CREWS ART, "Intellectual Sources of Spanish Imperialism: The
Education of Juan de Valdes, by Daniel A. Crews, in Proteus,
Spring 1992, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 38-42.
 
During the latter years of the Catholic Monarchs' reign, Spain's
meteoric rise as an imperial power in both the Old World and the
New began.  Spanish imperial ambition became a pressing issue
after Charles's election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519.  Many
Spaniards feared that their country would be relegated to the
status of an imperial province.  In order to demonstrate Spain's
centrality to Charles's heterogeneous empire, a small group of
Spanish humanists developed explanations for Spain's leadership
of Christendom.  In so doing they advanced a theory of empire
based on Spain's contribution to the common good of Christendom
and humanity rather than medieval titles of pope and emperor
(Maravall 211-213).  Thus, these imperial humanists advocated
Spanish leadership in the enforcement of religious reforms,
Spanish leadership in the maintenance of religious unity, Spanish
leadership in the defense of Christendom against the Turks, and
Spanish leadership in the expansion of Christendom in the
Americas.  An examination of Juan de Valdes' education reveals
the diverse variety of sources which shaped Spanish political
ideology during the crucial years of imperial expansion and
consolidation.
     Juan de Valdes was born between 1500 and 1504 in the
southcentral Castilian city of Cuenca.  The Valdes family was
wealthy and politically well connected.  Grand Chancellor
Mercurino de Gattinara appointed Juan's older brother Alfonso to
service in the imperial chancellery in 1522.  By the late 1520s
Alfonso had become one of the most influential members of the
imperial court serving as Latin Secretary to Charles and as head
of the Neapolitan Chancellery.
     After Juan's initial elementary training at home, he went to
the court of the Marquis de Villena for secondary instruction, a
typical arrangement for the education of Spanish nobles.  The
only references to Juan's presence at Villena's court are from
the trial of Pedro de Alcaraz who came to the grandee's castle of
Escalona in 1523.  In his Dialogue on Language, Juan confessed
that "ten years, the best of my life, I spent in palaces and
courts where I didn't exercise more virtue than in reading tales
of chivalry" (115-116).  Because of a reference to Valdes'
presence at the University of Alcala in 1512, we can assume these
ten years roughly encompass the period 1515-1525.
     Valdesian scholars usually make only passing reference to
Juan's reading of tales of chivalry which, in the words of
Valdes, had "such flavor that I could kiss the hands which wrote
them...and if I took in hand one of these romances in Latin they
were to me true history...I could never finish reading them"
(115-116).  Juan considered Amadis of Gaul the best of these
stories.  In the middle of book four a good and wise sorceress
made an allegorical prediction for the future of Amadis' son
Esplandian which is easily recognizable as a prophecy for the
future of the Spanish Empire.
     Esplandian's fire and ardor will never be quenched until the
     large flocks of cormorants (Turks) pass from the east over
     the rough waves of the sea, and place in dire straits the
     great eagle (Hapsburgs)...and the haughty stone falcon
     (Spain), more precious and beautiful than all the other
     birds of prey...comes to its aid and wreaks such destruction
     on the cormorants that that entire countryside is covered
     with their plumage....Then the great sea-eagle will draw out
     most of their entrails...and by making it the possessor of
     all its forests and great mountainous regions it will be
     brought back to its perch in the tree of the holy garden
     (Holy Land) (2:625-626).
At an early age Juan was inspired with this belief in the
messianic mission of Spain and despite his savor of Erasmus's
works, which extolled Christian passivism, he never gave up his
dedication to this ideal.  Only Spain could save Christendom and
Valdes would orient his education and career towards this quest.
