GRAVAMINA CONSCIENTIAE. FISCALITÀ, DIRITTO E TEOLOGIA NELLA SPAGNA DEL SIGLO DE ORO. RICERCHE INTORNO ALLA SCUOLA DI SALAMANCA

This work reconstructs the main thought of the School of Salamanca with reference to the theme of tax imposition through the analyze of main Treaties such as De iustitia et iure, Consilia, Relectiones, commentaries to San Tommaso’ Secunda Saecundae, manuals for confessors, quaestiones De iure bello, cartas and Consejos about the India’s Government. We would like to know whether and which contribution theologians –jurists belonging to the second scholasticism could offer to the Spanish Crown for the organization and management of a “ modern” and efficient fiscal system. We found magistri who were sensible interpreters of their times, who paid attention to the fiscal reasons and at the same time strict guardian of the justice application, in that world, through the instrument of right- of iustum ius. We reached the American coasts where Justinian sources, as interpreted by medieval jurists and as used by our theologians, demonstrated the ability to manage a government of “things never seen” , making possible a connection between far coasts. The School of Salamanca, then, as explained by its main characters, managed to offer a good instrument of control of subjects on one hand (by affirming the moral obligation of fiscal laws); and it maintained the role of Church in taking care of things of this world, on the other hand (as long as indicating the right conditions for justice, the excommunication for the ones who break them, the use of censor as suggested in bulla in Coena Domini , the acknowledgment of the central role of theologians and confessors as interpreters of a proper fiscal obligations and experts to solve any doubt). Finally, it was able to maintain and express a deep desire for freedom that recent conquests (of men, things and earths) put away towards the old world, on a field, the fiscal one, that is central and ambivalent for the political speech, where we saw old and new conflicts coming out.