Pope Innocent IV, author of the letters to the Great Khan, subtly manipulated the elasticized matrix of knowledge provided by medieval Church legal theory to mediate this apparent conflict in the universal Christian commonwealth. His theorizations on the rights and status of normatively divergent peoples provided the necessary regulating principles for the conquest of these unregenerate infidel and heathen nations. Maitland once described this thirteenth century canon law scholar as "the greatest lawyer that ever sat upon the chair of St. Peter." Innocent was the first great medieval legal theorist who attempted to systematically address the question of the legal rules that might govern Christian relations with non-Christians. Numerous legal theorists would subsequently embellish upon his influential work. Innocent, however, was the first great European legal theorist to articulate systematically the legal status and rights of non-Christian societies. In an extended commentary upon an earlier papal decretal, Quod Super his, Innocent asked: "[I]s it licit to invade a land that infidels possess, or which belongs to them?"
-The Algebra Of Federal Indian Law: The Hard Trail Of Decolonizing And Americanizing The White Man's Indian Jurisprudence by Robert A. Williams
Wisconsin Law Review Pg.232-233
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