Martín de Azpilcueta (Azpilkueta in Basque)[1] (13 December 1492 – 1 June 1586), or Doctor Navarrus, was a Navarrese canonist, theologian and economist.
Beginning in 1524, Azpilcueta served in several canon law chairs at the University of Salamanca. He got the chair of Decretum in 1532[7] and then obtained the first chair of canon law in 1537, when he taught to Diego de Covarrubias and Arias Piñel.[7]
Back to Spain in 1555, he was charged by Philip II of Spain to defend his friend Bartolomé Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, accused before the Tribunal of the Inquisition. At the age of eighty, he went to Rome to followed the process. Though he failed to exculpate the Archbishop, Azpilcueta was highly honoured at Rome by several popes, and was looked on as an oracle of learning and prudence. His humility, disinterestedness, and charity were proverbial. the pope Pius V made him counsellor of the Apostolic Penitentiary and tried, without success, to make him a cardinal.[8]
Azpilcueta died in Rome at the age of 94.[6] He is buried in the national Church of San Antonio de' Portoghesi. Among other lives of Azpilcueta there is one by his nephew, prefixed to the Roman edition of his works.
Consilia et responsa, 1594
Works
Economy
In this work, Azpilcueta argued that the use of "money in exchanges is not unnatural," as Aristotle had claimed, and "put money on the same level as any other merchandise, and, consequently, established that the morality of exchanges did not depend on money as their object but on an equitable exchange".[9] Then he legitimated the practice of interest against the catholic prohibition of usury.
In his work on the revenues of benefices, dedicated to Philip II of Spain and Pope Pius V, he maintained that beneficed clergymen were free to expend the fruits of their benefices only for their own necessary support and that of the poor.
Law
His Manual de confesores y penitentes (1549), originally written in Spanish, was enormously influential in the fields of canon law and ethics, and by the first quarter of the seventeenth century, it had gone through 81 editions.[6] The Manual made an important step in the development of moral theology as its own discipline.[13] One of the four appendices Azpilcueta wrote for the Manual, addressing exchange, supply and demand, and money, has recently been translated into English and published as On Exchange (2014).[14]
Azpilcueta cogitated also on the concepts of commutative justice, just price and fairness in exchange: with a large interpretation of the principe of laesio and of the seventh Commandment, he considered that contracts doesn't be burdens for a party and that any violation of the equity can be take to ecclesiastical courts.[16]
Use of vernacular language
In the face of use by the reformed Church of natural languages in their liturgy and divulgation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation reacted by hanging onto Latin. On the other hand, Azpilcueta supported the use of vernaculars in his 1545 Commento en Romance released in Coimbra, writing down the prayers Our Father, Hail Mary, and Creed both in Latin and Romance, i.e. Castilian, coming up against the opposition of the defenders of the Latin tradition.[17]
Later, he had to explain in his 1586 Miscellaneum centum that vernaculars had been used before, as approved by bishops and inquisitors, citing "a pious and knowledgeable Cantabrian", referring to Sancho de Elso from Estella, who had used Basque in different prayers. He partially put down the unfamiliarity of "the rustic dwellers and highlanders" with the Christian teachings to the use of Latin, "instead of their native language, learning them by heart".[17]
Publications
Manuale de' confessori, 1584 (Milano, Fondazione Mansutti).
Comentarii de Poenitentia, Coímbra, 1542.
Si quando de Rescriptis in causa propria. Coímbra, 1543.
Comentario [...] sobre el capítulo Inter Verba, Coímbra, 1543.
Relectio sive iterata praelectio [...] de resit. Spoliat, Coímbra, 1547.
Relectio in cap. Novit [...] de iudicis, Coímbra, 1548.
Commento o repetición del capítulo Quando de consecratione, Coímbra, 1550.
Relectio cap. ita quorundam de Iudaeis, Coímbra, 1550.
Relectio in Levitico, Coímbra, 1550.
Manual de confesores y penitentes o Enchirindion confessariorum, édition portugaise, Coímbra, 1550; édition en castillan, Salamanque, 1556; Pampelune, Adrián de Amberes, 1566;
Cinco comentarios, Salamanque, 1556.
Comentario resolutorio de usuras, Salamanque, 1556. Pampelune, Adrián de Amberes, 1565.
Repertorio sobre hurtos, Salamanque, 1556.
Tratado sobre las rentas de los beneficios eclesiásticos, Valladolid, 1566.
Adiciones al Manual de confesores, 1569.
Commentarii in tres De Poenitentia, 1569.
Capítulo veyte y ocho de las adiciones del Manual de confesores, Valladolid, 1570.
Respuesta [...] a De redditibus ecclesiasticis, 1571.
Commentarius de spoliis clericorum, Rome, 1572.
Tratado de alabanza y murmuración, Valladolid, 1572.
Commentarius [...] de religiones sine debito, Rome, 1574.
Comentarius de silentio in divinis Officciis, 1580.
Miscellanea centum de oratione, praesertim de Psalterio et Rosario. Rome, 1586.
Discurso del silencio que se deue guardar en los Diuinos Oficios, principalmente en el Coro, Salamanque, Pedro Lasso, 1588.
^ abJimeno Aranguren, Roldan. "Contrareforma y lengua: regulación jurídica y praxis en Navarra". Visiones poliédricas sobre la conquista de Navarra: 140–141.
Decock, Wim (2018). "Martin de Azpilcueta". In R. Domingo; J. Martínez-Torrón (eds.). Great Christian Jurists in Spanish History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 116–133.
Giraud, Bibli. Sacr., II 334-336 (gives list of his writings)
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