Abstract
The sixteenth century became highly productive of new approaches to the problem of declaring war, in good part because of the opening up of new lands to European occupation. Already by 1500, the peoples of Iberia confronted an issue that had not faced the leaders and thinkers of the ancient and medieval eras—the conquest of lands previously unknown to them. The Greeks and the Romans never seem to have given much thought to the question of whether the conquest of lands of the “barbarians,” that is, anyone not Greek or Italian, had to be justified and a proper declaration of war issued before their lands could be seized. Medieval sensibilities in that respect were little different until the end of the fifteenth century: the rules governing war against fellow Christians did not hold in regard to Muslims and pagans. The Spanish in particular confronted this issue of new lands head-on, creating a major corpus of works on the laws of war that played a significant role in forming international law.
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Notes
The English text of the Requirement is in Arthur Helps, The Spanish Conquest in America, 4 vols. (reprint New York: AMS Press, 1966), I, 264–67.
See also Lewis Hanke, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1949), pp. 31–36.
Patricia Seed, Ceremonies of Possession in Europe’s Conquest of the New World 1492–1640 (Cambridge: University Press, 1995), pp. 74–79, shows the similarities between the Muslim summons and the Spanish Requirement.
Richard Flint, Great Cruelties Have Been Reported: The 1544 Investigation of the Coronado Expedition (Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 2002), p. 210. Most histories of the Spanish conquests and biographies of conquistadores contain examples of the proclaiming of the Requirement.
Gaspar Perez de Villagra, Historia de la Nueva Mexico, 1610 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992), pp. 160–62.
Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians: A Study in Race Prejudice in the Modern World (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1959), pp. 107–09.
Marino Sanuto, I Diarii, ed. by F. Stefani, 58 vols. (Venice, 1879–1903), VIII, col. 95.
E. Nys, Le Droit de La Guerre (Paris: Durand, 1882), p. 109; Bridge, History of France, III, 20.
Ludwig von Pastor, History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, 40 vols. (reprint Nendelen, Liechtenstein, 1969), VI, 31–32.
Letters and Papers, Foreign and domestic of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. by J. S. Brewer (reprint Vaduz: Kraus, 1965), I, part 2, no. 2157; Sanuto, I Diarii, XVI, 674. Hall’s Chronicle, pp. 545–46, provides an account of this episode that varies in details.
R. Nicholson, Scotland: The Later Middle Ages (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1974), pp. 600–604. The herald Lyon had not reached James with Henry’s response to the defiance when James was killed.
V.-L. Bourrilly and F Vindry, eds., Mémoires de Martin et Guillaume Du Bellay (Paris, 1905), I, 107–12. The text of La Mark’s declaration of war is not given, so it is not clear on what grounds he declared war.
F. Billacois, The Duel, trans. by T. Selous (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 9.
R. J. Knecht, Renaissance Warrior and Patron: The Reign of Francis I (Cambridge: University Press, 1994), p. 200.
The exchanges between the kings of England and France on one side and Charles V on the other are found in Charles Weiss, ed. Papiers d’Etat de Cardinal de Granvelle, 4 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1841), I, 310–424.
See also Robert Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 6 vols. (reprint New York, 1965), III, 723–29.
Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers Related to the Negotiations between England and Spain, ed. by P. de Gayangos (reprint Nendeln, Liechtenstein, 1969), III-2, 549–51.
Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, ed. by J. Brewer (reprint Vaduz, 1965), IV-2, 1715.
Karl Brandi, The Emperor Charles V, trans. by C. V. Wedgwood (London: Jonathan Cape, 1939), p. 265.
Heinrich Bullinger, Heinrich Bullingers Reformationsgeschichte nach dem Autographon, 3 vols. (Frauenfeld, 1838–40), II, 163–69.
See also G. R. Potter, Zwingli (Cambridge: University Press, 1978), p. 346ff.
Sleidan. De Statu Religionis Et Reipublicae, Carolo quinto, Caesare, Commentarii. (Strasburg, 1555), l. 17.
For the background to the war, see Baumgartner, Henry II King of France (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1988), pp. 177–91.
Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, Reign of Mary edited by William Turnbull (reprint Nendeln. Liechtenstein: Klaus, 1967), p. 312.
Henry Machyn, The Diary of Henry Machyn, Citizen and Merchant-taylor of London, From A.D. 1550 to A.D. 1563, ed. by John Nicholls (reprint New York: Johnson Reprints, 1986), p. 138.
A French account of the herald’s appearance at the French court is printed in L. Cimber and F. Danjou, eds., Archives curieuses de l’histoire de France, 1st series (Paris, 1734–1750), III, 213–18. See also Holinshed, Chronicles, IV, 87.
Miller, Sir Henry Killigrew (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1963) 85–87.
Victor Palma Cayet, Chronologie novenaire, in J.-F. Michaud and J.-J. Poujoulat, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de France, 32 vols. (Lyon, 1853), XII, 654–55.
British Library, ms. ADD 8558; Charles Dumont, Corps universal diplomatique du droit des gens (Amsterdam: Brunel, 1728), V-1, 203. A Spaniard, Juan de Carthagena, wrote a work, Propuganculum Catholicum De Jure Belli romani Pontificis (Rome, 1609), which proclaimed that the pope had as much right as any secular monarch to declare war against violators of the Church’s rights.
George Hill, History of Cyprus, 3 vols. (Cambridge: University Press, 1972), III, 888.
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© 2011 Frederic J. Baumgartner
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Baumgartner, F.J. (2011). The Sixteenth Century—The Practice. In: Declaring War in Early Modern Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118898_3
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