PETER NOLASCO, ST.

Founder of the Order of Our Lady of Ransom (mercedarians); b. probably Barcelona, Spain, perhaps Languedoc (Saint-Papoul or Masdes-Saintes-Puelles), France, c. 1182; d. Barcelona, Dec. 25?, c. 1249. Peter's vita is obscured by legends (e.g., that he crusaded against the albigenses, that he tutored King james i of aragon), but especially by a plethora of false documentation. Forgeries of the 17th century, promoting his canonization, furnish much of his traditional biography; genuine documents tell little about him. Involved controversies between Mercedarian and Dominican scholars add further confusion. Peter was born probably of merchant or improbably of knightly family. It is questionable whether simultaneous visions to Peter, raymond of peÑafort, and King James of Aragon caused them to co-found the Mercedarians. More likely, perhaps, Peter was the procurator of Peñafort's lay confraternity for ransoming, which became an Order (1218 or 1223 or 1228 or better 1234). As master-general until 1249, Peter supposedly ransomed 400 Christians on one trip to Muslim Valencia and Granada, and a total of 890 during several ransom tours. King James fostered the Mercedarians, but much of his connection with Peter seems legendary. Perhaps Peter was on the Valencian crusade; he appears at Valencia in 1244. He was canonized 1628.

Feast: Jan. 28 (formerly Jan. 31).

Bibliography: p. n. pÉrez, San Pedro Nolasco, fundador de la orden de la Merced (Barcelona 1915). e. vacas galindo, San Raimundo de Peñafort, fundador de la orden de la Merced: Estudio histórico-critico (Rome 1919). f. d. gazulla galve, La orden de Nuestra Señora de la Merced: Estudios históricocriticos, 1218–1317 (Barcelona, 1934). j. m. delgado varela, "Sobre la canonización de San P. N.," Estudios [mercedarios] 12 (1956) 265–295. e. gomez, "San P. N. en la espiritualidad mercedaria," ibid. 329–355; and other studies in this journal. p. f. garcÍa gutierrez, Iconografia mercedaria: Nolasco y su obra (Madrid 1985). a. remÓn, Las fiestas solemnes de San Pedro Nolasco (Madrid 1985), cult in Spain. a. pronzato, Un mercante di libertà (Turin 1986). l. o. proaÑo, Miscelánea histórica, 2 v. (Ibarra, Ecuador 1986–1995).

[r. i. burns]