Requerimiento

About the Author

The Requerimiento was written by Juan López de Palacios Rubios, a Spanish jurist who was born Juan López de Vivero in 1450. He was a professor at the University of Salamanca and later at the University of Valladolid. He served as president of the Mesta, more formally called the Honored Council of the Mesta, an influential association of sheep owners in the Kingdom of Castile. He served as a judge in the city of Valladolid, as a minister of the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, as an ambassador to Rome, and as a member of the Royal Council of Castile. He was a committed supporter of the monarchy, writing such documents as Libellus de insulis oceanis (Book of the Ocean Isles), a legal treatise that defended the legitimacy of Castilian sovereignty in the Americas. He died in 1524.