Spain, Fernando gave impetus to the development of
the institutions and culture of his realm. He tried to
reinvigorate the universities of Salamanca and Palencia,
and welcomed scholars to his court. In the course of his
reign, Castilian supplanted Latin as the offi cial language
of government and administration. His son, Alfonso
X, eventually brought to fruition Fernando’s plan to
develop a uniform code of law for the kingdom. The
cortes, in process of growth for a half-century, appeared
as a fully constituted assembly of prelates, magnates,
and townsmen representing the estates of the realm at
Seville in 1250.
In the expectation of protecting his kingdom against
any future Almohad intrusion into the peninsula, Fer-
nando III was planning an invasion of North Africa, but
death intervened on 30 May 1252. Buried in the cathe-
dral at Seville, he was declared a saint by Pope Clement
X in 1671. By his fi rst wife, Beatrice of Swabia, he had
had ten children including Alfonso X who succeed him.
Two years after Beatrice’s death in 1235, he had married
Jeanne de Ponthieu, by whom he had three children.
See also Alfonso X, El Sabio, King of Castile and
León
Further Reading
González, J. Reinado y diplomas de Fernando III. 3 vols. Cór-
doba, 1980–1986.
Mansilla, D. Iglesia castellano-leonesa y curia romana en los
tiempos del Rey San Fernando. Madrid, 1945.
Joseph F. O’Callaghan
FERRER, VICENTE, SAINT
(1350–1419)
Son of a Girona notary, St. Vicente Ferrer entered the
Order of Preachers, studied theology, philosophy, and
logic in Barcelona, Lérida, and Tortosa, having obtained
the degree of master of theology by 1389.
After his ordination in 1378 he took up residence in
Valencia, where he remained for some years and was
known for his preaching and rivalry with his Franciscan
contemporary, Francesc Eiximenis.
A lector in theology in the cathedral of Valencia
protected by the royal family and confessor to the heir
to the throne Juan and his French wife, Violante, he
was a strong supporter of Pope Clement VII in Avi-
gnon and later confessor to Benedict XIII. Called upon
to form part of the junta to settle the question of the
papal schism, he was also among those who supported
Fernando de Antequera in the Compromise of Caspe in
1412, subsequently enjoying good relations with him
and acting as his constant adviser.
Between 1399 and 1412 Vicente traveled exten-
sively throughout the Crown of Aragón, Castile, and
even reached Flanders; after this date his missionary
endeavors were intensifi ed and his attention seemed
to be directed primarily at the conversion of the Jews
and Moors who were obliged to listen to his sermons.
These occasions, like others from over a century earlier,
frequently provoked the people to fervent expressions
of faith and violent vituperations against the non-
Christians.
Some of the sermons that he preached during the
latter years of the fourteenth and beginning of the fi f-
teenth centuries have been preserved, including some
forty-three on the subject of Lent, which he preached
in Valencia, and others he preached on ceremonial oc-
casions, including one on Palm Sunday 1416 in Tou-
louse, where he had studied some years earlier. As was
his custom he entered the town triumphantly, riding
his mule, and preached indefatigably, but bystanders
noted his sickly countenance, suggesting that by that
date Vicente was no longer in good health. It is for his
sermons on a wide variety of topics, many of which
have survived in part if not in their entirety, that he is
regarded as one of the great Catalan and Latin writers
of the late Middle Ages. Studies have been made of his
use of the artes praedicandi, a use reminiscent of the
structure advocated in the treatise of Francesc Eiximenis
known as the Ars praedicandi populo—a tripartite divi-
sion consisting of introduction, theme, and exposition
of the theme. The text was usually in Catalan and was
chosen from the Bible, frequently from the Gospel for
the day, but Vicente would frequently append its Latin
equivalent. He then proceeded to enunciate the theme
and explain its signifi cance in contemporary language,
often punctuating his exposé with exclamations and
illustrative stories, miracles, lives of the saints, current
events, and the occasional personal anecdote, at times
dramatizing the stories or adding a touch of humor.
His sources were those of any medieval friar—the
Bible, patristic literature, lives of the saints, books of
exempla and other similar compendia of useful mate-
rial for preachers—but in his hands they took on a new
signifi cance, for they became a means of commentary
on life around him.
He was a scholar, able to speak to his contemporaries
using vocabulary and images they could understand and
indicating to them the corruption he saw in all aspects
of life. He criticized many of the daily customs and
popular beliefs, bewailed the moral depravity seen in
the behavior of his contemporaries—lay and clerical
alike—regarding the disintegration of society and the
confusion that beset the church, characteristic of the late
fourteenth and early fi fteenth centuries, as signs that
the end of the world was near. He is remembered for
the sermons he preached in an attempt to make society
aware of the problems and redress them before it was
too late, and for the active role he played in resolving theFERRER, VICENTE, SAINT