Church Life between the Metropolitan and the Local: Parishes, Parishioners and Parish Priests in Seventeenth-Century Mexico 9783954872831

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Magnus Lundberg

Church Life between the Metropolitan and the Local Parishes, Parishioners and Parish Priests in Seventeenth-Century Mexico

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T E H  A  E 17 La cita de Cervantes que convierte a la historia en «madre de la verdad, émula del tiempo, depósito de las acciones, testigo de lo pasado, ejemplo y aviso de lo presente, advertencia de lo porvenir», cita que Borges reproduce para ejemplificar la reescritura polémica de su «Pierre Menard, autor del Quijote», nos sirve para dar nombre a esta colección de estudios históricos de uno y otro lado del Atlántico, en la seguridad de que son complementarias, que se precisan, se estimulan y se explican mutuamente las historias paralelas de América y España.

Consejo editorial de la colección: Walther L. Bernecker (Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg) Elena Hernández Sandoica (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Clara E. Lida (El Colegio de México) Rosa María Martínez de Codes (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) Jean Piel (Université Paris VII) Barbara Potthast (Universität zu Köln) Hilda Sabato (Universidad de Buenos Aires) Nigel Townson (Universidad Complutense de Madrid)

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Magnus Lundberg

CHURCH LIFE BETWEEN THE METROPOLITAN AND THE LOCAL Parishes, Parishioners and Parish Priests in Seventeenth-Century Mexico

I – V 

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lundberg, Magnus, 1972Church life between the metropolitan and the local parishes, parishioners, and parish priests in seventeenth-century Mexico / Magnus Lundberg. p. cm. – (Tiempo emulado. Historia de América Latina y España ; 17) Summary: "The book is a study of parish life in central Mexico during the first half of the seventeenth century. Particular emphasis is put on the interaction between the indigenous parishioners and the secular priests working in the parishes"–Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-1-936353-03-3 – ISBN 978-8484895589 1. Indians of Mexico–Religion–History–17th century. 2. Catholic Church–Mexico–History–17th century. 3. Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Mexico City (Mexico)–History–17th century. 4. Catholic Church. Archdiocese of Puebla de los Angeles (Mexico)–History–17th century. 5. Indian Catholics–Mexico–History–17th century. 6. Priests–Mexico–History–17th century. 7. Parishes–Mexico–History–17th century. 8. Mexico–Church history–17th century. 9. Mexico–Religious life and customs. 10. Mexico–Ethnic relations–History–17th century. I. Title. F1219.3.R38L86 2011 299.7–dc22 2010050120

Agradecemos al Swedish Research Council la colaboración financiera para la edición de este libro. Reservados todos los derechos © Iberoamericana, 2011 Amor de Dios, 1 – E-28014 Madrid Tel.: +34 91 429 35 22 – Fax: +34 91 429 53 97 © Iberoamericana Vervuert Publishing Corp., 2011 9040 Bay Hill Blvd. – Orlando, FL 32819 USA Tel.: +1 407 217 5534 – Fax: +1 407 217 5059 Vervuert, 2011 Elisabethenstr. 3-9 – D-60594 Frankfurt am Main Tel.: +49 69 597 46 17 – Fax: +49 69 597 87 43 [email protected] – www.ibero-americana.net ISBN 978-84-8489-558-9 (Iberoamericana) ISBN 978-1-936353-03-3 (Iberoamericana Vervuert Publishing Corp.) Depósito Legal: Diseño de la cubierta: Carlos Zamora Ilustración de la cubierta: The parish church of Nopaluca, Puebla (1605). Source: AGN, Tierras, vol. 2785, exp. 6, fol. 10 (illustration 2182, detail). Este libro está impreso íntegramente en papel ecológico sin cloro

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P ..................................................................................

7

A N  T ...............................................................

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L C L  N  P ..................... Church and Religion in Early Colonial Maturity: Aspects of a Research Field ...................................................... The Church: Local and Metropolitan ........................................ The Parish and its Clergy ......................................................... Norms .................................................................................. The Ordinary ......................................................................... Records and Sources ............................................................... Archives and Libraries ............................................................. The Chapters ..........................................................................

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P  T C D........................................ Diocesan Geography ............................................................... Population and Languages ........................................................ Parish Divisions ...................................................................... Regular and Secular Parishes .....................................................

43 43 47 51 53

T C  M: P C D ......... The Council, Its Decrees and the Road to Publication ................. The Status and Impact of the Decrees ........................................ The Priest ............................................................................... The Parish Ministry ................................................................. The Indigenous Parishioners ....................................................

59 60 67 68 72 74

T B’ E: V R ..................................... The Institution of Visitation ..................................................... Mexican Visitation Records ..................................................... Three Visitation Books ............................................................

79 80 85 94

C V: S M......................... Clerical Linguists .................................................................... The Manuale Genre ...............................................................

117 118 121

14 22 28 32 33 37 39 41

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The Lorra Baquio Manual (1634) .............................................. The Nágera Yanguas Manual (1637)........................................... The Sáenz de la Peña Manual (1642) ..........................................

125 132 138

U  H: E R........................... Idolatry and Jurisdiction .......................................................... Pedro Ponce de León ............................................................... Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón ...................................................... Jacinto de la Serna ...................................................................

145 146 151 155 166

W A: I P............................................ The Corpus ............................................................................ Accusations against Parish Clergy ............................................. Support for Parish Priests ......................................................... The Priests Good and Bad ........................................................ The Parishioners Good and Bad ................................................

