Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva

Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva, painting by El Greco

Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva (born July 25, 1512 in Toledo , † September 27, 1577 in Madrid ), known by his Latin name Didacus Covarruvias , was a Spanish church lawyer and humanist. He belongs to the group of theologians-jurists of the Spanish Late Scholasticism or School of Salamanca .

Life

Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva came from a Toledan family of scholars. His father was Alonso de Covarrubias (1488–1570), the architect of the Toledo Cathedral, his mother came from Belgium. His brother Antonio Covarrubias y Leyva (1514 / 24–1602) member of the Council of Castile and law professor in Salamanca .

Diego Covarrubias y Leyva studied at the University of Salamanca . There he was a student of Martin de Azpilcueta , called Doctor Navarrus, in canon law , and in theology of Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de Soto . At the age of 22 (1533/34) he taught canon law himself in Salamanca. He was instrumental in the reorganization of the university in the 1560s. Here Covarrubias y Leyva probably met with the Legistien Fernando Vázquez de Menchaca . He then worked as a professor in Oviedo , as a judge in Burgos and in 1548 in Granada .

His clerical career began when Charles V made him Archbishop of Santo Domingo on the island of Hispaniola (in the New World) in 1549/1555 , a post he never assumed. At the endeavor of Philip II , also a student at the University of Salamanca, Covarrubias was installed by the Pope as Bishop of Ciudad Rodrigo in Castile in 1559/60 , as which he joined with his brother Antonio and his Salmantine colleagues Domingo de Soto and Vázquez de Menchaca participated in the last phase at the Council of Trent . There he edited together with Cardinal Ugo Boncompagni , who later became Pope Gregory XIII. , the decrees De reformatione and thus made an important contribution to the consolidation of the Catholic Church after the incursions caused by the Reformation of Martin Luther . After the Council of Trent Covarrubias was entrusted with high ecclesiastical and secular offices: in 1564/65 he became Bishop of Segovia , 1572 member and 1574 President of the Supreme Council of Castile, whose main function was to advise the king.

meaning

In his scientific works Covarrubias y Leyva dealt with numerous questions from inheritance and marriage law as well as criminal law. At that time, these areas belonged to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Outwardly, the commentaries often retain a "scholastic" character, but clearly show the influence of humanism through the frequent use of ancient, including Greek, quotations and their elegant Latin language . The commentary on a passage from canon law is often only the starting point for a very free presentation of the material on a certain area of ​​law, and in the treatises Covarrubias starts out even more from the principles of law and less from the authority of a text. Covarrubias, like Andrea Alciati and Ulrich Zasius , belongs to the group of pre-Protestant legal humanism, which, through a renewed look at the sources (ad fontes!) And the principles of law on which they are based, systematized jurisprudence in the late 16th and 17th centuries . Century prepared decisively. Covarrubias is often quoted by Johannes Althusius , Hugo Grotius and, in criminal law, by Benedikt Carpzov .

The School of Salamanca tried to revive the theology and natural law doctrine of Thomas Aquinas . Covarrubias also advocates an unchangeable natural law. He assigns the ius gentium completely to the ius humanum and rejects the subdivision into ius naturale primaevum and secundaevum which Vázquez added . Covarrubias severely restricts the earthly powers of the emperor and pope in the interests of Spain: for example, following Francisco de Vitoria , he rejects the curial doctrine of two swords and thus the pope's potestas indirecta in worldly matters, but also turns against the doctrine of Bartolus de Saxoferrato from the universal empire. For Covarrubias, the state community as such is, by natural law, the bearer of state power, an approach that contributed much to the later doctrine of popular sovereignty. In criminal law, Covarrubias conveys the theological guilty and penal doctrine to secular criminal law and makes an important contribution to the systematization of the concept of punishment, as a result of which the guilt principle also began to prevail in secular criminal law in the 16th century.

The historical significance of Covarrubias can be seen in the fact that a collection of canonical works under the title Opera omnia canonica was published during his lifetime (1573) . The complete edition, summarized in a tome, which was increased in later editions by further works ascribed to him, was repeatedly reprinted up to the Geneva edition of 1765. In the primarily Protestant scholarship according to Grotius, Covarrubias, like other authors of the "Spanish Late Scholasticism", falls out of sight. It was only in 1848 that Kaltenborn drew attention to him again, but because of his rich quotations, he initially only said he was "horrible erudition". Kohler then calls him the "greatest lawyer that Spain has produced". The Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada praises its "ingenio tan agudo como claro". Perena Vicente attributes it to the “figura gigante de Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva”, “que abre una época en la historia del Derecho espanol.” And not without a certain national pride, he adds: “Esta es una de sus mayores glorias. "Reibstein regards him primarily as a" representative of the interests of the secular state ", which he recognizes as a prerequisite for a" deeper synopsis "of spiritual and secular power. According to Schaffstein, Covarrubias takes on the role of a “mediator” in the field of criminal law, “through whom the rich inventory of Thomistic-canonical term analyzes for secular criminal law is opened up, in some cases further developed and thus made usable for the following, especially for German dogmatics has been".