     Juan's second avocation at Escalona was attending sermons
and meetings of mystic preachers.  The Marquis de Villena
employed numerous mystics (alumbrados) to teach their beliefs at
his court.  The popularity of mysticism and tales of chivalry
were combined in the utopian messianic intellectual atmosphere
following the end of the Reconquista and the beginning of a
Spanish empire.  Spanish mysticism was active and militant, "a
divine Knight errantry"(Peers 44).  One alumbrado preacher at
Escalona predicted that Villena and his fellow spiritualists
would go to Rome and reform the Church after expelling its
leaders "like pigs" ("Alcazar Trial" 6-7).  Mysticism and
chivalric tales were mutually supportive of Spanish imperialism
and both had roots in Neo-Platonic doctrines.
     Juan was particularly attracted to the sermons of Pedro Ruiz
de Alcaraz (86 & 217).  Alcaraz's key tenets of love and unity
were drawn from the Neo-Platonist Pseudo-Dionysius.  According to
Dionysius, love (Eros) was the glue which held Christian society
together.  Alcaraz extended this doctrine to the point of
deifying man, "the love of God in the man is God" (420).  After
an individual decided to love God his will would be directed by
God; he no longer had a free will.  With God's love one need only
read the scripture with faith because God would grant the correct
interpretation; curiosity and debate about it should be avoided
(Beltran, alumbrados, 117-118).
     Because of his somewhat heterodox doctrines, Alcaraz was
seized by the Inquisition of Toledo in the Spring of 1524,
leading Juan to seek the protection of his powerful brother
Alfonso.  Alfonso began grooming Juan for imperial service.  A
mutual friend of both brothers noted in his memoirs that Juan
"had been very well educated in the school of his brother"
(Enzinas 43).  Alfonso de Valdes instilled into Juan a fondness
for the works of Erasmus.  Alfonso met Erasmus during his sojourn
to the Netherlands and Germany in the early 1520s; Erasmus had
been employed as a councillor to Charles since 1516.  The
political ideas of Erasmus were absorbed by Alfonso and molded to
suit Spanish imperial policy.  The heart of Erasmus's political
and religious doctrines was the idea of the universal mystic body
of Christ which had both an international and national
projection.
     We are all mutual members of one another.  The united parts
     make up the body; of that body Jesus Christ is the head, and
     of Christ God is the head.  Whatever is done to you,
     whatever is done to any member - for good or ill - is done
     to everyone, is done to Christ, is done to God.  All these
     are one: God, Christ, the body and its members (Enchiridion
     146).
At the national level the King must care for the general welfare
of the entire body of the state: "Since the state is a sort of
body, composed of various members including the prince
himself..." (Prince 180-181).  The prince existed for the state,
not the state for the prince.  The only validation of monarchy
was its benefits to the common good of the body as a whole.
     These Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines of human
perfectibility, grades of perfection and philosopher kingship,
interwoven with Erasmus's ideas of religious reform, were the
bases of Alfonso's imperial ideology as it evolved from the
complex military and diplomatic relationships among Spain,
France, the papacy and the Lutherans.  Grand Chancellor Gattinara
and Alfonso had promoted the publication and dissemination of
Erasmus's works in the early 1520s and had helped to make the
University of Alcala a bastion of Erasmian ideas.  Thus Erasmus
became more popular and widely read in Spain than in any other
country.  Alfonso de Valdes' significance at court was such that
the burden of justifying the sack of Rome in 1527 by Charles'
army fell on his shoulders, a difficult task because the pope,
working with conservative Spanish monks, had launched an all-out
war on Erasmus with the aim of proving his close tie to Luther.
     Alfonso's skill as a propagandist was evident on the first
page of his Dialogue on Events in Rome.  He was "writing not to
ignorant people but to Spaniards whose minds can easily
understand anything, no matter how difficult" (19).  Alfonso
wrote the book to prove that Clement VII had started the war,
which violated his papal duty to preserve Christian peace and
harmony.  Secondarily he showed that the sack was divine
retribution for corruption of the Church (25).  Since the
authority of the Church came from its members rather than its
political power, it would be best for the pope to lose temporal
authority in order to concentrate on his duty to disseminate
Christian doctrine (35).  The general good of Christendom
overrode the pope's personal position.  It was left for Charles
to bring about the necessary reform which would achieve for him
"more fame and glory in this world than any other prince before
him.  To the end of time, people will say that Jesus Christ
founded the Church, and that Emperor Charles V restored it..."
