Hernando de Talavera

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Hernando de Talavera, painting by Juan de Valdés Leal 150 years after the depicted's death
Coat of arms of the Archbishop of Granada Hernando de Talavera

Hernando de Talavera OSH (also: Fernando de Talavera) (* around 1428 in Talavera de la Reina , Castile ; † 14 May 1507 in Granada ) was a Spanish theologian and politician.

Life

Origin and beginning of a career as a theologian

Hernando de Talavera was born in Talavera de la Reina in 1428 or 1430 . Fernan Alvarez de Toledo, who later became Count of Oropesa , who financed at least his theology studies in Salamanca , is believed to be his father . His mother is believed to come from a Converso family. From 1445 to 1460 he studied theology at the University of Salamanca , where he then taught moral theology between 1463 and 1466 . In July 1466 he made his vows as a monk of the Hieronymites order in the Jerónimo de San Leonardo monastery in Alba de Tormes . From 1470 he was prior of the Nuestra Señora del Prado monastery in Valladolid .

Career as a politician

At the beginning of 1475 Queen Isabella I chose him as her confessor and advisor. For a few months he was also King Ferdinand's confessor .

In the years 1475 to 1480, during the War of the Castilian Succession , he assisted the queen in solving various problems. He later proved to be the monarchy's financial expert. He organized the seizure of sacred vessels from the churches with the promise to return them when circumstances permit. The church silver (la plata de las iglesias) was pledged for loans that could be used to cover the costs of the war. After the end of the Castilian War of Succession, the property structure and the existing claims of the high nobility for state benefits were checked. A commission headed by Hernando de Talavera examined registers from 1477 to 1479 across the kingdom to find out which claims were legitimate and which were not. As a result of this review, the former opponents of the Catholic Kings lost around two thirds, but the supporters lost a third of their pensions.

From 1480, Hernando de Talavera was again mainly active in pastoral care. From 1480 he was a visitor of the Hieronymites Order. In this position he campaigned for the rules of the order to be obeyed in their original form. In 1483 he took over the office of administrator of the Diocese of Salamanca . In 1485 he was ordained bishop of Ávila .

From 1486 to 1492 he organized the procurement and administration of the funds necessary to finance the campaigns against the Emirate of Granada . One measure was that he had the crusade bull, which had been issued by Pope Sixtus IV , printed in the monastery of Santa Maria del Prado in several hundred thousand copies. It was sold to the believers by hundreds of preachers. The Pope only received a small amount of the proceeds, most of which was used for the crusade against the Moors.

In his position as advisor to the queen, he was also involved in the preparation of expert opinions in 1486 and 1492 that assessed the plans of Christopher Columbus. Talavera rejected the project because experts assessed the calculation of the distances as incorrect. After the Agreement of Santa Fe was signed by the Catholic Monarchs, Talavera raised the money needed to equip the fleet of three ships.

Archbishop of Granada

During the rule of the Moors, Granada was a titular diocese . In the course of the war against the emirate of Granada , various other cities ( Almería , Guadix , Málaga ) had been conquered, which were once bishoprics and where new dioceses were established. On December 10, 1492, the Archdiocese of Granada was re-established with the various Suffragan dioceses . Talavera became the first Archbishop of Granada. There were only a few priests, hardly any consecrated churches or monasteries, and no ecclesiastical administrative structures. Only a small part of the population consisted of baptized Christians or spoke Spanish. Talavera had already stated his views on the conversion of the Mohammedans in various writings, now he had to put these theoretical considerations into practice. Talavera endeavored to strictly adhere to the specifications of the contracts for the transfer of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs, which he himself was involved in drafting. He demanded that the conversion of Muslims should be done by conviction and not by the use of force. This attitude was opposed to the new confessor of the Queen Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros . Talavera sponsored the printing of a textbook of the Arabic language by Pedro de Alcalá and encouraged his pastors to learn Arabic in order to be able to communicate with the parishioners. He himself had translations of the Koran in Spanish and Latin. Cisneros, on the other hand, had all books in the Arabic language that could be found in Granada, probably around 5,000, burned in public, with only the books with medical content being brought to the library of the University of Alcalá. Heinrich Heine's tragedy Almansor , published in 1821, contains a replica of the book burnings ordered by Jiménez de Cisneros . “ Where you burn books, you end up burning people too ”.

