| abstract | - Issued one year before the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, the bull may have been intended to begin another crusade against the Ottoman Empire. Nicholas V's nephew, Loukas Notaras, was Megas Doux of the Byzantine Empire. Some historians view these bulls together as extending the theological legacy of Pope Urban II's Crusades to justify European colonization and expansionism, accommodating "both the marketplace and the yearnings of the Christian soul." Dum Diversas was essentially "geographically unlimited" in its application, perhaps the most important papal act relating to Portuguese colonization. Dum Diversas provided: In 1537 pope Paul III explicitly condemned enslaving non-Christians in Sublimus Dei . In 1686 the Holy Office limited the bull by decreeing that Africans enslaved by unjust wars should be freed. Dum Diversas, along with other bulls such as Romanus Pontifex (1454), Ineffabilis et summi (1497), Dudum pro parte (1516), and Aequum reputamus (1534) document the Portuguese ius patronatus. Pope Alexander VI, a native of Valencia, issued a series of bulls limiting Portuguese power in favor of that of Spain, most notably Dudem siquidem (1493).
|
