Carranza, Bartolome
CARRANZA, BARTOLOME (1503-1576), Spanish theologian, sometimes called de Miranda or de Carranza y Miranda, younger son of Pedro Carranza, a man of noble family, was born at Miranda d'Arga, Navarre, in 1503. He studied (1515-1520) at Alcalá, where Sancho Carranza, his uncle, was professor; entering (1520) the Dominican order, and then (1521-1525) at Salamanca and at Valladolid, where from 1527 he was teacher of theology. No Spaniard save Melchior Canus rivalled him in learning; students from all parts of Spain flocked to hear him. In 1530 he was denounced to the Inquisition as limiting the papal power and leaning to opinions of Erasmus, but the process failed; he was made professor of philosophy and (1533-1539) regent in theology. In 1539, as representative to the chapter-general of his order he visited Rome; here he was made doctor of theology, and while he mixed with the liberal circle associated with Juan de Valdés, he had also the confidence of Paul III. Returning to Valladolid, he acted as censor (cualificador) of books (including versions of the Bible) for the Inquisition. In 1540 he was nominated to the sees of Canaria and of Cusco, Peru, but declined both. Charles V. chose him as envoy to the council of Trent (1546). He insisted on the imperative duty of bishops and clergy to reside in their benefices, publishing at Venice (1547) his discourse to the council De necessaria residentia personali, which he treated as juris divini. His Lenten sermon to the council, on justification, caused much remark. He was made provincial of his order for Castile. Charles sent him to England (1554) with his son Philip on occasion of the marriage with Mary. He became Mary's confessor, and laboured earnestly for the re-establishment of the old religion, especially in Oxford. In 1557 Philip appointed him to the archbishopric of Toledo; he accepted with reluctance, and was consecrated at Brussels on the 27th of February 1558. He was at the deathbed of Charles V. (21st of September) and gave him extreme unction; then raised a curious controversy as to whether Charles, in his last moments, had been infected with Lutheranism. The same year he was again denounced to the Inquisition, on the ground of his Comentarios sobre el Catechismo (Antwerp, 1558), which in 1563, however, was approved by a commission of the council of Trent. He had evidently lost favour with Philip, by whose order he was arrested at Tordelaguna (1559) and imprisoned for nearly eight years, and the book was placed on the Index. The process dragged on. Carranza appealed to Rome, was taken thither in December 1566, and confined for ten years in the castle of St Angelo. The final judgment found no proof of heresy, but compelled him to abjure sixteen errors, rather extorted than extracted from his writings, suspended him from his see for five years, and secluded him to the Dominican cloister of Sta Maria sopra Minerva. Seven days after his abjuration he died, on the 2nd of May 1576. He was succeeded in his see by the inquisitor-general, Gaspar Quiroga. Yet the Spanish people honoured him as a saint; Gregory XIII. placed a laudatory inscription on his tomb in the church of Sta Maria. His real crime was not heresy but reform. His Summa Conciliorum et Pontificum (Venice, 1546) has been often reprinted (as late as 1821), and has permanent value.
See P. Salazar de Miranda, Vida (1788); H. Laugwitz, Bartholomaus Carranza (1870); J.A. Llorente, Hist. Inquisition in Spain (English abridgment, 1826); Hefele in I. Goschler's Dict. encyclopédique de la théol. cath. (1858).
(A. Go.*)
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
