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Primera parte de la Summa, en la qual se cifra y Summa todo lo que toca y pertenece a los Sacramentos, con todos los casos y dudas morales resueltas y determinadas . . . Compuesta por el Maestro fray Pedro de Ledesma de la orden de S. Domingo Cathedratico de S. Thomas en la Vniuersidad de Salamanca (Salamanca: Juan and Andrés Renaut, 1598); with Doctrina Christiana. Compuesta y ordenada por el Maestro fray Pedro de Ledesma .

Pedro de Ledesma (†1616) was born in Salamanca and entered the Dominicans there in 1563. He later taught in Dominican schools in Segovia and Avila before returning to Salamanca.

This edition of Pedro's Summa printed by Juan and Andrés Renaut (active 1587-1599) is the first (there was also a Segunda parte of the Summa published in 1598). In its structure and subject matter, the work is similar to the Summa sacramentorum of Francisco de Vitoria (catalogue n° 75 and n° 76). It treats the sacraments in general and the seven sacraments in particular and includes chapters on canonical norms and cases concerning the practice and administration of the sacraments, especially confession. In brief, Pedro's Summa is a late-sixteenth-century ‘confessors’ manual’. The text of the Summa is printed in two columns surrounded by a border and divided by a line.

Joined to this work at the end, in a completely different single-column format without a title page or colophon, is a little treatise (60 pp.) titled Doctrina Christiana. Pedro was urged to write this work by the bishop of Avila, Fernandez Temiño, as a follow-up to acts of a diocescan synod. This ‘layfolks’ catechism’ suggests that the knowledge of the faith expected from ordinary Christians had not changed much since the thirteenth century. In simple formulae, the Doctrina Christiana presents the articles of faith, the ten commandments, the gifts and fruits of the Spirit, the vices and virtues, the four last things, the seven sacraments and explanations of the Pater noster and Ave Maria. So nearly 400 years after Lateran Council IV the friars were still composing works that enumerate the rudiments of faith.

References: IA 3/3: 226; Quétif-Échard 2/1: 404-5.

Catalogue No. 82
Call Number: Rare Books DURAND AGL3062      Catalog Record

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