Individual works

Opera omnia , 1734 (Milano, Fondazione Mansutti )

Comments:

• In tit. De testamentis, Interpretatio (X 3, 26) (1547)
• In lib. IV. Decretalium, De sponsalibus ac matrimoniis, Epitome (X 4, 1) (1545)
• In c. Quamvis pactum, De pactis, lib. VI. Decretalium, Relectio (VI 1, 18, 2) (1553)
• In c. Alma mater, De sententia excommunicationis lib. VI., Relectio (VI 5, 11, 24) (1554)
• In regulae Possessor malae fidei, De regul. iuris. lib. VI., Relectio (VI 5, 13, 2) (1553)
• In regulae Peccatum, De regul. iuris lib. VI., Relectio (VI 5, 13, 4) (1553/54)
• In Clementis quinti constitutionem: Si furiosus, rubrica De homicidio, Relectio (Clem. 5, 4, un.) (1554)

Treatises and treaty sums:

• Variarum Resolutionum ex jure pontificio regio et caesareo libri IV (1552 lib. 1-3, 1570 lib. 1-4)
• Practicarum quaestionum liber unus (1556–94) (cited Pract. Quaest.) (1556)
• De frigidis et maleficiatis, Tractatus (1573 in Opera omnia, Frankfurt)
• Veterum numismatum Collatio (de re monetaria) (1556).

In the literature, the following works not included in the Opera omnia editions are also mentioned:

• De possessione & praescriptione
• Enucleatum & auctum
• Notas ad concilium tridentinum
• Tractatus de poenis.
• Observaciones al fuero juzgo
• Catalogo de los Reyes de Espana y de otras cosas sennaladas para razon del tiempo
• Fundacion de algunas ciudades de Espanna
• Advertencias para entender las inscripciones.

Portraits

Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva has been portrayed several times by El Greco , who was a close friend of his brother Antonio. The best-known single portrait of El Greco, which Covarrubias shows in older years, is now in the possession of the Museo El Greco. Also in the Museo El Greco is a portrait of the Spanish painter Alonso Sánchez Coello from 1574. Another painting showing Covarruvias in more recent years is in the possession of the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville. He can also be seen in one of the first group portraits in European art history, El Greco's funeral of the Count of Orgaz (1586–1588).

literature

• Carl Baron Kaltenborn von Stachau , The forerunners of Hugo Grotius in the field of ius gentium and politics in the age of the Reformation , Leipzig 1848, p. 132ff.
• Katherine Elliot van Liere, Humanism and the law faculties in sixteenth-century Spain: Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva (1512-1577) and the university of Salamanca , Ann Arbor 1995, p. 48ff.
• Josef Kohler, The Spanish natural law teachers of the 16th and 17th centuries , in: Archive for Legal and Economic Philosophy 10 (1917) p. 235ff.
• Harald Maihold, punishment for someone else's guilt? The systematization of the concept of punishment in the Spanish late scholasticism and natural law theory , Cologne a. a. 2005
• Friedrich Merzbacher , Azpilcueta and Covarruvias , in: Savigny Zeitschrift für Rechtsgeschichte, Canonical Department 46 (1960), p. 317ff.
• Luciano Pereña Vicente, La Universidad de Salamanca , Salamanca 1954, p. 25th
• Ernst Reibstein, Johannes Althusius as the continuation of the School of Salamanca. Investigations on the history of ideas of the constitutional state and on the old Protestant doctrine of natural law , Karlsruhe 1955
• Friedrich Schaffstein, European Criminal Law Studies in the Age of Humanism , Göttingen 1954, p. 71.
• Kurt Seelmann, Covarrubias , in: Michael Stolleis, Juristen, Munich 1995, p. 142f.
• Christian Gottlieb Jöcher, General Learned Lexicon ... , Leipzig 1750, Volume I, sp. 2148f.
• Enciclopedia Universal Ilustrada Europeo-Americana , Bilbao, Madrid, Barcelona 1905-30, tom. XV, p. 1411ff.
• Er-Gruber: General Encyclopedia of the Sciences and Arts. Part 21, p. 425

Web links

Commons : Diego de Covarrubias y Leyva  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ SANCHEZ COELLO ( English ) Web Gallery of Art. Accessed March 13, 2019.