Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Treaty of Alcáçovas" in English language version.
In the course of this struggle it became obvious that the Spanish attempt to preserve fundamental aspects of the medieval law of nations was no longer tenable. Confronted with the over-whelming opposition of most other European States, in particular the Protestant ones, the Spanish endeavoured forthwith to find other legal titles for their new possessions overseas. Thus, in the first half of the sixteenth century they had already stopped asking for a papal sanction of the Hispano-Portuguese demarcation line in the Pacific Ocean; the right of discovery moved to the foreground and a Spanish jurist as eminent as Vitoria stated that the popes did not intend to dispose of the new world as such, but only to draw the limits of the missionary regions. The Spanish crown, however, never renounced its rights deriving from the papal bulls and always remained eager to leave open their widest possible interpretation.
