Francisco Salgado de Somoza: The Letrado between the Authority of the Church and the State

Abstract

The article outlines the life of Francisco Salgado de Somoza (1591-1665) and those works of his in which he argued in favor of privileges of the Spanish monarchy as regards the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and the Holy See: The right of Spanish courts to assume cases of clerics if these claimed to have been unfairly treated by ecclesiastical authority («recursus ab abusu») and the retention of papal letters by the royal council, respectively.