGiovanni Botero(15441617), who would continue the tradition in Italy.

The juridical doctrine of the School of Salamanca represented the end of medieval concepts of law, with a revindication oflibertynot habitual inEuropeof that time. The natural rights of man came to be, in one form or another, the center of attention, including rights as a corporeal being (right to life, economic rights such as the right to own property) and spiritual rights (the right tofreedom of thoughtand to human dignity).

The School of Salamanca reformulated the concept ofnatural law: law originating in nature itself, with all that exists in the natural order sharing in this law. Their conclusion was, given that all humans share the same nature, they also share the same rights to life and liberty. Such views constituted a novelty in European thought and went counter to those then predominant in Spain and Europe thatpeople indigenous to the Americashad no such rights.

Contents

[hide] 1Sovereignty 2The law of peoples and international law 3Just war 4The conquest of America 5Economics 5.1Antecedents 5.2Private property 5.3Money, value, and price 5.4Interest on money 6Theology 6.1Morality 6.2The polemicDe auxiliis 6.3The existence of evil in the world 7See also 8References 9External linksSovereignty[edit]This section includes alist of references, butits sources remain unclearbecause it hasinsufficientinline citations.Please help toimprovethis article byintroducingmore precise citations.(October 2011)

The School of Valencia distinguished two realms of power, the natural or civil realm and the realm of thesupernatural, which were often conflated in theMiddle Agesthrough doctrines such as theDivine Right of Kingsand the temporal powers of thepope. One direct consequence of the separation of realms of power is that the king or emperor does not legitimately have jurisdiction oversouls, nor does the pope have legitimatetemporal power. This included the proposal that there are limits on the legitimate powers of government. Thus, according to Luis de Molina anationisanalogousto a mercantile society (the antecedent of a moderncorporation) in that those who govern are holders of power (effectively sovereigns) but a collective power, to which they are subject, derives from them jointly. Nonetheless, in de Molina's view, the power of society over the individual is greater than that of a mercantile society over its members, because the power of the government of a nation emanates from God's divine power (as against merely from the power of individualssovereignover themselves in their business dealings).

Francisco de VitoriaAt this time, themonarchyofEnglandwas extending the theory of thedivine right of kingsunder which the monarch is the unique legitimate recipient of the emanation of God's powerasserting thatsubjectsmust follow the monarch's orders, in order not to contravene said design. Counter to this, several adherents of the School sustained that thepeopleare the vehicle of divinesovereignty, which they, in turn, pass to a prince under various conditions. Possibly the one who went furthest in this direction was Francisco Surez, whose workDefensio Fidei Catholicae adversus Anglicanae sectae errores(The Defense of the Catholic Faith against the errors of theAnglicansect1613) was the strongest defense in this period ofpopular sovereignty. Men are born free by their nature and not as slaves of another man, and can disobey even to the point ofdeposing an unjust government. As with de Molina, he affirms that political power does not reside in any one concrete person, but he differs subtly in that he considers that the recipient of that power is the people as a whole, not a collection of sovereign individualsin the same way,Jean-Jacques Rousseau's theory of popular sovereignty would consider the people as a collective group superior to the sum that composes it.

Gabriel Vzquez(15491604) held that natural law is not limited to the individual, but obliges societies to act in accord and be treated with justice.

For Surez, the political power of society is contractual in origin because the community forms byconsensusof free wills. The consequence of thiscontractualist theoryis that the natural form of government is either ademocracyor a republic, whileoligarchyormonarchyarise as secondary institutions, whose claim to justice is based on being forms chosen (or at least consented to) by the people.

The law of peoples and international law[edit]

Francisco SurezFrancisco de Vitoria was perhaps the first to develop a theory ofius gentium(the rights of peoples), and thus is an important figure in the transition to modernity. He extrapolated his ideas of legitimate sovereign power to society at the international level, concluding that this scope as well ought to be ruled by just forms respectable of the rights of all. The common good of the world is of a category superior to the good of each state. This meant that relations between states ought to pass from being justified by force to being justified by law and justice. Some scholars have upset the standard account of the origins ofInternational law, which emphasises the seminal textDe iure belli ac pacisbyGrotius, and argued for Vitoria and, later, Surez's importance as forerunners and, potentially, founders of the field.[1]Others, such asKoskenniemi, have argued that none of these humanist and scholastic thinkers can be understood to have founded international law in the modern sense, instead placing its origins in the post-1870 period.[2]Francisco Surez subdivided the concept ofius gentium. Working with already well-formed categories, he carefully distinguishedius inter gentesfromius intra gentes. Ius inter gentes (which corresponds to modern international law) was something common to the majority of countries, although beingpositive law, not natural law, was not necessarily universal. On the other hand,ius intra gentes, orcivil law, is specific to each nation.

Just war[edit]Given that war is one of the worst evils suffered by mankind, the adherents of the School reasoned that it ought to be resorted to only when it was necessary in order to prevent an evengreaterevil. A diplomatic agreement is preferable, even for the more powerful party, before a war is started. Examples of "just war" are:

In self-defense, as long as there is a reasonable possibility of success. If failure is a foregone conclusion, then it is just a wasteful spilling of blood.

Preventive war against atyrantwho is about to attack.