Sign up for free online course: salamanca.ufm.edu/en The School of Salamanca is a MOOC offered by Universidad Francisco Marroquín that consists of five chapters. An overview of the School of Salamanca, the main intellectual current of early modern Spain. The online course consists of three main chapters on the school’s contributions to Human Rights, Politics, and Economics, plus an introduction, a conclusion, and brief chapters on the school’s founder Francisco de Vitoria and its climactic figure Juan de Mariana. Learn about the origins of the Hispanic liberal tradition as well as the scope of its fundamental influence on modern Western Civilization. Win a badge by successfully completing the activities of the course. Eric Clifford Graf is a professor of literature at Universidad Francisco Marroquín. He has a PhD in Spanish language and literature from the University of Virginia (1997). He specializes in medieval and early modern Spain, the history of the novel, Renaissance studies, and literary, political, cultural, and economic theory. Credits: New Media | UFM 2017 salamanca.ufm.edu newmedia.ufm.edu ufm.edu

2. The School
of Salamanca
MOOC
The School of Salamanca is a
MOOC offered by Universidad
Francisco Marroquín that consists
of five chapters: an introduction, a
chapter each on the contributions
to thinking about human rights,
politics, and economics; and a
conclusion. It is an overview of
the School of Salamanca, the
main intellectual current of early
modern Spain. Learn about the
origins of the Hispanic liberal
tradition as well as the scope of its
fundamental influence on modern
Western Civilization. Win a badge
by successfully completing the
activities of the course.
In 2018 the course launches its
first edition: salamanca.ufm.edu

3. If you are interested in fields
like economics or politics, the
School of Salamanca is just
good homework. Studying
early modern thinking about
concepts like price inflation or
republicanism can help us to
understand and evaluate them.
Moreover, as an early modern
type of Hispanic liberalism, the
School of Salamanca can help
us to understand the ideas of
Enlightenment thinkers who
were influenced by them, such as
Locke, Montesquieu, or Jefferson.
Why should
we study
The School
of Salamanca?

4. The mission of Universidad
Francisco Marroquín (ufm.edu) is to
teach and disseminate the ethical,
legal, and economic principles of
a society of free and responsible
persons. In recent years the
university has expanded its use of
innovative technology in order to
encourage the learning experience
both on and off campus.
About Universidad
Francisco Marroquín

5. Eric Clifford Graf is a professor of literature at
Universidad Francisco Marroquín. He graduated
from the University of Virginia in 1997 with a PhD in
Spanish language and literature . He has worked at the
University of Virginia, The College of William & Mary,
the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, Smith College, Wesleyan University,
and Kershner Trading Group. He specializes in the
history of the novel, medieval and early modern Spain,
and literary, political, cultural, and economic theory.
He is author of the book Cervantes and Modernity
(Bucknell UP, 2007). In addition to numerous academic
essays on the poetry, theater, and narrative of Miguel de
Cervantes, he has also published on The Poem of the
Cid, Garcilaso de la Vega, Juan de Mariana, El Greco, San
Juan de la Cruz, Pedro de Calderón, José de Cadalso,
Vicente Aleixandre, Julio Cortázar, and Sigmund Freud.
Published academic essays
ufm.academia.edu/EricCliffordGraf
Other online courses
Discover Don Quijote de la Mancha
donquijote.ufm.edu/en
EricCliffordGraf
Professor

6. The course consists of five chapters
that students complete as they
use the e-learning resources in the
platform. This learning experience
is offered in English to disseminate
the ideas and cultural values around
the world.
Language
English
Effort
3 hours per week
Lenght
5 weeks
program
Academic

7. Course Syllabus
Chapter 1 Introduction
The School of Salamanca’s predecessors,
historical factors, and its founder, Francisco
de Vitoria
Chapter 2 Human Rights
Late-scholastic opinions on the rights of
indigenous peoples, women’s rights, religious
liberty, and slavery

8. Chapter 3 Politics
Late-scholastic thinking on regicide, popular sovereignty,
legal codes, parliamentary bodies, taxes, jurisdictional
conflicts, and constitutionalism
Chapter 4 Economics
Late-scholastic points of view on property rights,
monetary policy, free markets, theories of value, foreign
exchange, liquidity, etc.
Chapter 5 Conclusion
Juan de Mariana and the impact that the School Sala-
manca has had on subsequent generations of Europeans
and Americans

9. Chapter 2
human rights
In this chapter Professor Graf
notes the debate at Valladolid
in 1550-51 between Bartolomé
de las Casas and Juan Ginés de
Sepúlveda; Francisco Marroquín
as an example of the extent
of Salamanca’s influence;
and reviews opinions by
Salamancans on religious liberty,
slavery, and the rights of women
and indigenous peoples.
The online course includes a
series of resources to facilitate
your learning. Below is a list of
activities that you will perform
during the course.
1. Watch the videos about
the human-rights topics that
interested the School of
Salamanca.
2. Read the material provided in
PDF format in order to review the
chapter’s main ideas.
3. Share your impressions with
your colleagues by participating in
the discussion forums.
4. Reinforce your knowledge by
taking the quizzes.