173 176 181 208 211 213

P  S  P: N  M  S......................................................................... Becoming a Beneficiary ............................................................ The Corpus ............................................................................ The Priests .............................................................................. Priests Worthy of Promotion ....................................................

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E: L C L  E C M

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A ...................................................................................

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R ................................................................................

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I ......................................................................................

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his book could not have been written without the generous funding of Vetenskapsrådet—the Swedish Research Council. A three-year grant enabled me to dedicate much time to research between 2006 and 2009. It also gave me the opportunity to travel to the archives and libraries that were necessary for the completion of the study. The initial research for this study was carried out at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville during the autumn of 2006. This period was followed by a four-month stay in London during 2006-2007, where my wife was a guest researcher at the time. In London, I had the possibility to work in the Rare Books and Music Reading Room at the British Library, which proved one of the most pleasant and rewarding periods of my research life, in no small measure due to its highly efficient, competent, and helpful staff. For this project I also spent two longer periods in Mexico in 2007 and 2008. There, I particularly worked in the Archivo General de la Nación where the helpful staff in sala 4 should be acknowledged as well as those in charge of the reproduction of documents. I have also done some research at the Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México which is staffed by very helpful, knowledgeable and kind people. Likewise I thank the people of the Fondo Reservado of the Biblioteca Nacional de México, the Biblioteca Nacional de España, and the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México CARSO where some research was carried out. I have been able to present research papers related to this project at conferences in Mexico City, Bogotá, and Vitoria, as well as at home in Uppsala and Stockholm, and I wish to acknowledge the many important questions and comments I received from colleagues on those occasions. In September and October 2009, when I was a guest professor at the Centro de Investigaciones sobre América Latina y el Caribe at the Universidad Autónoma de México, I also had the possibility to present and discuss my research. Most of the actual writing has been done at the Faculty of Theology at Uppsala University, where I am also teaching. A collective word of 7

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acknowledgement is due to my colleagues in the Faculty, as well as to students. Dr. Scott Spurlock deserves special thanks for proofreading the text. My good friend and Americanist mentor Professor Emeritus Magnus Mörner has continued to be a great source of inspiration, as has my wife Dr. Annika Berg, historian and dearest friend. Uppsala, November 2009

Magnus Lundberg

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A N  T

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exican place-names derived from indigenous languages were spelled in a number of ways during the colonial era. In order to illustrate this problem, it suffices to mention one case. In colonial documents, the location currently known as Ixcateopan is alternately written as Escateopan, Ixcatiopa, Ichcateopan, Iscateupa, etc. For the sake of clarity and whenever possible I use the modern official spelling throughout this book. I have, however, decided to drop accents, as many place-names were pronounced differently in colonial times than today.

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L C L  N  P

El partido sin enseñanza es tierra sin fecudidad, montes sin humedad, valles sin agua, vida sin espíritu, corazón sin sangre. Aunque la idolatría, que tanto tiempo fue tirana de estas provincias, está ya por la mayor parte expugnada y desterrada de ellas; con todo eso, como víbora y sierpe fugitiva, se halla tal vez enroscada y escondida en algunas cocavidades y montes, y nececitan los curas de grande cuidado en esto.1

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n a lengthy pastoral letter destined to his clergy in 1646, Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza of Puebla reflected on the work of the parish priests in his diocese. He graphically pondered the central role that teaching should have in the daily life of the indigenous parishes. At the same time he admonished the clergy to be cautious of any remaining signs of indigenous “idolatry”. Although not very visible any longer, the hidden presence of such cults still constituted a threat to the Church according to the bishop. By the time Palafox wrote his letter, he was out on the last of his three pastoral visitations, during which he had travelled to most of the parishes that were under his jurisdiction. The pastoral letter was Palafox’s way to summarize his experiences from his six years as a bishop and to present concrete norms for the parish ministry. Following the bishop’s decisive actions a couple of years before, almost all rural parishes in the diocese were now administered by secular priests who were directly subject to him. The friars only remained in charge of a handful of them. In his visitation records, Palafox noted the existence of great and sumptuous church buildings in many of the places he had come to. He indicated that such edifices had generally been constructed during the early years of Spanish presence. However, due to the alarming decrease of the native population, such temples could hardly be built anymore. By the mid-seventeenth century, the Church was thus highly visible in 1

Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 90, 96. 11

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the rural world of central Mexico, but the number of indigenous people that made up the majority of the parishioners had steadily decreased during the 120 years that had passed since the arrival of the first Spanish conquerors.2 In their book Early Latin America, James Lockhart and Stuart B. Schwartz include seventeenth-century Mexico in what they call the period of colonial maturity, which for the central areas of the Spanish Indies began around 1580 and ended circa 1750. Most researchers agree that the indigenous population of central Mexico reached its demographic nadir by the mid-seventeenth century, after which numbers slowly began to recover. At the same time, most colonial institutions, including those of the Church, had developed and reached a kind of maturity. Bishoprics had been erected, an Inquisition tribunal had been established and cathedral chapters, parishes, religious lay sodalities (cofradías), several colleges and a university had been founded in central Mexico. In short, Lockhart and Schwartz claim that during the period of colonial maturity the “framework set by the conquest remained the same but large-scale social and cultural transformations quietly, gradually took place”.3 This book is about such quiet and gradual transformations, focusing on rural parish life in central Mexico during the first half of the seventeenth century, a time period that was constituted by continuous compromises and struggles between different groups in colonial society. Strictly speaking, the book is an exploration of written records that are physical remnants of aspects of such life. My main aim is to assess and analyze a number of different documental genres in order to evaluate the extent to which they might cast light on the local Novohispanian Church life. Such genres include metropolitan accounts of parish norms, but also records produced by local priests and indigenous parishioners which, to at least some extent, may reflect aspects of “ordinary” parish life. Throughout the book particular emphasis will be put on the interface between the indigenous parishioners and their parish priests, thus contributing to a closer study of the slow-moving processes of religious indoctrination and religious change in central 2 3

Palafox y Mendoza 1997. Lockhart and Schwartz 1983, 122-125.