(95).
     While the imperial court used Erasmian political ideas to
suit its purposes, the University of Alcala cultivated Erasmian
literary, religious, and humanistic values to their peak of
maturity is Spain.  During the early 16th century the most
popular curriculum at Alcala was in the school of grammar,
meaning Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.  This curriculum furnished a
student an intimate association with classical literature and
Biblical criticism.  The trilingual school had been established
by the Archbishop of Toledo, Ximenes de Cisneros, to reform
theology by applying humanist innovations in historical and
literary criticism to theology and Scripture.
     In the school of theology the nominalist chairs overshadowed
the chair of St. Thomas.  A review of classes at Alcala in 1527-28
revealed that the regency of the chair of St. Thomas was
vacant and, when lecturers were found, they "read propositions
from Erasmus more than from St. Thomas" (Beltran, Alcala 409).
The compatibility of the University of Alcala's curriculum with
the imperial designs of Charles gave it a predominant position
among Spanish universities for forty years.
     Juan's course of study at Alcala was primarily in grammar
because he developed a great knowledge of Greek and Hebrew which
he utilized as early as 1529 in translating Scripture.  A later
Inquisitorial reference to Juan as a religious implied that he
might have been a student in the school of theology (Alfonso,
Mercury 246).  Also, Erasmus commended him on his study of the
liberal arts which indicated he may also have studied in the
school of arts (Caballero 353).
     An explanation for these contradictory references would be
Juan's dabbling with classes in all these fields, a common
practice among noble humanists who did not need to study for a
specific degree to obtain an office.  Such a student would aspire
to the "cape and sword" offices which ranged from positions on
high councils to diplomacy, the military or minor urban
positions.  The granting of these positions depended more on
family connections than on a specific degree (Kagan XX, 6 & 81).
This would explain why Juan, a brilliant young man by all
accounts, did not finish his bachelor's degree after five years
of study while most students finished it in three years.  In his
Dialogue on Language Valdes told his Italian associates that the
word bachilleria was a popular term of derision for anyone who
acted like a know-it-all; he ridiculed those who pursued degrees
rather than knowledge (77).
     The Vergara brothers were undoubtedly the primary
intellectual stimulus for Juan at Alcala.  The correspondence of
Diego Gracian de Alderete reveals a lively exchange of bawdy
stories about monks and nuns among Francisco de Vergara, Juan de
Valdes and Gracian (Paz y Melia 130).  Francisco de Vergara held
a chair of Greek at Alcala and was rated by the regents' review
of 1527-1528 as one of the most outstanding lecturers in the
university (Torre 376-377).  Francisco collected and edited
several Greek works in the early 1520s and had them published by
the printing press at Alcala.  His students began their
translations with Esope, Lucan, precepts of Isocrates and
Scripture.  The next stage consisted of more Isocrates and early
Greek fathers, such as Crysostrum and Basil, followed by
Aristotle's Politics and Ethics and Plutarch.  Final training
included translation of Thucydides, Plato, Demosthenes,
Pausanius, and Hellenic poets and playwrights (Lopez Rueda 238-241).
The double dose of Isocrates is particularly noteworthy.
Isocrates perfected the classical justification of hegemony in
his Panegyrics and Address to Philip.  In the former work he
attempted to persuade the Greeks to formulate a lasting peace and
to accept Athenian leadership in a war against the Persians.
Athens deserved hegemony because of her famous history of
resistance against the Persians, her dominant position in culture
and trade, and her socio-political institutions which served the
interests of rich and poor alike (Panegyrics 131-135).  After
Athenian power declined Isocrates turned to Philip II of Macedon
as the savior of Hellas.  In praising Philip as a true Hellene,
Isocrates became the father of Hellenization by recognizing the
potential of cultural transference (Philip 255-333).  Given
Spain's rise to European hegemony and the recent acquisition of
the Americas, Isocrates's doctrines must have appeared
particularly relevant.
