The interpretation of the laws in the Treaty on the Laws of Rodrigo de Arriaga in seventeenth Century Spain

• Grant number: 18/26021-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: April 01, 2019
• End date: March 31, 2020
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - History
• Principal Investigator: Rafael Ruiz Gonzalez
• Grantee: Julio Cesar Aquino Teles Ferreira
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project proposes the analysis of the interpretation of laws in the seventeenth century, based on the Treaty on the laws of Rodrigo de Arriaga (1592-1667). The analysis is intended from the categories of arbitration, equity, circumstance and case, having as key of reading the principles of moral theology and, specifically, legal probabilism. Most of the studies on this question by Brazilian historiography have been based on the texts of ordinations, royal laws and normative texts without taking into account the role assigned in this historical period to the necessary interpretation of the laws by the judges. The work that will be analyzed is the Treaty on the laws, that is part of the IV volume of the 8 volumes of the work Disputationes theologicae, published between 1643 and 1655. Arriaga was a Jesuit moralist theologian whose works had a wide diffusion in Europe and America, and was also the teacher of Caramuel, one of the leading probabilistic theologians who had a strong influence on the development of this theological current. Through the dialogue of the source with the historiography that deals with justice in the seventeenth century, we intend to contribute with studies in the area of History of Justice.