Balthazar Ayala | |
Birth Date: | 1548 |
Nationality: | Spain |
Occupation: | Military judge |
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]
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]