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      

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Mexico a century or more after the Conquest, but also to the understanding of the local power play between the clerics and the people. The more exact geographical setting for the study is the colonial archdiocese of Mexico and its neighbor, the bishopric of Puebla de los Ángeles, also referred to as Tlaxcala. To delimit the source material, but also to make a contribution to a less-known field, I have chosen only to study rural parishes that were administered by secular priests and not to include those still in the hands of the friars. My reason for focusing on two colonial dioceses is not to make a detailed comparison between them, but to include examples from two dioceses with somewhat different histories. One such difference had to do with the power relations between the regular and secular clergy. Towards the mid-seventeenth century the number of non-secular parishes in the diocese of Puebla was very low, whereas more than half of the parishes in the archdiocese of Mexico were still administered by Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians. Though some lines of my argumentation will be drawn back to the Third Provincial Council of Mexico, celebrated in 1585, my chronological focus will be on the first five decades of the seventeenth century. Given its importance and its longevity as a legal code for the Mexican Church, it is easy to argue for the Third Council as a suitable starting point, though its practical significance only came with the publication of its decrees in the early 1620s. The choice of 1650 as the chronological limit is somewhat more arbitrary, but by that year two episcopal administrations ended. Archbishop Juan de Mañozca y Zúñiga of Mexico died and Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza of Puebla was forced to leave for Spain, never to return to his see again. That makes the year a suitable, if questionable, terminus. Although this book can be viewed as a study on aspects of Catholic mission, given its geographical and chronological scope, my intention is not to study “avant-garde” or “pioneer” mission(s), understood as entries made by missionaries into non-missionized geographical areas. Though some geographical pockets, even in central Mexico, still remained free from missionary presence, by the seventeenth century such missions mainly took place in northern Mexico and in the

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present-day borderlands with the United States.4 In the central parts of Mexico, Catholic clergy, particularly friars but also secular priests, had been active from the 1520s onwards. There they had built churches, baptized most of the indigenous inhabitants, administered other sacraments, and indoctrinated people in what was considered to be the rudiments of Catholic doctrine and moral codes. By the early seventeenthcentury the Church organization in central Mexico could thus be considered well-established. The in-depth influence of the creed and the Church’s moral teaching on the indigenous population is, of course, another question.5 In this study, I will therefore regard mission broadly as an ongoing, multi-generational process which began with the early missionary entries, but which also included the priests’ daily work in indigenousdominated rural parishes several generations after the arrival of the first missionaries. In accordance with this broad understanding of the concept, I argue that as a historical phenomenon, mission should be considered a lengthy process of religious indoctrination, in which things such as church attendance, sacraments, sermons, and catechetical instruction were integral parts. It should, however, be pointed out that mission in this sense is a modern analytical concept. The Spanish words misionero and misión were not frequently used in seventeenth-century discourse and, if used, they were normally applied to the activities carried out in newly-conquered areas by members of religious orders, particularly in reference to the work of the Jesuits.6 C  R  E C M: A   R F Trying to place my study in a scholarly context, I will reflect upon some recent Hispanophone, Francophone, and Anglophone approaches to Christianity in colonial Mexico, including both studies on the institutional Church and the local practices of religion, but 4

Langer and Jackson 1995 include studies on such border areas, as does Deeds 1998. 5 For the classic study on the early Mendicant mission, see Ricard 1933. 6 Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726-1739, vol. 4, 578-579, s.v. “missión”, “missionero”, cf. Olaechea Labayen 1994 for the origin of the words “misión” and “misionero” and their early uses in Spanish.

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      

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beginning with some political, economical and social approaches to seventeenth-century Mexico. Without any pretentions of completeness, I will pay most detailed attention to previous studies on parishes, parishioners, and parish priests, thus arguing for the relevance and place of my own study. In 1953, Lesley Byrd Simpson published an article on the seventeenth century, naming it “Mexico’s forgotten century” due to the relative lack of interest among scholars, particularly when compared to the sixteenth and late eighteenth centuries. However, in the 1950s and 1960s a number of economically and socially oriented studies appeared which included early seventeenth-century Mexico. It should suffice to mention François Chevalier’s La formation de grands domaines au Mexique (1952) on the birth and growth of the Mexican hacienda institution, and Charles Gibson’s The Aztecs under Spanish Rule (1964), which is a broad study of the colonial history of the indigenous people of the Valley of Mexico throughout the colonial era. By now, both studies have reached the status of classics within the field. Reviewing recent scholarship, Richard Boyer in 1977 argued that to speak of the period as a forgotten century “increasingly seems merely an excuse for assuming that the field continues to be a virgin territory which it is not”. In his article, Boyer divided the recent historiography on the epoch into a synthetic and an episodic stream. From his perspective, he criticized a vein of scholarship that he deemed to be intermittent, seemingly a cardinal sin for the social historian, while stating that such episodic “scholars wrote the dramatic, the bizarre, the celebrated, the gifted and about events already known.” Still he deemed that there is a place for synthetic studies.7 By that time, Boyer had already published a monograph on life in the city of Mexico during the great flooding of the 1620s and 1630s that severely affected colonial society. In the same year, another important study on seventeenthcentury New Spain appeared with Jonathan I. Israel’s Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico, 1610-1670 (1975). It includes two parts. In the first part, Israel studies a number of different social and ethnic groups in New Spain, while in the second he makes a more detailed analysis of the relations between different interest groups and, in particular, the conflict-filled relationships between the Mexican viceroys 7