Talavera believed that new converts should be treated like any other baptized Christian without restriction. He rejected a general suspicion against all “New Christians”. This view was also confirmed by the Pope. Pope Nicolaus V stated that all Christians, regardless of when they became one, form a single group and thus have the same right to offices and the benefits of civil and ecclesiastical society.

The inquisitor of Córdoba, Diego Rodríguez Lucero , had friends, colleagues and family members of the archbishop arrested and initiated an inquisition trial against Talavera in the spring of 1506. He was accused of being too lenient towards the Conversos. He also hindered the work of the Inquisition in Granada. With the bull "Exponi nobis" of November 30, 1506, Pope Julius II commissioned the nuncio in Spain Juan Rufo to take over the trial against the Archbishop of Granada and the trials against his relatives and employees. Hernando de Talavera was eventually acquitted and rehabilitated. The Inquisitor of Córdoba, Diego Rodríguez Lucero and the Inquisitor General of Castile Diego de Deza had to give up their office.

The first Archbishop of Granada, Hernando de Talavera, died on May 14, 1507 at the old age of more than 75 years in Granada.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 177 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  2. ↑ Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada: Fray Hernando de Talavera en 1492. (PDF) de la corte a la misión. In: Chronica nova: Revista de historia moderna de la Universidad de Granada, ISSN  0210-9611 , Nº 34, 2008. Universidad de Granada, April 11, 2008, pp. 255 ff , accessed on December 14, 2014 (Spanish).
  3. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 90 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  4. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 123 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  5. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 177 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  6. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 126 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  7. ↑ Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada: Fray Hernando de Talavera en 1492. (PDF) de la corte a la misión. In: Chronica nova: Revista de historia moderna de la Universidad de Granada, ISSN  0210-9611 , Nº 34, 2008. Universidad de Granada, April 11, 2008, p. 266 , accessed on December 14, 2014 (Spanish).
  8. ↑ Thomas Freller: Granada, Kingdom between Orient and Occident . Jan Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0825-4 , p. 146 .
  9. ↑ Thomas Freller: Granada, Kingdom between Orient and Occident . Jan Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0825-4 , p. 148 .
  10. ↑ Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada: Fray Hernando de Talavera en 1492. (PDF) de la corte a la misión. In: Chronica nova: Revista de historia moderna de la Universidad de Granada, ISSN  0210-9611 , Nº 34, 2008. Universidad de Granada, April 11, 2008, p. 272 , accessed on December 14, 2014 (Spanish).
  11. ^ Heinrich Heine: Works and letters in ten volumes. Volume 2. Berlin and Weimar 1972, p. 490 Almansor at Zeno.org ..
  12. ↑ Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 271 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  13. ↑ Thomas Freller: Granada, Kingdom between Orient and Occident . Jan Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0825-4 , p. 151 .
  14. ^ Tarsicio Herrero del Collado: El proceso inquisitorial por delito de herejía contra Hernando de Talavera. (PDF) In: Anuario de historia del derecho español, ISSN  0304-4319 , Nº 39, 1969 ,. 1969, pp. 671-706 , accessed December 15, 2014 (Spanish).

literature

  • Joseph Perez: Ferdinand and Isabella . Callwey, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-7667-0923-2 , pp. 394 (from the French by Antoinette Gittinger).
  • Luis Suarez Fernandez: Isabel I, Reina . 1st edition. Editorial Ariel, Barcelona 2000, ISBN 84-344-6620-1 , p. 493 (Spanish).
  • Thomas Freller: Granada, Kingdom between Orient and Occident . Jan Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0825-4 , p. 216 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Talavera, Hernando de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Talavera, Fernando de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish bishop and politician
DATE OF BIRTH around 1428
PLACE OF BIRTH Talavera de la Reina , Castile
DATE OF DEATH May 14, 1507
Place of death Granada