RAYMOND OF PEÑAFORT, Saint. - Dominican, b. at Barcelona in 1175, d. there on 6 Jan. 1275. He studied and then taught rhetoric and logic at Barcelona. He then studied at Bologna (1210-16), where he was promoted to doctor of law in 1216. Having returned to Barcelona by the will of his bishop (1219) and been named canon penitentiary and then provost of the cathedral Chapter, he entered the Dominican Order a short time later (1222). He played a notable part in the founding of the Order of Mercy, for which he compiled a large part of the Constitutions and obtained its approval (1235).
He accompanied and assisted Card. John of Abbeville in his legation in Spain (1229) and was then charged by the Pope with preaching in the provinces of Arles and Narbonne in favor of the Majorca expedition against the Moors. Gregory IX named him his confessor, chaplain and penitentiary and entrusted him with the compilation of the new authentic collection of Decretals, which was officially promulgated by him in 1234 (5 Sept.) and presented to the Universities of Paris and Bologna (v. Corpus Iuris Canonici). In this same period, in the Pope's name he gave numerous replies to legal consultations, which go under the name of Dubitalia, edited by Schulte (Die canonischen Handschriften... Prague 1868, p. 98 ff.). He refused the archbishopric of Tarragona. Elected master general of the Order (23 May 1238), he accepted very reluctantly; he compiled a redaction of the Dominican Constitutions, which fundamentally remained in force until the revision of 1924. In 1240 he renounced the office of master general in order to devote himself to the conversion of the Jews and the Moors in Spain and Africa. Through his work a school of Arabic was founded at Tunis (1250) and one of Hebrew at Murcia (the first of their kind) to prepare missionaries adequately. He insisted that St. Thomas Aquinas write the Summa contra Gentiles. Canonized in 1601. Feast on 23 Jan.
Among his works one must recall: the Summa iuris (preserved in part in the ms. of the Vatican Library Borgh. 261), written at Bologna (1216-19), which is a manual of law, compiled according to the order of the Decretum and of Book I of the Compilations of Decretals (ed. J. Rius, Barcelona 1945); better known is the Summa de poenitentia, which had a wide diffusion. It is an excellent guide for confessors, very practical and useful for correcting and directing every category of penitents. The first three parts of this work seem to have been written at Barcelona, between 1222-28 or 1229, certainly not finished before 1227, and published before 1234; the fourth part (de matrimonio) was compiled around 1235-36 and is a reworking of Tancred's Summa de matrimonio. He also wrote glossae to the Decretum (cf. St. Kuttner, Repertorium der Kanonistik..., I, Vatican City 1937, pp. 20 ff., 100 ff., 438-52). The influence exercised by R. d. P. with his Summa de poenitentia is manifest in the very numerous editions, in the glossae that were added to it, in the compilations that were made of it and that bear the name of Summulae de summa s. Raymundi or Summulae abbreviatae s. Raymundi. Less important is the Summa pastoralis, a kind of manual for bishops or archdeacons in the visitation of the diocese, edited by L. Delisle (Catalogue des manuscrits, I, Paris 1849, pp. 592-649).
Bibliography11 works
Alfonso D'Amato