Boyer 1977, 455-458.

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and the contemporary (arch)bishops. From that time onwards there are a number of other studies focusing on economic and political aspects of seventeenth-century Mexico.8 Beginning already by the mid-1970s, but particularly from the 1990s onwards, there is a steadily growing corpus of ethnohistorical studies that make abundant use of colonial source material in Mesoamerican languages. An important part of these works constitutes a vein of scholarship often referred to as New Philology. Its practitioners, most of them in some way connected to the University of California at Los Angeles, have made prominent use of indigenous-language documentation, particularly in Nahuatl, but also in other Mesoamerican languages such as Yucatec Maya, Zapotec and Mixtec. In attempts to move “beyond the codices”, as one of the pioneer book titles puts it, these researchers have mainly used mundane genres such as last wills and testaments, land transactions and tribute lists, as well as narrative records such as annals. Though having different focal points, the practitioners of New Philology tend to emphasize concrete individuals, groups, and situations, as well as key native-language concepts, and pay particular attention to the interaction between the Spanish and the Mesoamerican languages and cultures during longer or shorter periods of the colonial era.9 A smaller, but very interesting, group of ethnohistorical studies on colonial Mexico focuses on the spatial organization and reorganization of the indigenous habitat during the colonial era, a 8 Later contributions on the early seventeenth century include Prem 1978 on land use in a region of Puebla up to 1650, Licate 1981 on the settlement patterns in Puebla before 1650, Hoberman 1991 on the Mexican merchant elite, and Cañeque 2004 on the viceroys. See also the synthesis by Pastor 1999. 9 For succinct overviews of the development of New Philology from the 1970s onwards, see Restall 2003 and Lockhart 2007. Central works include Lockhart 1991 and 1999, and in particular Lockhart 1992, as well as many source editions, e.g., Anderson, Berdan & Lockhart 1976; Lockhart, Schroeder & Namala 2006 and Pizzigoni 2007. For studies on regional and local studies of central Mexico, see Cline 1986, Haskett 1991, and Horn 1997. For similar works on other geolinguistic areas, see Terraciano 2001 for the Mixtecs of colonial Oaxaca; Sousa 1998 who employed Nahua material, but above all studied Zapotec and Mixtec women in Oaxaca, and Restall 1998 for Yucatec Maya.

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chief example being Bernardo García Martínez’s analysis of the Sierra de Puebla region during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.10 Although these types of ethnohistorical studies often include socioreligious themes, such matters generally do not have a particularly central position. However, the growing interest in and knowledge of Mesoamerican-language texts has also meant that there are a number of studies on problems relating to the translation of Christian concepts, mainly employing formal ecclesiastical texts written in Nahuatl and other indigenous languages. Such genres were authored by churchmen, though often with the close assistance of native speakers, and include catechisms, confessional aids, dictionaries, grammars, sermon collections, as well as religious drama. The studies and source editions of Louise Burkhart covering both sixteenth and seventeenth century material are particularly central in this vein of scholarship.11 Parallel to such studies are, for example, the investigations by Serge Gruzinski on the Christianization of the indigenous peoples of central Mexico, as well as their active or passive resistance towards the conquerors’ religion, which use both native-language and Spanish source material.12 Yet other scholars such as Alberro, Ragon, and Bennet have made valuable contributions to the study of the religious practices of the Mexican population of Hispanic and African descent, with particular attention to themes such as religious imagery and local religious cults,13 not to 10

García Martínez 1987. Cf. García Castro 1999 for a similar study on the Matlalzinga-speaking area within the archdiocese of Mexico. See also Hoekstra 1993 for Puebla and Amith 2005 for Guerrero. 11 Burkhart 1989 for a study on the Nahuatl concepts of morality, Burkhart 2001 for Nahuatl texts on the Virgin Mary, and Burkhart 1996 as well Burkhart and Sell 2004-2009 for religious drama. Cf. Sell 1993 for mendicant publications in Nahuatl and Ottman 2003 for a perceptive analysis of models of Christian identity in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century ecclesiastical works in Nahuatl. Also important is Corcuera de Mancera 1994 on the teaching of Christian doctrine and the clerical combat against indigenous drunkenness from the mid-sixteenth century to the late eighteenth century. 12 Gruzinski 1985, 1990 and 1993. Cf. Stresser-Péan 2005. 13 See Alberro 1999 and Ragon 2003 for Creoles, and Bennet 2003 for African descendents. For two recent anthologies on religion in New Spain, see Nesvig 2006 and Poole & Schroeder 2007.

