Great Christian Jurists in Spanish History

The Great Christian Jurists series comprises a library of national volumes of detailed biographies of leading jurists, judges and practitioners, assessing the impact of their Christian faith on the professional output of the individuals studied. Spanish legal culture, developed during the Spanish Golden Age, has had a significant influence on the legal norms and institutions that emerged in Europe and in Latin America. This volume examines the lives of twenty key personalities in Spanish legal history, in particular how their Christian faith was a factor in molding the evolution of law. Each chapter discusses a jurist within his or her intellectual and political context. All chapters have been written by distinguished legal scholars from Spain and around the world. This diversity of international and methodological perspectives gives the volume its unique character; it will appeal to scholars, lawyers, and students interested in the interplay between religion and law.

Introduction Rafael Domingo and Javier Martínez-Torrón; 1. Isidore of Seville Philip Reynolds; 2. Raymond of Penyafort José Miguel Viejo-Ximénez; 3. Alfonso X Joseph F. O'Callaghan; 4. Francisco de Vitoria Andreas Wagner; 5. Bartolomé de Las Casas Kenneth Pennington; 6. Martín de Azpilcueta Wim Decok; 7 Domingo de Soto Benjamin Hill; 8. Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca Salvador Rus; 9. Diego de Covarrubias y Leiva Richard Helmholz; 10 Luis de Molina Kirk R. MacGregor; 11. Francisco Suárez Henrik Lagerlung; 12. Tomás Sánchez Rafael Domingo; 13. Juan Solórzano Pereira Matthew C. Mirow; 14. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos Jan-Henrik Witthaus; 15. Francisco Martínez Marina Aniceto Massferrer; 16. Juan Donoso Cortés Jose María Beneyto; 17. Concepción Arenal Paloma Durán y Lalaguna; 18. Manuel Alonso Martínez Carlos Petit; 19. Álvaro d'Ors Rafael Domingo; 20. Pedro Lombardía Alberto de la Hera and Javier Martínez-Torrón.

These intellectual biographies illustrate the rich and enduring interactions between Christianity and law by examining the contributions that twenty Spanish jurists have made over the centuries to legal ideals, institutions, and practice, and how their Christian faith informed their thinking about the law.

Rafael Domingo is the Spruill Family Research Professor at Emory University, Atlanta, and ICS Professor of Law at Universidad de Navarra, Spain. A specialist in legal history, legal theory, ancient Roman law, and comparative law, he has published more than 20 books, including The New Global Law (Cambridge, 2011) and God and the Secular Legal System (Cambridge, 2016).
Javier Martínez-Torrón is Professor of Law at Complutense University, Madrid. He is vice-president of the section of canon law and church-state relations of the Spanish Royal Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation. His scholarly writings include twenty-two books and have been published in twenty-three countries and in thirteen languages.