Dum Diversas?

[fish90]

What is this papal bull?

It is under Age of Discovery.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_church

 

[bpbasilphx]

Did you actually read it to find out what it said?

I should think that would be the best way.

 

[fish90]

Pope Nicholas V issued this bull allowing Portugal to conquer and enslave people indefinitely.

 

[Mintaka]

The thing I find amazing is that, with all the stuff there is on the Net, there are only “summaries” and hearsay on the Internet about this bull.

I’m sure it was ill-considered and bad, since later popes got rid of it; but it’s ridiculous for people to write so impassionedly about it without ever having read the thing. I thought Wikipedia was all for primary sources, but no. Nada.

Given that we’re told it came out in 1452, and given that Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, I’d say that it was probably intended as an emergency permission for Portuguese Crusaders to use forced Muslim labor in the fight to save Constantinople. Poor old sick Nicholas V wrote the thing up too broadly, in the hope of getting some Europeans to do something. But apparently, the Portuguese took the bull and ran with it in the opposite direction, instead of trying to save Europe from rampaging Turkish hordes. (Which is why the Turks eventually got all the way to Vienna, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire replaced the Byzantine Empire.)

Nicholas V died in 1455, brokenhearted.

Btw, you’ll find that a lot of papal bulls and commands were written up with something about “in perpetuity” in them. What this really means is “until I send out another command ending this, or another pope sends out a command ending it”. It was meant to stop people asking every five minutes if the bull had stopped being legal yet. There’s a lot of other wording also meant to stop up loopholes; it looks pretty weird to us, since we’re not lawyers or anything; but that’s why it’s there.

 

[anEvilAtheist]

The thing I find amazing is that, with all the stuff there is on the Net, there are only “summaries” and hearsay on the Internet about this bull.

Well the relevant part of the bull is available online, but it’s in Latin, and I don’t know Latin. The book European Treaties Bearing on the History of the United States and Its Dependencies (which is freely available in its entirety through Google Books) has a portion of the bull on page 17. I wish I could read it directly but since non-biased books and websites agree about what the bull said and I haven’t found anyone arguing differently, I tend to think that those claims are accurate. Especially since Romanus Pontifex, which is fully available online in both English and Latin (in the above book as well as at this site), said similar things and granted permission to perpetually enslave certain people.

I’m sure it was ill-considered and bad, since later popes got rid of it; but it’s ridiculous for people to write so impassionedly about it without ever having read the thing. I thought Wikipedia was all for primary sources, but no. Nada.

Given that we’re told it came out in 1452, and given that Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1453, I’d say that it was probably intended as an emergency permission for Portuguese Crusaders to use forced Muslim labor in the fight to save Constantinople. Poor old sick Nicholas V wrote the thing up too broadly, in the hope of getting some Europeans to do something. But apparently, the Portuguese took the bull and ran with it in the opposite direction, instead of trying to save Europe from rampaging Turkish hordes. (Which is why the Turks eventually got all the way to Vienna, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire replaced the Byzantine Empire.)

Nicholas V died in 1455, brokenhearted.

This doesn’t seem at all consistent with what the pope said in Romanus Pontifex.

Btw, you’ll find that a lot of papal bulls and commands were written up with something about “in perpetuity” in them. What this really means is “until I send out another command ending this, or another pope sends out a command ending it”. It was meant to stop people asking every five minutes if the bull had stopped being legal yet. There’s a lot of other wording also meant to stop up loopholes; it looks pretty weird to us, since we’re not lawyers or anything; but that’s why it’s there.

I think you’re right that the opening to Romanus Pontifex, “Nicholas, bishop, servant of the servants of God. for a perpetual remembrance”, merely means that people are to follow the bull until the pope says otherwise. There is probably something similar in Dum Diversas. However, Romanus Pontifex authorizes King Alfonso to “reduce their persons to perpetual slavery” (“their persons” here refers to non-Christians). From what I’ve read, Dum Diversas says basically the same thing. Of course the pope would still reserve the right to later change his mind, but it’s clear that he is authorizing perpetual slavery, not a short indentured servitude type of slavery.