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mention the many studies on the cult of Our Lady of Guadalupe.14 In the last decade, the history of Novohispanian theology has also received much more attention than ever before.15 Turning to more institutional aspects of Mexican religion, the number of studies focusing on the seventeenth-century church institution and the episcopacy are still quite few. There is, for example, no upto-date general handbook on the colonial Mexican Church that meets modern scholarly standards.16 Of the bishops of central Mexico during the era, only Juan de Palafox y Mendoza of Puebla, who also was a visitor general, interim viceroy, archbishop-elect, and a most prolific author, stands out as a real exception as he has been the object of countless studies. Many of them, even recent contributions, are, however, burdened by a more or less hagiographic tone and as regards to Palafox’s episcopal administration in Puebla, much more work can be done as the potential source material is nothing but immense.17 None of the other Mexican archbishops or Pueblan bishops of the first half of the seventeenth century has been made the subject of a monograph study. Moreover, with the recent opening and organization of cathedral archives a number of important investigations on the Novohispanian ecclesiastical chapters have seen the light of day, focusing on different aspects of the corporation’s work.18 14

To mention a few particularly good studies: Noguez 1993, Poole 1995, Miranda Godínez 2001, Brading 2002, and two remarkable articles by Favrot Peterson 2005 and 2007. 15 See e.g., Saranyana et al. 1999. 16 See, however, Cuevas [1921-1928] 1946-1947, with many later republications, which is a classic apologetic five-volume work on the history of the Mexican Church during the colonial and national era. For the work of Spanish American bishops until 1620, see Dussel 1970. For short biographies of Mexican archbishops, see Sosa 1962, originally published in 1877, and for bishops of Puebla, see Salazar Andreu 2005. The former is obviously dated, while the latter is basically a collection of transcribed documents. 17 Three good studies on Palafox are, however, Brescia 2002, Galí Boadella 2004, and in particular Álvarez de Toledo 2004. See also the new excellent SpanishEnglish annotated edition of Palafox’s Virtudes del Indio: Palafox y Mendoza 2009. 18 See Schwaller 1981b for the sixteenth-century cathedral chapter of Mexico, Pérez Puente 2005 for the later seventeenth century, and Mazín Gómez 2007 for a perceptive analysis of the Mexican chapter’s procurators at the Spanish court in

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Another aspect of institutionalized religion is that of justice. Given the voluminous documentation available, studies on the Mexican tribunal of the Inquisition are legion, dealing with the institution as such, its personnel and networks, but above all using Inquisition records for studies on mentalities, popular culture, and the borders between acceptable and non-acceptable behavior and beliefs.19 However, in this context it is important to point out that the indigenous population was exempt from the jurisdiction of the Inquisition and in matters of faith fell under the diocesan court of law. Nevertheless, issues of native heterodoxy were only a minor part of the episcopal tribunals’ activity and most of its work dealt with themes such as marriage issues and clerical transgressions. In the extirpation of indigenous “idolatries”, judges of commission and ordinary parish priests played an important role, processes which we only recently have begun to understand.20 In this review of research on colonial religion, I will finally turn to studies specifically related to the Mexican parish, the secular parish clergy, and parish life. Still perhaps less known than their regular counterpart,21 the Novohispanian secular clergy has its own small, but growing historiography. Though some studies did exist before the 1980s, by that time the knowledge of the sixteenth-century Mexican clerics took an important leap forward with the publication of several works by John Frederick Schwaller. Based particularly on biographical narratives by almost a thousand clerics, Schwaller’s The Church and Clergy in Sixteenth-Century Mexico (1987) is a fundamental conthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Cf. Mazín Gómez 1996 for an excellent study of the cathedral chapter in Michoacan throughout the colonial era. 19 The bibliography on the Mexican Inquisition is abundant. A fundamental work on the institution is Alberro 1988. 20 See Traslosheros Hernández 2004 for a study of the archiepiscopal court of law until the 1660s. For the extirpation of idolatry in Mexico and Oaxaca, see Távarez 2000, cf. Zaballa Beascoechea 2005. For studies on the indigenous population and the secular courts of law in colonial Mexico, see Borah 1983 and in particular Owensby 2008. 21 As regards to the Novohispanian regular clergy, the scholarly production on the activities of the friars during the early decades of the colonial period is quite oversaturated, while the historiography on the friars in the seventeenth century is much less voluminous. See, however, e.g., Morales 1973 for the Franciscans and Rubial García 1989 and 1990 for the Augustinians.

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tribution to research on the secular priests in early colonial New Spain, including career patterns and social and ethnic origins. Though parish priests play an important role in the study, Schwaller also includes other groups such as members of cathedral chapters, episcopal assistants, chaplains, as well as clerics who pursued careers outside the Church.22 An earlier and very different approach to the role of the secular clergy in the “spiritual conquest” of the Spanish Indies was made in a highly-apologetic way by the Spanish Jesuit Constantino Bayle in 1950. Porras Múñoz and Rodíguez Balderas have devoted later articles to the secular clergy in early colonial Mexico, whereas James D. Riley has made an elegant analysis of how local elites in Tlaxcala used priesthood to further their social and ideological agendas in the mid to late colonial era (1650-1792).23 Other special studies have been devoted to the formation of an indigenous (secular) clergy.24 For the Mexican parish during the eighteenth century, and in particular its latter half, William B. Taylor’s Magistrates of the Sacred (1996) is essential. It is a broad, very solidly documented and wellargued study that centers on the priest-parishioner relationship in the archdiocese of Mexico and the diocese of Guadalajara. Though not dealing exclusively with the secular clergy, by the mid-eighteenth century almost all of the rural parishes in the two bishoprics had come into the hands of secular clerics. Taylor begins his monumental work with a study of clerical education and career patters, and the different aspects of the parish priests’ work in Bourbon Mexico. He then turns to the role of the cofradías, the veneration of holy images, and the function of the curates’ lay networks. The last portion of the work deals with different kinds of conflicts between priests, parishioners, and representatives of the colonial government. As an epilogue, Taylor analyzes 22

