Azpilcueta Navarro

La décrétale Ex Litteris de Grégoire IX (1229) fixe le statut de l’enfant d’un couple de juifs dont le père s’est converti : l’enfant doit être baptisé et élevé dans la foi chrétienne. À partir du commentaire de ce texte par le jurisconsulte Agustinho Barbosa (v. 1640), on s’attache à présenter la norme concernant l’enfant de converti telle qu’elle est issue du travail des commentateurs médiévaux, en mettant en évidence ses liens avec la question plus large des conversions forcées d’enfants. Dans la période post-tridentine, la décrétale Ex Litteris fut réinterprétée afin de permettre au grand-père converti, puis à la grand-mère, « d’offrir l’enfant au baptême » même du vivant des père et mère juifs. Ce travail normatif prend sens, notamment, dans le contexte des pressions exercées par l’Église pour convertir les juifs dans les États pontificaux. L’évolution de la doctrine est jalonnée par une série d’affaires : le cas traité par Martin de Azpilcueta sous Grégoire XIII puis l’affaire tranchée par Benoît XIV en 1751. Les mises au point pontificales montrent, sur la longue durée, un durcissement des normes au détriment des juifs.

The decretal Ex Litteris by Gregory IX (1229) fixes the status of the child of a couple of Jews of whom the father converted to Christianity: the child must be baptised and raised in the Christian faith. According to the comment of this text by the legal adviser Agostinho Barbosa in the 1640s, we attempt here to present the norm concerning the children of a converted parent such as it arises from the work of the medieval commentators, underscoring its links with the wider question of the forced conversion of children. During the post-tridentine period, the decretal Ex Litteris was reinterpreted to allow the converted grandfather, then the grandmother, “to offer the child to baptism”, even in the Jewish father’s and mother’s lifetime. This normative work is related, in particular, with the pressures that the Church exerted to convert the Jews in the papal States. The evolution of the doctrine is punctuated with a series of cases: the case treated by Martin de Azpilcueta under Gregory XIII, then the case settled by Benedict XIV in 1751. The papal clarifications show, on the long term, a hardening of the norms to the detriments of the Jews.

The collection of the legal advices (consilia) of the Spanish canonist Martin de Azpilcueta "Doctor Navarrus" (1492-1586) contains about twenty consilia concerning religious minorities, mostly Jews (of the Pontifical State) and secondly Muslims.
Paying attention to these texts helps understanding Navarro's positions concerning the tolerance towards minorities and the enforcement of canonical norms, in the context of the Catholic Reform which insisted on the conversion of  the Infidels.
This paper presents the first results of a research in progress, studying four questions :
- is it licit to sale to the Jews myrtle for the feast of Sukkot ?  (= the trade of goods related to non-christian rites)
- is the condition of "purity of blood" - requested by the Order of Minims to select the candidates to religious profession -  licit ? (= discriminations and forced conversions)
- what is the inheritance that a converted son can obtain from his Jewish parents ? (= the legal consequences of conversion and the interpretation of the papal bull Cupientes Iudaeos of 1542)
- does a converted grand-father have the right to "offer" his grand-son to baptism in spite of the opposition of the Jewish mother ? (= the religious statute of a child of Infidels when a conversion to catholicism occurs in his close family)