confessor. Pope Gregory IX commissioned him there
to construct the Decretals, promulgated in 1234; with
Gratian’s Decretum, this systematization of a century’s
laws in some two thousand sections remained the code
of the church until the twentieth century. Ramón then
refused the metropolitanate of Tarragona, and in 1236
returned to the Barcelona priory. Continuously involved
in important canonical cases there, he was active at the
parliament (corts) of Monzón in 1236, was delegated
to lift the papal excommunication from Jaime I (whose
friend and counselor he was), and became involved
in the dismissal of Tortosa’s bishop and the provision
of Huesca’s and Mallorca’s bishops. The Dominican
chapter general elected him head of the order in 1238.
He left a lasting mark especially by his revision of their
constitutions and his integration of the order’s nuns
before suddenly resigning in 1240.
Returning to Santa Caterina priory, he spent the next
thirty-fi ve years there on massive missionary projects
and in most of the Crown of Aragón’s religious crises.
He was active against heresy, persuading King Jaime
to allow the Inquisition; he was regularly counselor to
the king; and he adjudicated important public quarrels.
Ramón’s main preoccupation was with the founding of
language schools for intrusive missionary disputation
with Muslims and Jews, and with devising a program
of persuasive confrontation and handbooks of polemi-
cal argumentation. He opened an Arabic language and
disputation center at Tunis in 1245 and at Murcia in
- He persuaded Thomas Aquinas to construct his
masterwork, Contra gentiles, for these missions.
Through the school centers, compulsory sermons
in mosques and synagogues, the public disputation of
1263 in Barcelona, censorship of rabbinic books, and
the aggressive labors of Dominicans like Pau Cristià
and Ramon Martí, Ramón helped turn Mediterranean
Spain into a stormy laboratory for the new rationalist-
confrontational missionary methods. This was part of
the wider mendicant effort to convert India, China, and
Islamic countries by polemical dialogue. Jeremy Cohen
argues for an even more revolutionary orientation in
Ramón’s vision: a conviction that Talmudic Judaism
was antibiblical, depriving Jews of their right by Chris-
tian teaching to practice their faith in Christian lands.
Contemporary hagiographers stress instead Ramón’s
mission to the Muslims of Spain, and he himself reported
euphorically on the successful conversion of many. The
roots of these movements, and the inevitability of their
ultimate failure, have been more recently discussed
by authors such as Robert Burns, Jeremy Cohen, and
Dominique Urvoy.
Throughout all his activity in public life, mission-
ary disputation, or Dominican administration, Ramón
remained a scholar on the cutting edge of Roman and
canon law. His legal publications multiplied from the
start of his career at Bologna to his last year of life in
Barcelona. The writings circulated throughout Europe
and had immense infl uence. The most important were his
Summa iuris canonici, written at Bologna; his Summa
de casibus poenitentiae (or Summa de confessoribus),
written in 1222–1225 but redone in 1234–1236; his
Decretales, written between 1230 and 1234; and the Do-
minican constitutions. Some sermons and letters, as well
as legal responses (dubitalia) survive. The Decretales
had as great an infl uence on national codes, like Alfonso
el Sabio’s Siete Partidas, as his confessors’ handbook
had on the ethical and behavioral life of Christendom.
Though a Tarragona Council presented a special report
and petition for his canonization in 1279, that honor
came only in 1601.
See also Gratian; Jaime (Jaume) I of
Aragón-Catalonia; Martí, RamónFurther Reading
Burns, R. I. “Christian-Islamic Confrontation in the West: The
Thirteenth-Century Drearn of Conversion.” Amer can Histori-
cal Review 76 (1971), 1386–1434.
Rius Serra, J. San Raimundo de Peñafort: diplomatario. Bar-
celona, 1954.
Robert I. Burns, S. J.PEPIN
Frankish leaders of the Carolingian family. Among
Charlemagne’s ancestors, three named Pepin were
especially distinguished by their political authority
among the Franks. Pepin I of Landen (Pepin the Old or
the Elder; d. ca. 640) founded the family of the Arnulf-
ings or the Pippinids, later known as the Carolingians,
through the arranged marriage of his daughter, Begga,
to Ansegisel, the son of Arnulf of Metz (d. ca. 645).
Pepin was named mayor of the palace (major domus) of
Austrasia by the Merovingian king Clotar II of Neustria
(r. 584–629), for having assisted the monarch to unite
the kingdoms of Austrasia and Neustria. During his
mayoralty, the offi ce grew into the most powerful posi-
tion in the Frankish territories, equaling or surpassing
the royal throne in importance.
After the murder of Pepin’s son and successor, Gri-
moald in 656, the Pippinids lost control of the Austras-
ian mayoralty; but in 687, Pepin II of Heristal, duke of
Austrasia and Grimoald’s nephew, led the Austrasian
army to victory over the Neustrians and became mayor
of the palace in both regions. From this post, he gradu-
ally strengthened his authority over all the Merovingian
kingdoms, through his support of the church, manipula-
tion of ecclesiastical posts, and military campaigns.
Pepin III (the Short; d. 768) and Carloman I (d. 754),
grandsons of Pepin II, each inherited half the FrankishPEPIN