Note 1019 — Chapter V

Juan Ginez de Sepulveda, distinguished both as a theologian and an historian, was born near Cordova in 1490, and died in 1573. He was of a noble but impoverished family. He availed himself of his opportunities for obtaining the best education of his time in the universities of Spain and Italy, and acquired an eminent reputation as a scholar and a disputant,—not, however, for any elevation of principles or nobleness of thought. In 1536 he was appointed by Charles V. his historiographer, and put in charge of his son Philip. Living at Court, he had the repute of being crooked and unscrupulous, his influence not being given on the side of rectitude and progressive views. His writings concerning men and public affairs give evidence of the faults imputed to him. He was vehement, intolerant, and dogmatic. He justified the most extreme absolutism in the exercise of the royal prerogative, and the lawfulness and even the expediency of aggressive wars simply for the glory of the State. Melchior Cano and Antonio Ramirez, as well as Las Casas, entered into antagonism and controversy with his avowed principles. One of his works, entitled Democrates Secundus, seu de justis belli causis, may be pronounced almost brutal in the license which it allowed in the stratagems and vengefulness of warfare. It was condemned by the universities of Alcala and Salamanca. He was a voluminous author of works of history, philosophy, and theology, and was admitted to be a fine and able writer. Erasmus pronounced him the Spanish Livy. The disputation between him and Las Casas took place before Charles in 1550. The monarch was very much under his influence, and seems to some extent to have sided with him in some of his views and principles. Sepulveda was one of the very few persons whom the monarch admitted to interviews and intimacy in his retirement to the Monastery at Yuste.