Balthazar Ayala

Balthazar Ayala (1548–1584) was a military judge in the Habsburg Netherlands during the opening decades of the Eighty Years' War who wrote an influential treatise on the law of war.^[1]

Balthazar Ayala
Born	1548
Died	1584(1584-00-00) (aged 35–36)
Nationality	Spain
Occupation	Military judge

Life

Ayala was born in Antwerp in 1548, the son of a Spanish cloth merchant, Gregorio Ayala, and his wife Agnes Rainalmia, a native of Cambrai.^[2] He studied at Leuven University, graduating licentiate of laws. On 27 May 1580 the Prince of Parma appointed him auditor general of the Army of Flanders.^[2]

On 20 January 1583, he was appointed master of requests in the Great Council of Mechelen, then sitting in Namur as a result of the unfolding Dutch Revolt. In 1584 he was royal commissioner for the renewal of the magistracy in Breda, Herentals and Lier. He died in Aalst on 1 September 1584, probably while acting in the same capacity there.^[2]

Of his five brothers, Grégoire was also military auditor and later a member of the Council of Brabant, and Philippe was entrusted with an embassy to Henri IV of France.^[2]

Works

• De jure et officiis bellicis et disciplina militari (Douai, Jan Bogard, 1582). Second edition, Antwerp, 1597.^[3]
  • English translation published in 1912 in the Carnegie Institution Classics of International Law series.^[4]