Schwaller 1987. See also Schwaller 1981a for data lists on secular clerics in pueblos under the Crown during the sixteenth century. For the economical foundations of the secular clergy, see Schwaller 1985. 23 Bayle 1950, Porras Muñoz 1979-1989, Rodríguez Balderas 2004, and Riley 2007, cf. Dressendörfer 1985. For the late colonial diocese of Michoacán, see Brading 1994. For Yucatan see Fallon 1979 and Harrington 1983. Cf. Van Oss 1986 for a broad parish history of colonial Guatemala. 24 Two recent studies are Menegus & Aguirre 2006 and Lundberg 2008.

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the roles played by parish priests in the early-nineteenth century insurrection against Spanish domination.25 To date, the most thorough work on an individual Mexican parish during the colonial era is Juan Javier Pescador’s De bautizados a fieles difuntos (1992), which is based on the rich parish records of Santa Catarina in Mexico City from its foundation in 1568 until the end of the colonial era. Santa Catarina was an urban parish with a nonindigenous population. Given the types of records utilized, demographic structures play an important role in Pescador’s study, as do socio-demographic structures (matrimonial patterns and levels of illegitimate births), social structures (family, residence and social networks), and mental structures (name-giving patterns and attitudes towards death and dying).26 Though not focused on the parish institution as such, Peter Gerhard’s encyclopedic work A Guide to the Historical Geography of New Spain (1972, revised edition 1993) includes much data on the development of parish divisions in central Mexico throughout the colonial era. Summarizing this review of recent scholarly contributions, it is possible to observe that the number of works treating religious aspects of Mexican colonial history has increased dramatically from the late 1980s onwards. The trend is clearly discernable in Hispanophone, Anglophone, as well as in Francophone scholarship.27 In 2004, when reviewing Anglophone historical research on colonial Mexico from the 1980s onwards, Eric Van Young observed that the scholarly interest in economic and institutional aspects, which earlier had been dominant, has waned. Instead approaches such as ethnohistory, gender studies, cultural studies (including religious practices) and studies of native resistance have come to dominate the field.28 Among Mexican historians similar changes have become noticeable during the last couple of decades and religious issues have become a much more common theme 25

Taylor 1996. See also Taylor 1989 for a study on the eighteenth-century priests’ understanding of their indigenous parishioners. 26 Pescador 1992. Cf. Calvo 1973 for a demographical study of an individual parish (Acatzingo). 27 For a very good overview of scholarship on colonial Mexico between 1976 and 1982, see Alberro & Gruzinski 1983. 28 Van Young 2004.

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since the 1980s. Nevertheless, economic, quantitative and institutional approaches to colonial history are still present to a larger degree in Mexican historiography than in its Anglophone counterpart.29 However, as regards both religious culture and the Church institution, the chronological focus of the scholarship is still particularly strong on the formative era of the Mexican Church in the sixteenth century and on the late colonial era. The mid-colonial era, and particularly the seventeenth century, still remains a much less-known period, though by no means a “forgotten century”. Moreover, to the best of my knowledge, no researcher has analyzed the history of the relations between secular parish priests and rural parishioners in the central parts of Mexico during the first half of the seventeenth century, which is a main focus of my study. I would therefore argue for the cumulative relevance of my own study’s contribution to the analysis of the parish life in mid-colonial Mexico. Moreover, I would argue that my methodological approach is also a contribution to the scholarly field, and makes this study relevant. This methodological approach, which will be developed later in this introduction, can be described as both diplomatical and historical, as it particularly seeks to analyze different genres of documents in order to test their bearing on the study of the parish, the parishioners, and the parish clergy in seventeenth-century central Mexico. The study thus includes both an analysis of documents as documents and the use of documents as historical sources. The first aspect has to do with the location of a given genre in the ecclesiastical world of colonial Mexico, while analyzing the set diplomatic forms and the ways of expression. The second aspect includes the use of these records as historical sources for a study of local church life. T C: L  M According to the doctrine of the Catholic Church which was taught to the Mexican parishioners during the seventeenth century, and in accordance with the Council of Trent (1545-1563), the Roman Catholic Church considered itself to be universal and to have a universal soteriological importance. Even in Nahuatl texts the “Holy Roman Catholic 29

Matute 2004.

