This article examines the letters and reports of Francisco de Vargas (ca. 1500–66), a jurist who served in different positions under Charles V and Philip II during the three phases of the Council of Trent. Vargas defended the superiority of the council over the pope in matters of faith and practices and drew attention to the need to continue the reform of the Roman Curia started at the Council of Constance. The article examines the way this conciliarist adapted ecclesiology to developing circumstances over the three phases of the Council of Trent, and points out the need to revise the monolithic, papalist view that historiography continues to present of early modern Spanish ecclesiological thought.

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Tubau, X., (2025), "Between Ecclesiology and Diplomacy: Francisco de Vargas and the Council of Trent", HSSCommons: (DOI: )

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1. Renaissance and Reformation

Original publication: Tubau, Xavier. "Between Ecclesiology and Diplomacy: Francisco de Vargas and the Council of Trent." Renaissance and Reformation 42 (3): 2019. 105-139. DOI: 10.7202/1066361ar. This material has been re-published in an unmodified form on the Canadian HSS Commons with the permission of Iter Canada / Renaissance and Reformation. Copyright © the author(s). Their work is distributed by Renaissance and Reformation under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. For details, see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.