Inter caetera

The papal bull Inter caetera divinae on May 4, 1493, Pope Alexander VI. issued and postponed the separation line of the Spanish and Portuguese power range to the west. The new dividing line was 100 leagues ( about 480 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands in the north-south direction from pole to pole through the Atlantic Ocean. All territories that lay to the west of this running at about 38 ° west longitude line ( America), were awarded the Spanish kings and their heirs, all areas east of it (Africa and Asia) fell to the Portuguese.

This bull thus revised the bull Aeterni registered in the year 1481 and was supplemented by the Edict Dudum siquidem essential. A year later she was already by the Treaty of Tordesillas ( 1494) replaced.

Despite protestations to the contrary in the text, this bull was written at the express request of the Spaniards. The original document is kept in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville.

Excerpt

"That ye may be able such a large company with greater readiness and boldness, with the benefit of our apostolic blessing to attack, give, grant and transfer We hereby - from Our own decision, without your request and without the request of any other in your favor, only from our own and sole generosity and certain knowledge and from the fullness of Our apostolic authority that has been delegated by the Almighty God, through the mediation of St. Peter's on us, and on the basis of the representative of Jesus Christ on earth - to you and your heirs and successors, kings of Castile and Leon, for all time, for the case that one of these islands should be found by the emitted of you men and captains, all found or -find, all discovered or to be discovered islands and continents, including all dominions, cities, warehouses, places and villages, and all rights. "

Sources and Literature

  • Frances Gardiner Davenport ( ed.): European treaties bearing on the history of the United States and its dependencies to 1648 Carnegie Institution, Washington DC 1917, ( Carnegie Institution of Washington 254), page 64, Digitalisat. .
  • Alois Tomassetti / Francisco Gaude (ed.): Bullarum, Diplomatum et Romanorum Pontificum privilegiorum sanctorum. Locupletior facta collectione novissima plurium brevium, epistolarum, decretorum actorumque S. Sedis a S. Leone Magno usque ad praesens. Taurinensis editio. 25 volumes. Franco and Others, Turin, 1860-1871, Vol 5: From Eugenio IV ( an. MCCCXXXI ) ad leonem X ( an. MDXXI ), 1860, pp. 351f, ( text of the bull, Latin). .
  • H. Vander Linden: Alexander VI. and the Demarcation of the Maritime and Colonial Domains of Spain and Portugal, 1493-1494. In: The American Historical Review 22, 1, 1916, ISSN 00,028,762, pp. 1-20.
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