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Church”—the Church Triumphant or the Church Militant—was often referred to by the Spanish loanword santa iglesia (católica), sometimes personified as “Our Mother, the Holy Church”: tonantzin santa iglesia. In a corpus of nineteen Nahuatl-language imprints dated between 1548 and 1840, Barry D. Sell encountered 934 instances in which the concept santa iglesia was used, making it the fourth most common Spanish loanword (superseded only by Dios, Jesucristo and ánima).30 Though santa iglesia was also used to denote the local church building, another common construction was to use the Nahuatl teopan (that is “god” with a locative suffix, i.e. god-place) or teopancalli—god-place plus the word for house.31 In her impressive dissertation on the models of Christian identity in sixteenth and early seventeenth-century catechetical literature in Nahuatl, Jennifer Ottman provides a translation of a passage from the Dominican catechism printed in 1548. The passage deals with the relation between the universal and the local church, and Ottman notes the Spanish loanwords used in the Nahuatl text: There in the yglesia the male and female Christians [in christianome yuan in christianame] assemble to hear mass and sermon; there they receive the sacramentos, confession or baptism, marriage or the other sacramentos. This yglesia is erected just with stones, with wood, and with mud, which are all just subject to destruction, which are not living, but this is the sign of that which is through divinity the assembly of all Christians; it is for this reason that they always assemble there. On this account when you say in the credo, ‘Credo in spiritum sanctum, sanctam ecclesiam catholicam,’ you will understand that it means, ‘I believe in the spiritu sancto, who entirely consecrates and makes entirely righteous the assembly of all Christians, called sancta yglesia, for the spiritu sancto entirely governs it, entirely guards it, and our savior Jesus Christ, indeed true Dios, indeed is made the head of sancta yglesia, for He is indeed our head, and we are its joints.32

30

Sell 1993, 312. Ottman 2003, chapter 5 includes a very thoughtful analysis of the notions of Church and community in a number of Mendicant works published in Nahuatl during the sixteenth and early seventeenth century. 32 Ottman 2003, 191-192. The original Nahuatl text from the Dotrina Christiana en lengua española y Mexicana (1548) reads: “Ca in oncan yglesia mocentlalia in christianosme yuan in christianasme: inic quicaquizque missa yuan ser31

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It is, however, my hypothesis that to a great extent rural indigenous peoples’ understanding of the church was local. Just as one in Spanish can speak about the patria chica—the little homeland or a very strong allegiance to a particular region—I think that it also can be in place to speak of the iglesia chica—the little church or a strong allegiance to a local church. The iglesia chica concept underlines not only the importance of the local church (building), but also the geographical areas which the parish involved, the graves in and outside the church building, and the relationship between the parishioners and their parish priest. It is, however, not a concept that appears in the sources, but one that may cast light on the close relationship between parishioners and their parish church. On the local level, the parish priest was the main representative of the Church hierarchy and thus a link to the metropolitan Church with centers in Mexico City or Puebla, and ultimately in Rome. Supra-local representatives of the Church hierarchy, such as the diocesan bishop and even more so the Roman Pontiff, were indeed very far away from the ordinary life in a rural Mexican parish. There are passing references to the Roman Pontiff in Nahuatl catechisms and sermons, most often referred to by the Spanish loan word santo padre (sometimes specifying his living in Rome). However, I would argue that the figure of the Pope was made particularly visible in the rural world of Mexico through the recurrent preaching of papal indulgences. The most common indulgences in Mexico were the so-called bulas de santa cruzada—bulls of holy crusade—that could be obtained by people in the Spanish Indies on a mon oncan quicelia in sacramentos neyolcuitilizti aço necauaatequiliztli: nenamictiliztli: anoço occequisacramentos. Ca yehuatli in yglesia ca çan tetica quauhtica yuan çoquitica in çan mocha poliuini in amo yulqui: auh ca yieuati inezca in teuyotica in innecentlaliliz in ixquichtin christianosme: ca yehica oncan mocebtlalia mochipa. Ca ypampa yehuatli inicuac anquitoua ipan in credo. Credo in spiritum sanctum sanctam ecclesiam catholicam: anquimocaquitizque ca quitoxnequi. Nicneltocan in spiritu sancto: in quimocenteochiuilia yuan quimocenquizcayectilia in innecentlaliliz in ixquichtin christianosme ytoca sancta yglesia ca yeuatcin spirit santo quimocempachilhuia quimocenpialia yuan yeuatçin yn totemaquixticatçin Jesu christo uel nelli dios: ca uel ieuatçin ytçonteco mochiuhtica yn sancta yglesia ca uel totçonteco. Auh yn teuantin ca tiçaçaliuhcauan.” Cited after Ottman 2003, 192 (note 55).

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large scale from 1573 onwards. The idea and argument behind the publication of such bulls was that the Spanish monarch needed men and money to fight the “Turks and other infidels”. Therefore, the Pope had conceded the grace of crusade, in which every Church member could participate. Given the fact that everybody could not contribute to the actual fighting, the moral obligation of the faithful was to “take” (tomar) the bull and to give the accustomed donation (limosna). Thus, though originally conceded by the Pope, the bulls of crusade were preached for the economic benefit of the Spanish Crown. Copies of the bulls, which conceded particular indulgences, were printed in Spain and were regularly sent to the Indies by the million. Thereafter they were distributed to the parishioners through an intricate system of tribunals, subdelegates, local commissaries and preachers; the latter were usually ordinary parish priests. Every twelfth year from 1573 onwards, the Pope made a new concession and each bull was preached in the Indies every second year, meaning each concession was preached six times. The bulls were preached locally and parishioners, including the indigenous people, were invited (and in practice almost required) to take them, that is, to comply with the conditions and to make the donation to obtain the indulgences for themselves and/or for dead relatives. The accustomed fee for indigenous people was two reales, while most Spaniards had to pay more.33 If the Roman pontiff in some way became present through catechism, sermons and, in particular, through indulgences, the diocesan bishop was somewhat closer at hand. In Nahuatl texts he was most often referred to by the Spanish loanword obispo, sometimes as huey teopixqui—“great priest”, literally “great god-keeper”—or by a combination of the two. According to Church law, the bishop should make regular pastoral visitations to all parishes in the diocese overseeing the church buildings with inventories, the parish priests, and the parishioners. But in practice decades could pass without a personal visit from the bishop. As we also will see, it was, however, quite common for indigenous representatives to appear in person before the bishop to present complaints against their parish priests. 33

See Benito Rodriguez 2002 for a thorough pioneer study on the Bull of Holy Crusade in the Spanish Indies. See also San Juan Bautista 1599 for a Nahuatl book on the grace conceded by the Bull of Holy Crusade.