     Francisco instilled into Valdes the philosophical and
historical perspective of a devout Hellenist.  Juan later praised
the classical authors for "the natural propriety and purity of
the language" they used (Language 124).  His classical
orientation was reinforced by his association with Francisco's
elder brother, the famous Juan de Vergara, a pioneer among
Spanish humanists.  As secretary of the Arch-bishop of Toledo, he
was commissioned to help promote a reform of theology through the
University of Alcala.  He worked on the Polyglot Bible and on a
compilation and translation of all of Aristotle's works.  Juan de
Valdes attended meetings at the Vergara home in which ideas of
reform were regularly discussed.  Juan de Vergara's position gave
him freedom to exercise his critical mind on the most taboo
subjects.  He complained that St. Augustine knew no Hebrew and
little Greek and therefore did not know what he was doing in his
commentaries on the Psalms (Vergara Trial 4-6).  St. Jerome,
because of his confusion of the names of Persian rulers with
their titles, had completely botched the chronological succession
of the great kings.  He justified his criticism by citing the
histories of Herodotus, Plutarch, Thucydides, Diodorus, Xenophon,
Aulian, and Justin, displaying his detailed knowledge of
antiquity (Vergara Questions 27-34).  Jerome's mistakes had been
picked up and unquestioningly elevated as a sanctified authority
for hundreds of years, leading Vergara to bemoan "how thick is
the veil of ignorance for those who do not leave the books of
their teachers" (16).
     The religious thought of Juan de Valdes matured during his
association with a variety of reform ideas which converged at the
home of Juan de Vergara.  The elder Vergara had been a personal
friend and staunch defender of Erasmus since the early 1520s.
His vast library included books by Luther and other reformers,
the ownership of which had been forbidden by the Inquisition.
During his defense before the Inquisition he claimed it should be
"considered a praiseworthy thing for a theologian, zealous for
the faith, to want to see books by modern heretics in order to
learn how to criticize and contradict their opinions" ("Vergara
Trial" 7).
     The cultural historian Americo Castro defined Spanish
Erasmianism as "an imperialist movement that aspired to depict a
national outline in the face of Rome and Luther, rivals and
opponents of Charles V" (46).  The translation of Erasmus'
Enchiridion to Spanish in 1526 laid the basis for the union of
the alumbrado movement with humanism.  By identifying their
doctrines with Erasmus, the alumbrados were no longer so alien to
the world of culture and thus, in the words of Marcel Bataillon,
their movement was "transformed into a European language, at the
same time familiar to the humanists and accessible to all
spiritualist" (209).  The Enchiridion, (whose Spanish title is
better translated Manual of a Christian Knight) used a
militaristic terminology very appealing to a population which
thrived on tales of chivalry.  Juan de Valdes was so enamored of
the work that he read both the Latin and Spanish editions
(Language 113).  The supreme literary achievement of the Erasmian
movement in Spain was Juan de Valdes' Dialogue on Christian
Doctrine: the culmination of his intellectual germination.
     The publication date of Valdes book coincided with the
departure of the imperial court for Italy in 1529 to press the
pope for a general council to solve the Lutheran problem.  Only
then could there by increased German aid against the advancing
Turks.  The book was motivated by the desire to stir popular
support for the envisioned reform, and as such had the strong
backing of the Erasmians at the imperial court.  When
questionable doctrines in the book were raised and examined by a
council of theologians at Alcala, the Inquisitor General and
Archbishop of Seville, Alonso de Manrique, sent a special
representative who demanded that the book not be censored, only
corrected and reprinted.  Juan de Vergara told one of the
reviewers that he "should take it as an order that the said book
on Christian Doctrine be reprinted, correcting what could be
corrected in it" ("Vergara Trial" 15-16).  High ranking,
reform-minded Churchmen wanted the work quickly disseminated.