10. -1-
The School of Salamanca
was keen to define, analyze,
debate, and theorize about
international law, the rules of
warfare, and the rights of non-
Christians and slaves. Many of
these topics already had ancient
classical and Biblical roots, but
they received added attention
in the context of the expanding
Spanish Empire.
Expulsion of the Moriscos, 1609
United Nations
Syrian Demonstration, 2009

11. -2-
The rights of people in newly discovered overseas territories
were in dispute almost immediately after the discovery of
America; domestically, similar debates were waged regarding
the social statuses of women and minorities like conversos
(Christians with Jewish ancestry) and moriscos (Christians with
Muslim ancestry).
Spanish Empire
with America

12. -3-
International law
When we think of human rights
and the School of Salamanca,
we place particular emphasis
on the founder, Vitoria, and then
Covarrubias and Suárez, gener-
ally credited with inventing in-
ternational law.
1
International law
Covarrubias
Suárez
Vitoria

13. -4-
Las
Casas
We also acknowledge the role played by Vitoria’s colleague,
Bartolomé de las Casas, an early critic of colonialism and
advocate for the rights of indigenous peoples in the New World.
As the Universal Catholic Monarchy of the Spanish Empire
expanded, certain priests and soldiers began to question the
political and theological reasoning that the State and the
Church used to justify the enterprise.
Arguments against the exploitation of Amerindians by Vitoria and
Las Casas resulted in Charles V’s New Laws of 1542, which granted
significant legal rights to large numbers of indigenous peoples.
We are not talking here about a modern democratic civil rights
movement, but Las Casas’s arguments became serious points
of reference for numerous future struggles.
Spanish Empire

14. -5-
Rights of pagans
What was ultimately at
stake in these moral and
legal confrontations was the
presumed right of European
Christians to enslave other
people and take their property.
In other words, the Salamancans
were assessing to what degree
there exist universal rights,
regardless of one’s loyalty to
empire or religion.
2

15. -6-
This is the essence of the
famous debate between
Las Casas and Sepúlveda at
Valladolid in 1550 and 1551.
LasCasas
Sepúlveda

16. -7-
The hairy knights, or hombres salvajes, on the facade of the
Colegio de San Gregorio commemorate the debate. The figures
indicate the central issue of the status of non-Europeans as
either savages or civilized.
Colegio
San Gregorio
hairyknights
hombressalvajes

17. -8-
Sepúlveda made the case
that, as pagans who practiced
cannibalism and human sacrifice,
the Amerindians could be
conquered; Las Casas argued
that the Spanish colonists
were no better and that natural
international law granted the
Amerindians the same rights as
the colonists. It would be hard to
imagine Montaigne’s famous
analysis of European
colonialism in his essay
“On Cannibals” without
Las Casas’s pioneering
critique.
Las
Casas
Sepúlveda

18. -9-
Definitions of just war
A major aspect of the early modern emergence of international
human rights was the hotly debated notion of just warfare. This
was a frequent excuse for the encomienda plantation system
that allowed the Spanish conquistadores to extend their
control over the indigenous peoples of the New World.
3
Spanish Empire

19. -10-
Portugal slave trade map
And, predictably, just war also became an excuse for the
Portuguese transatlantic trade in Black African slaves. The
Salamancans generally concluded that war, although necessary,
could simply provoke more resistance to the civilizing and
evangelizing efforts of Europeans.

20. -11-
Opposition to slavery
Las Casas is a good example
of how traditional military
and religious justifications
of slavery elicited different
and complex reactions. Las
Casas originally defended the
lucrative encomienda system
in which Native Americans
served as slaves on plantations
granted to powerful colonists.
Then he came to see this as
unjust (cf. Sirach 34.22) and he
argued as much in the 1550-51
debate. This won Las Casas his
fame as one of the first critics
of European colonialism.
4
Vitoria
Carlos V
Las
Casas

