The School of Salamanca (Spanish: Escuela de Salamanca) was an intellectual movement of 16th- and 17th-century Spanish Scholastic theologians rooted in the intellectual and pedagogical work of Francisco de Vitoria. From the beginning of the 16th century, the traditional Catholic conception of man and of his relation to God and to the world had been informed by internal developments in the Italian Renaissance and its humanism, but also been challenged by the Protestant Reformation and the new geographical discoveries and their consequences. These new problems were addressed by the School of Salamanca. The name is derived from the University of Salamanca (Spain), where de Vitoria and other members of the school were based. The Salamanca School of economic thought is frequently regarded as an early precursor to the Austrian School of Economics. This is due to its development of the subjective theory of value, its advocacy for free-market principles, and its focus on the supply and demand of money—ideas that would eventually contribute to the modern concept of sound money.
Scope of the term Most properly, the term applies merely to the intellectual movement of the early 16th century at the university of Salamanca led by Francisco de Vitoria. The University of Salamanca (Spain) was founded in 1218 and was one of the homes of Thomisitic theology. More broadly, it comprises the bulk of Iberian Renaissance-Scholastic philosophy. In its broadest application, the notion is sometimes applied to the entirety of Second scholasticism, of which Vitoria's career and legacy are but an early, albeit formative part. This, however, is highly misleading, as there are important strands of Second scholasticism, such as the Baroque Scotism, of which connexion to the Salamancan legacy is rather tenuous. The term most often connotes developments specifically in the fields of philosophy of law and economics associated with Vitoria's legacy; for Scholastic philosophy and theology of the 16th century in general the term "Renaissance Scholasticism" is now preferred by scholars.
History and leading figures The intellectual movement started with Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) and Domingo de Soto (1494–1560), both Dominican Thomists. The Thomist line was continued by the Carmelites Complutenses and Salmanticenses. In the latter part of the 16th century, the newly founded Jesuits rose to intellectual prominence, with authors such as the Conimbricenses, Pedro da Fonseca (1528–1599), Luis de Molina (1535–1600), Gabriel Vásquez (died 1604) and Francisco Suárez (1548–1617). With Suárez, however, the intellectual movement had already vastly surpassed its roots and Suárez's legacy defines the transition from Renaissance to Baroque scholasticism of the 17th and 18th centuries, for which the term "School of Salamanca" is no longer appropriate {Citation needed}.
Law
Philosophy of law Many leading figures of the school, such as Francisco de Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Martín de Azpilcueta (or Azpilicueta), Tomás de Mercado, or Francisco Suárez, were not just philosophers and theologians but also jurists and scholars of natural law and of morality. They undertook the adaptation of the teachings of Thomas Aquinas to the then-new political-economic order. The juridical doctrine of the School of Salamanca represented a profound transformation of medieval concepts of law, with a revindication of liberty not habitual in Europe of that time. The natural rights of man came to be, in one form or another, the center of attention, including rights as a corporeal being (right to life, economic rights such as the right to own property) and spiritual rights (the right to freedom of thought and to human dignity).
Natural law The members of the School of Salamanca were the first people to develop a modern approach of natural law. For Domingo de Soto, the theologian's task is to assess the moral foundations of civil law. That's how he criticized the new Spanish charities' laws on the pretext that they violated the fundamental rights of the poor, or that Juan de Mariana considered that the consent of population was needed in matter of taxation or money alteration. Except for the earlier Laws of Burgos, the views of the Salamanca school constituted a quasi-novelty in European thought and went counter to those then predominant in Spain, and Europe that people indigenous to the Americas had no such rights.
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