     A key to understanding Valdes' irenic philosophy was his
view of the universal mystic body of Christians evidenced in his
concept of Christian brotherhood.  Every time the Lord's Prayer
is begun Juan said Christians should recall that the phrase "Our
Father" indicates we are all brothers (144).  Elsewhere he
advised the senores not to act as tyrants to their servant "but
they should be in agreement with them that they have one father
and celestial lord and thus they speak to them not as slaves, but
as brothers" (67).
     Following Erasmian and Platonic doctrine, Valdes postulated
grades of perfectability within the universal body.  The most
perfect would divorce himself from physical cores, he/she would
"not be haughty with riches or humiliated with poverty, or
praised for honor or lowered by affronts, not happy with life or
sad at death..." (57).  Only this type of perfecto could live up
to the Sermon on the Mount which was "the sum and completion of
Christian doctrine" (35).  Although not everyone could rise to
such perfection, all Christians had "to have their eye on it in
order to raise themselves" (57).  Valdesian perfectibility
resembled the quest for the Socratic "good."  One could not
increase in perfection without work and study (177).  In order to
expand the potential for perfection the education of Christians
had to be reformed.
     Valdes' doctrine of the universal mystic body of Christ gave
the laity an importance equal to the Church hierarchy, making the
Dialogue on Christian Doctrine one of the first attempts in the
Spanish language to promote lay spiritual education.  The heart
of Valdesian theology was the Platonic and Erasmian doctrine of
flesh versus spirit (Haggard 81).  The defining characteristics
and virtues of a Christian were internal; external ceremony was
only an accessory to help one proceed to the spiritual (29).
Utilizing a reductionist approach similar to the Platonic theory
of forms, Valdes emphasized the interdependence of the major
tenets of the faith.  For example, the second commandment against
using the Lord's name in vain meant not to sin in the heart or in
works as well as in word (59).  The first three commandments were
really one, to love your neighbor, which automatically followed
if you really loved God (83).  The Ten Commandments were thus
reduced to the simple idea of divine love.  Similarly, the three
theological virtues of faith, experience, and charity were all
joined together so that anybody who possessed one perfectly had
them all.  In this manner faith and works were united; "the
living faith is the root of the works of charity...(but)...if one
did not practice charity he would not have true faith" (106-107).
Clearly this indicated a compromise between Lutheran and Catholic
views on the relationship of works and faith.
     Valdes also attempted to find a compromise between God's
omnipotence and man's free will.  Human nature, without God's
grace, could never make truly good works.  Man could not merit
grace, but Valdes asserted that God would grant it if people
asked for it (59 & 81).  Once grace was received the Holy Spirit
would grant the understanding of Scripture necessary for an
individual's salvation (112).  Like Luther, he believed Scripture
should be translated into the vernacular, but one need not regard
it as having only one meaning comprehensible to the elect as did
the German reformer.  Following Erasmus he believed complex
matters such as the Trinity were best left aside accepted on
faith (71 & 152).
     A couple of references in the book reveal a direct concern
with some of the immediate goals of imperial policy.  Valdes
emphatically stated that the sad condition of the Church
"requires a general remedy but, I feel there is little concern
about enacting this remedy" (64).  Like Alfonso and Erasmus he
demanded the calling of a general council of the Church to enact
reforms.  At the end of the book Juan wrote that with the type of
Christian education he had outline the Spanish "would govern the
Indians as we were obligated to in return for their lands" (171).
This passage echoed the Aristotelian idea that suzerainty, even
over barbarians, had to be for the benefit of the subject people;
otherwise it would be despotic (Aristotle 611).  It should be
noted that he did not justify the American empire as a special
grant for missionary work from the pope as did the Neo-Thomistic
imperial ideologues such as Francisco de Vitoria and Domingo de
Soto.  Having stripped the papacy of all title to temporal
authority, such a claim would be ridiculous.  Rather, the Spanish
merited these lands because of their service to the "common good"
of Christendom.