21. —Las Casas, Historia de las Indias (3.129.275).
-12-
“This advice, which the priest gave, he soon found he
regretted, judging himself inadvertently guilty. As he
later learned and confirmed, it appears that blacks were
enslaved as unjustly as the Indians had been. Imprudent
was his previous remedy to turn to blacks in order to
liberate the Indians. Even if he made the recommendation
supposing that the blacks had been justly captured, it
was not clear that this ignorance, nor the good will he
proclaimed on behalf of the Indians, would be of any
benefit to his soul before divine justice”
However, in his zeal to defend the indigenous Americans, Las
Casas had urged that Black African slaves be brought to the
Caribbean as a new source of labor. Later, he admitted his
moral error. Here is the famous quote by Las Casas in which he
ponders the fate of his own soul while accepting responsibility
for introducing Black African slavery into the New World. He
characteristically refers to himself in the third person in his
Historia de las Indias from around 1563:

22. -13-
Las
Casas
Vitoria
Sancho
Panza
Cervantes
Las Casas is another case in which the boundaries of the School
of Salamanca are not clear, for we have no proof that he ever
attended the University of Salamanca. He appears to have been
trained as a lawyer, but he never mentions Salamanca in his
writings.Regardless, his logic and efforts make him an activist
agent of Vitoria’s reforms. Similarly, Cervantes’s criticism of the
mistreatment of Black African slaves, followed closely by his
comical review of definitions of “just war” in Don Quijote 2.24
and 2.27, shows how these topics overlapped.

23. -14-
5Religious freedom
Religious freedom was
another human right
defended by many of the
School of Salamanca.
Most of the advances in
this area followed logically
upon Vitoria’s emphasis
on free will. Mariana, for
example, disapproved
of the persecution of
converso intellectuals and
he defended a polyglot
Bible assembled by
Benito Arias Montano.
Another major advocate
for religious freedom was
Fray Luis de León, a student
and then professor of theology
at the University of Salamanca.
Fray Luis
Jefferson
Madison

24. -15-
He was actually jailed for his commentary on the Song of Solomon.
Another great religious rebel, San Juan de la Cruz, composed a
mystical version of the Song of Solomon, heavily influenced by Fray
Luis’s project. San Juan de la Cruz, by the way, also fought for the
right of Carmelite nuns to democratically elect their prioresses
by way of anonymous ballots, i.e., free of coercion by their mostly
male superiors. Finally, we should consider Diego Hurtado de
Mendoza (1503-75), one of the University of Salamanca’s most
spectacular graduates, who studied Greek, Latin, and even Arabic,
and who some argue was the author of the religiously radical
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). It is likely thanks to Mendoza that the
novel form is also a mainstay of the School of Salamanca.
Mendoza Life of Lazarillo
de Tormes
San Juan
de la Cruz

25. -16-
Women’s rights
To the degree that we consider Las Casas,
Fray Luis, and Mendoza to be voices of the
School of Salamanca defending Amerindians,
conversos, and moriscos; we should also
consider the relation between Salamanca
and the long struggle for women’s rights.
6

26. -17-
As the famous painting by
Cervera indicates, early modern
women were increasingly active
participants in their education.
The feminist attitudes and
activities of a prioress like
Santa Teresa de Ávila (1515-82),
a novelist like María de Zayas
(1590-1661), and a New World
Bishop like Francisco Marroquín
Hurtado (1499-1563) exemplify
the reformist thinking of the
School of Salamanca.
Francisco
Marroquín
María
de Zayas
Santa
Teresa de Ávila

27. Analyze the content of the comics and participate in the
discussion forum.
Is the law moral? Are intellectuals allies of the State? What
social advantages are to be gained by allowing women
more rights?
To enrich your learning experience it is important that you
ask interesting questions, formulate relevant comments,
and respond to the contributions of your classmates.
Chapter 2 Activity

30. UFM New Media production
Universidad Francisco Marroquín
Executive Director
Script and Proffesor
E-learning Coordinator
Illustration
Editorial design
Comic Illustration
Stephanie Falla
Eric Clifford Graf
Lisa Quan
Sergio Miranda
Gabriella Noar
Sandy Rodríguez
Sandy Rodríguez
Carlos Rodríguez

31. Website salamanca.ufm.edu
Direction Calle Manuel F.Ayau (6ta Calle
final), zona 10 Guatemala, Guatemala 01010
Phone Number (+502) 2338-7849
Guatemala, October 2017
UFM thanks the following sponsors for their
generous support of this MOOC: Smith Family
Foundation, The Bottoms Family
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0.
(CC-BY-NCSA 3.0) Copying, distribution and public communication
is allowed, providing that the acknowledgement of the work is
maintained and it is not used for business. If it is transformed or
a secondary work is generated, it can only be distributed with an
identical license.