Priego" in 1409, and his
wife, Maria Fernandez Marmolejo. The children of this couple were
Guillen, Isabel, Juan, Pedro, and Francisco, who is described in the
genealogy as the father of Bartholomew. Pedro, whom Fray Bartholomew
mentions as his father, is described as _Dean of Seville_, in which case
his ecclesiastical state would exclude matrimony and legitimate issue.

Fabie affirms that in several passages of his writings Fray Bartholomew
confirms the assertion of those authors who have designated his father as
Francisco, but he does not indicate the whereabouts of these passages nor
have I, in my unaided researches, succeeded in finding them. The
descendants of the original founder of the family had multiplied and, by
the close of the fifteenth century, were divided into many prolific
branches, hence the difficulty of identifying the unimportant father of an
extraordinarily important son is not wonderful. Las Casas himself may be
reasonably assumed to have known his own father's name and we must
conclude, in view of his assertion, that all other authorities, including
the Royal College of Heralds, are wrong, and that not Francisco, but a
Pedro de Las Casas, who was not however Dean of Seville, was the immediate
progenitor of the illustrious Bishop of Chiapa.

The scarcity of positive information concerning his immediate family is
equalled by the paucity of trustworthy details of the first twenty-eight
years of Fray Bartholomew's life. He completed his studies and obtained
the degree of licentiate in law at the University of Salamanca, the most
celebrated in Spain, and which ranked high amongst the great seats of
learning in Europe at that time. Jurisprudence was divided into the
branches of Roman law as interpreted by the school of Bologna, and of
canon law, the principles of which were interwoven with the common
practice, whose severer tendencies they somewhat tempered. The precepts
of Aristotle as interpreted by scholastics formed the basis of
philosophical studies, and the Thomistic doctrine was taught by professors
of the Dominican Order.

It has been judiciously observed that in that age of growing absolutism,
both spiritual and temporal, only a skilful Thomistic scholar could have
discerned the limits to the legitimate exercise of the royal authority
which Las Casas so clearly perceived and so boldly defined in the very
presence of the autocratic sovereigns of Spain.

Grammar, ethics, physics, and t