Alonso de Cartagena y Juan López de Palacios Rubios. Dilemas suscitados por las primeras conquistas atlánticas en dos juristas salmantinos (1436-1512)

Abstract

The article focus on the way in which two students and teachers of the University of Salamanca, jurists Alonso de Cartagena (1381-1456) y Juan López de Palacios Rubios (1450-1524) reflected about the dominion of and over Pagan peoples in the treatises Allegationes super conquesta insularum Canarie contra Portugalenses (c. 1436) and Libellus de insulis oceanis quas vulgus indias appelat (c. 1512). Written as a result of the dilemmas that had arisen from the expansionists projects of the Castilian and Portuguese Crowns over the Canary Islands, the northern continental Africa and the early conquests in the Americas, those treatises are of genuine interest. On one hand, they can be seen as a good example of the interrelationship between philosophical, theological and juridical arguments and authorities which distinguish the ‘political’ writings of this period. They allow us too, to track the way in which crucial notions such as potestas, dominium or infidelitas were redrafted in order to continue playing an explaining role in a world (the one of Early Modern Era) that grows and changes. On the other hand, paying attention to these texts (and to other contemporary writings), we can discern better between the theoretical elements that Vitoria, Soto and other better known teachers from Salamanca shared with their predecessors, and the one who should be really considered as singular innovations coming from Vitoria and his disciples.