Annoucing a New Translation of Inter Caetera

Translation differences between this new translation and Davenport’s occur more often in tone than in content. Of the latter, the most important is probably this: When discussing the religious aims of these expeditions and conquests, the pope states that it is a priority for him that those barbarian peoples ad fidem ipsam reducantur, which Davenport translates as being “brought to the faith itself.” However, since the semantics of the verb reducere carry an element of ‘back/return’ due to its prefix ‘re-‘, we decided to translate the clause as “bringing them back to the faith”, the implications of which Sebastian Modrow is exploring in a separate piece of scholarship. With slight variations, this papal request to return the local populations to the true faith occurs multiple times throughout the bull.

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