Bartolomé Carranza (1503 – 2 May 1576, sometimes called de Miranda or de Carranza y Miranda) was a priest of the Dominican Order, theologian and Archbishop of Toledo. He is notable for having been persecuted by the Spanish Inquisition. He spent much of his later life imprisoned on charges of heresy. He was first denounced in 1530, and imprisoned during 1558–1576. The final judgement found no proof of heresy but secluded him to the Dominican cloister of Santa Maria sopra Minerva where he died seven days later.
Carranza belonged to a noble family which had its estates at Miranda de Arga in Spanish Navarre.
The younger son of Pedro Carranza, a man of noble family, Bartolomé Carranza was born at Miranda de Arga, Kingdom of Navarre, in 1503. As a young man, he bore witness to the Spanish conquest of his home country, Navarre. The ensuing institutional takeover brought about deep changes to church structures of Navarre, such as a redesign of ecclesiastic boundaries and an attempt to prevent European influences from entering Navarre and Spain altogether.
He studied at Alcalá from 1515 to 1520, where Sancho Carranza, his uncle, was professor, entering in 1520 the Dominican order, and then, from 1521 to 1525, at Salamanca and at Valladolid.
He received his early education at Alcalá and in 1520 entered the Dominican convent of Benalaque near Guadalajara.
At Valladolid he was teacher of theology beginning in 1527. No Spaniard save Melchior Cano rivalled him in learning; students from all parts of Spain flocked to hear him. In 1530 he was denounced to the Inquisition as limiting the papal power and leaning to the opinions of Erasmus, but the process failed; he was made professor of philosophy and regent in theology (1533 to 1539).