Antonio Agustín y Albanell

Antonio Agustín y Albanell (1516–1586), also referred to as Augustinus, was a Spanish Humanist historian, jurist and Roman Catholic archbishop of Tarragona who pioneered the historical research of the sources of canon law.

Born in Zaragoza, Agustín studied law and classical literature in Alcalá, Salamanca, Padua and Bologna, notably as a pupil of Andrea Alciati.

With his nomination as auditor of the Sacra Rota Romana in 1544, Agustín started his ecclesiastial career, which saw him become a papal nuncio in 1554/55, then Bishop of Alife in 1556 and Bishop of Lleida in 1561. After participating in the Council of Trient in 1561–63, he was named Archbishop of Tarragona in 1576.

Agustín is now principally remembered as the first canon law historian; Peter Landau numbers him among the authors that enable us to consider the 16th century the founding age of the science of history.

His first main work, Emendationum et opinionum libri IV, proposed the now widely accepted thesis that the Littera Florentina manuscript was the source for all other copies of the Pandects. This undermined the authority, fundamental to medieval Roman law, of the Latin Vulgate text of the Pandects.

Agustín's other main historical works are:

• Antiquae Collectionis Decretalium (1576)
• De Emendatione Gratiani dialogorum libri duo (1587), a textual criticism of the Gratian Decree
• Epitome iuris pontificii veteris (1587/1611), a compendium of canon law prior to Innocent III
• De quibusdam veteris canonum ecclesiasticorum collectoribus iudicium ac censura (1611, posthumously published), a history of the pre-Gratian sources of ecclesiastical law