Fernando de Valdés y Salas

The statue of founder Fernando de Valdés Salas in the courtyard of University of Oviedo library. Fernando de Valdés y Salas (Salas, Asturias, 1483 – Madrid, 1568) was a Spanish churchman and jurist, professor of canon law at the University of Salamanca, and later its chancellor.

Biography He was member of the Supreme Council of the Spanish Inquisition from 1516, Bishop of Ourense (1529–1532), Bishop of Oviedo (July 1532 – May 1539), Bishop of León, (1539), Bishop of Sigüenza (October 1539 – August 1546), Archbishop of Seville (August 1546 – December 1566), President of the Royal Council of Castile, Inquisitor General/Grand Inquisitor (1547–1566). He published an "Index of Forbidden books" in 1559, including a number of influential Catholic authors such as Erasmus of Rotterdam, Louis of Granada, Francisco de Osuna, and Francisco de Borja.

He tried to clean out heterodox people, associated to Jewish and Muslim "conversos" and Erasmist and Lutheran circles, from the high nobility and the high ecclesiastical positions around Valladolid and Sevilla, even prosecuting the Archbishop of Toledo Bartolomé Carranza.