Christian people. But forasmuch as it should be a thing of great
difficulty, these letters to be carried to all such places as should
be expedient, we will, and of like motion and knowledge do decree that
whithersoever the same shall be sent, or where soever they shall be
received with the subscription of a common notary thereunto required,
with the seal of any person constituted in ecelesiastical court, or
such as are authorized by the ecclesiastical court, the same faith and
credit to be given thereunto in judgment or elsewhere, as should be
exhibited to these presents.

It shall therefore be lawful for no man to infringe or rashly to
contradict this letter of our commendation, exhortation, request,
donation, grant, assignation, constitution, deputation, decree,
commandment, inhibition, and determination. And if any shall presume
to attempt the same, he ought to know that he shall thereby incur the
indignation of Almighty God and his holy Apostles, Peter and Paul.

Given at Rome, at Saint Peter's: In the year of the incarnation of our
Lord M.CCCC lxx.xxiii. The fourth day of the month of May; the first
year of our seat.

[1] Dated at Rome, May 4th, 1498. It was translated into English
by Richard Eden in 1555, and is printed in Old English and from
black-letter type, by Hart in his "American History Told by
Contemporaries." For the present work the English has been
modernized.

This famous bull was the result of rival claims, made by Spain
and Portugal, to lands discovered beyond the Atlantic. More than
half a century before Columbus found America, the Portuguese had