Footprints of Ramon Llull’s Thought in Atlantic Processes of Evangelization: Canary Islands, Congo, Iberian Peninsula, and La Española (15th-16th Centuries)

ended

The project will analyse how the evangelizing method of the medieval philosopher Ramon Llull (1232-1316) has had a strong impact on the clergy during the 15th and 16th centuries. Throughout history, Llull’s Art of converting believers of other religions has been adapted and elaborated upon by learned clerics, who were closely related to royal power, in order to set the bases of the ideological legitimation for facing and conquering new lands from other monotheistic religions (Muslims, Jews), as well as from gentiles (Canary Guanches, Congolese, Caribbean Tainos). Modern scholarship has devoted its attention almost exclusively to Llull’s work and thought as such, failing to recognise his paramount role in later evangelization processes led by the Castillian and Portuguese clergy. Thus, the objectives are: to describe the network of Lullists working on missiological strategies in close contact with royal power, their works and their relationships; to make accessible and disseminate through critical editions some of the unpublished works by this Lullist network; to explore a first attempt of Catholic globalization behind the activities of this network. To achieve these goals, I will extract data from Latin and old vernacular written sources, while I will also unravel the philosophical concepts behind the discourses of evangelization. The results will be published in a book and several articles, as well as in a blog and scientific profiles in social networks, freely available for the scientific community and general public. The relevance of the project lies in revealing a so far unknown program behind all the Atlantic evangelization attempts in which the Lullian Art was present. This will allow to shed light on new aspects of the beginnings of the globalization process, along with the improvement of our knowledge of the first encounters of Latin Christendom with other civilizations, in other words, Europe’s first steps towards a pancontinental vision of the world.