Raymond of Peñafort, Saint

Raymond of Peñafort, Saint

 Spanish Raimundo

(born c. 1185, Peñafort, near Barcelona—died Jan. 6, 1275, Barcelona; canonized 1601; feast day January 7) Catalan Dominican friar influential in defining church law. He studied and taught canon law at Bologna, then returned to Barcelona, where he joined the Dominicans and wrote a manual for confessors widely used in the late Middle Ages. Appointed papal chaplain by Pope Gregory IX (1230), he was commissioned to codify the papal statues and rulings on canon law; these Decretals (1234) remained part of church law until 1917. He later organized schools of Arabic and Hebrew studies in Tunis and Murcia.