Hispanic Conciliarism and the Imperial Politics of Reform on the Eve of the Council of Trent
Abstract This article examines the treatise on the general council (the “Tractado”) published in 1536 by a Spanish jurist serving in the imperial administration in the Kingdom of Naples. It analyzes the content and the context in which it was conceived and argues that the treatise legitimated Charles V’s call for a general council in the political context of 1535–36, which meant supporting the political aims of the Ghibelline faction of Charles V’s court in Naples. The analysis of conciliarist doctrine in this treatise sheds new light on the relations between church and Crown in the context of the imperial policy of Charles V.