Born at Villafranca de Benadis, near Barcelona, in 1175; died at
Barcelona, 6 January, 1275. He became professor of canon law in 1195,
and taught for fifteen years. He left Spain for Bologna in 1210 to
complete his studies in canon law. He occupied a chair of canon law in
the university for three years and published a treatise on
ecclesiastical legislation which still exists in the Vatican Library.
Raymond was attracted to the Dominican Order by the preaching of
Blessed Reginald, prior of the Dominicans of Bologna, and received the
habit in the Dominican Convent of Barcelona, whither he had returned
from Italy in 1222. At Barcelona he was co-founder with St. Peter
Nolasco of the Order of Mercedarians. He also founded institutes at
Barcelona and Tunis for the study of Oriental languages, to convert the
Moors and Jews.
At the request of his superiors Raymond published the Summa Casuum,
of which several editions appeared in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. In 1229 Raymond was appointed theologian and penitentiary to
the Cardinal Archbishop of Sabina, John of Abbeville, and was summoned
to Rome in 1230 by Gregory IX, who appointed him chaplain and grand
penitentiary.
The reputation of the saint for juridical science decided the
pope to employ Raymond of Peñafort's talents in re-arranging and
codifying the canons of the Church. He had to rewrite and condense
decrees that had been multiplying for centuries, and which were
contained in some twelve or fourteen collections already existing. We
learn from a Bull of Gregory IX to the Universities of Paris and Bologna
that many of the decrees in the collections were but repetitions of
ones issued before, many contradicted what had been determined in
previous decrees, and many on account of their great length led to
endless confusion, while others had never been embodied in any
collection and were of uncertain authority.
The pope announced the new publication in a Bull directed to the
doctors and students of Paris and Bologna in 1231, and commanded that
the work of St. Raymond alone should be considered authoritative, and
should alone be used in the schools. When Raymond completed his work the
pope appointed him Archbishop of Tarragona, but the saint declined the
honour. Having edited the Decretals he returned to Spain. He was not
allowed to remain long in seclusion, as he was elected General of the
Order in 1238; but he resigned two years later. During his tenure of
office he published a revised edition of the Dominican Constitutions,
and it was at his request that St. Thomas wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles. St. Raymond was canonized by Clement VIII in 1601. His Summa de Poenitentia et Matrimonio is said to be the first work of its kind.
Monumenta Historica Ord. Proed., V, iv; Bullarium Ord.
Proed.; PENIA, Vita S. Raymundi; MORTIER, Hist. des Maitres Generaux
(Paris, 1903); FINKE, Acta Aragonensia, II (1908), 902-904;
QUETIF-ECHARD, Script. Ord. Proed.; BALME, Raymundiana (1901).
Michael M. O'Kane (Catholic Encyclopedia)
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