Francisco de Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria was born around 1483 (some scholars say 1492), probably in Burgos, Spain. A Dominican friar, he studied and taught at Paris, where he absorbed the theology of Thomas Aquinas. In 1526 he won the leading chair of theology at the University of Salamanca, where he taught for twenty years and trained a generation of scholars later known as the School of Salamanca. Each year he gave public lectures called relectiones on pressing questions. In his 1539 lectures On the American Indians and On the Law of War he asked by what right Spain ruled the newly conquered peoples of the Americas. He argued that the Indians truly owned their lands and ruled their own communities; that neither the pope nor the emperor was lord of the whole world; that unbelief was no reason to take their property; and that war could be just only for a real wrong done. His teaching on the law of nations made him, with Hugo Grotius, a founder of international law. He died in Salamanca on 12 August 1546.

Faith: Spanish Dominican theologian who taught at the Dominican College of St Gregory in Valladolid. Source: Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)

See also: Bartolomé de las Casas · Hugo Grotius · Thomas Aquinas