     Valdes' comment about native Americans and Spanish use of
their lands immediately brings the humanist Juan Gines de
Sepulveda to mind.  After leaving Alcala Juan appeared as a
diplomatic apprentice to Sepulveda in Rome in 1531.  Sepulveda
had just been commissioned by Charles V to write a work rallying
support for war against the Turks.  The result was Democritus
Primus which he circulated to Juan and Alfonso for their opinion
prior to its publication in 1543 (Caballero, 450 & 462).  In the
work Sepulveda first developed his justification of Spanish
imperialism which he would later expand to include the use of
native American land and labor.
     Sepulveda did not share Valdes' deep admiration for Erasmus.
While he was only moderately critical of Erasmus's religious
doctrines, he warned Alfonso de Valdes, and no doubt Juan too,
that his support of Erasmus would alienate the papal court at a
time when Charles V needed the pope's aid to convoke a general
council (Caballero 466 & 467).  Juan heeded the message as he
never again mentioned Erasmus's work in his voluminous writings
though he had extolled them highly in his Dialogue on Christian
Doctrine.
     Sepulveda's imperial ideology was grounded in classical
concepts similar to those of Juan and Alfonso de Valdes.  In both
of Sepulveda's dialogues, his mouthpiece is the Greek philosopher
Democritus, his antagonist Leopold, a Lutheran.  As with the
Valdes brothers, the religious schism and maintenance of the
universal Christian Republic were constant points of reference in
his imperial ideology.  Sepulveda justified Spain's leadership of
Christendom because of its pure religion and good government
(Democritus Primus 2; Tratrado sobre indios 103, 113 & 151.)
Thus Spain became the enforcer of the ius gentium and natural law
on Turks and native Americans for the common good of humanity.
     Until recently Sepulveda's reputation has suffered at the
hands of Black Legend advocates who have accused him of promoting
the enslavement and mistreatment of native Americans.  Sepulveda
viewed native Americans as barbarians in the classical sense, not
as slaves.  He believed Spain had a right to subject them to
civil and Christian power but not to despoil them or enslave them
in mass.  His imperial theory was much the same as the Valdes
brothers: it was the responsibility of the more perfect to lead
the less perfect into a more civilized state of existence, into a
civil society with private property, currency, active political
participation and exposure to the Christian religion (Fernandez
Santa-Maria 191-192).  In a recent work by Anthony Pagden,
Sepulveda's thought is developed beyond the dichotomy usually
imposed by the Black Legend.  Pagden views the work Vasco de
Quiroga, the builder of utopian villages in Michoacan, as
following the same line of thought as Sepulveda.  Quiroga denied
that the natives had a civil society and hence they had no
property (26-72).  He believed it was necessary for Spain to
train the natives in the rudiments of civil society and that the
encomienda system was a positive influence in this regard.  and
yet Quiroga is upheld as a great benefactor to the Indians while
Sepulveda is condemned.
     It is beyond the scope of this paper to enter into the Black
Legend debates and examine in detail the political theory of
Sepulveda, who is often villified, but rarely read.  Juan de
Valdes' apprenticeship under Sepulveda was the last step in his
training for imperial service.  He became a papal chamberlain
under Clement VII in 1532 and was involved in delicate conciliar
negotiations over the next five years.  He later served as a
secretary for the Viceroy of Naples.  Through his diplomatic
service, his later works on religious reform, and his Dialogue on
Language, he sought to implement the imperial ideology he helped
to develop in conjunction with humanists at Alcala and at the
imperial court.  Their theory was a christianized version of
classical ideas about empire which supported Spanish hegemony in
Europe and in America.
 
Works Cited
Alcaraz, Pedro de.  "Proceso de Pedro Ruiz de Alcaraz."
Inquisicion de Toledo, leg.   106, no. 5, Archivo Historico
                              Nacional, Madrid.
Aristotle, The Politics, Trans. H. Rackham. New York: G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1932.
Batillon, Marcel. Erasmo y Espana: estudios sobre la historia
espiritual del siglo     XVI. Trans. Antonio Alatorre. Ciudad de
                         Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica,
                         1966.