Abstract

Among the manuscripts containing works by the dominican Domingo de Soto we find the acephalous and mutilated fragment Relectio an liceat civetate infidelium seu gentium expugnare ob idolatriam, titled by a later hand. Soto’s argument belongs to the context of the juridical, political and religious polemic on alleged rights to subdue unbelievers, staged by the junta gathered in Valladolid, in August and September 1550, to hear the arguments in favour, by Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, and arguments against, by Bartolomé de las Casas, whose meeting Summary was written by Domingo de Soto himself. In the fragment An liceat, Soto unwaveringly takes upon himself the refutation of each argument deployed by proponents of the right to subdue and punish natives in the New World, asserting their state of non subjection to Christian norms before their convert. Bearing in mind its structure and arguments, it is conjectured that the text may have been written for the De iustitia et iure, published in 1554, and again in 1556, though, for unknown reasons, was not included in that work.