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In spite of such things, the only member of the clergy that the parishioners ordinarily had direct contact with was their parish priest, in Nahuatl often referred to by Spanish loan-words as sacerdote, beneficiario or vicario, but also by the native word teopixqui—literally “god-keeper”. The binding relationship between parishioner and parish was underlined in Early Modern ecclesiastical law, specifically in the decrees of the Council of Trent. All baptized Catholics were required to attend Mass in their parish church on a regular basis and should receive communion once a year at Easter. Parishioners were further obliged to make yearly confession to their parish priest during Lent, get married in his presence, and present their recently-born infants to him in order to have them baptized. When a person fell severely ill the priest should be called upon so that the sick person could confess, receive communion and the extreme unction, practices that in Early Modern Catholic discourse, together with making one’s last will and testament, were looked upon as integral parts of the “good death” (buen morir).34 If a priest remained in a parish for a longer period of time he got to know the parishioners well. In the words of Woodrow Borah, parish clergy generally had long-term “detailed knowledge of their parishioners from the normal routine of the year, catechism, and perhaps most of all confession”. Therefore they usually “exercised a strong influence”, one that under some circumstances “might become dictatorial and tyrannical”.35 The church building and the activities carried out in its immediate environs should thus play an important role in the villagers’ life. However, in more sparsely-populated areas, people often lived far from the main parish church to which they belonged and the curate rarely attended to them. As the Novohispanian clergy was unevenly distributed, one cleric sometimes had to attend to a large number of 34 See Hsia 1998, Mullett 1999, and Wright 2005 for recent general overviews of Early Modern Catholicism. For regional studies on the Catholic Reformation in Spain, see Nalle 1992 for Cuenca, Kamen 1993 for Catalonia, and Poska 1998 for Galicia. 35 Borah 1983.

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linguistically diverse sujetos spread over large areas. Therefore, in vast territories even the presence of the clergy was quite infrequent.36 Particularly after Trent, a process towards greater doctrinal and liturgical unification was inaugurated throughout the Hispanic world. Still, as will be shown throughout this study, the road towards unification was slow in practice. In the Mexican case, the decrees of Trent were already formally approved by the Second Provincial Council of Mexico in 1565. Still, it would take another twenty years until the Third Provincial Council applied the Tridentine decrees in more detail. Moreover, it would take almost four decades (1622) after the celebration of the Third Council, before its decrees were printed and distributed among the clergy in the Church province, and then mainly to the secular parish priests as the friars opposed them.37 Another example that illustrates the slowness of the process and the divergence between ideal and local practice was reported by Bishop Palafox of Puebla in the early 1640s. Having arrived in his diocese, the bishop, who certainly was a friend of unification and centralization, realized that as many as sixteen different sacramental manuals were used in the parishes of his diocese. With the publication of a new manual in 1642, Palafox sought to remediate the situation, threatening the curates who did not use the new manual with severe fines. However, even after the publication of this new manual the local differences would persist. The relation between ecclesiastical center and periphery, and the relationship between the letter of the law and its local application, is thus essential for my study. Throughout this book, I will deliberately speak of “local church life” and “parish life”, but rarely use the term “local religion”. Ever since the appearance of William A. Christian’s path-breaking Local Religion in Sixteenth-Century Spain (1981) the term has gained much currency.38 The concept was introduced as an alternative in the scholarly debate over “official” versus “popular” religion, particularly emphasizing aspects such as locally-based saint’s 36

The uneven distribution of parish centers and priests in the Mexican ecclesiastical province is discussed in Ragon 2003, 22-30. 37 Poole 1987, Pérez Puente 2006, and Lundberg 2009. 38 See Nesvig 2006 for a collection of articles on “Local Religion in Mexico”.

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cults and pilgrimages.39 However, as Brian Larkin has pointed out in a recent analysis of late colonial Mexican cofradías, “the concept of local religion privileges the study of extraliturgical practices to such an extent that it ignores the powerful influence of the liturgy”.40 I will therefore argue that “local religion” is not equivalent with “local church life” as the former term, in my understanding, is both more inclusive and more exclusive. In my study, I will not particularly emphasize such religious aspects that were most central in Christian’s book, i.e., the local cults of saints and images, or deal much with peregrinations to locally or regionally influential shrines. While I understand “local religion” as including a whole spectrum of extraliturgical beliefs and practices, the concept “local church life” is more centered on the activities in and emanating from the local church building: liturgy, teaching and preaching. The term also centers on the relationships between the parish priest and the parishioner on a locallydetermined scene. T P   C In their developed form Roman Catholic dioceses were made up by a patchwork of geographical entities—parishes. The early twentiethcentury Catholic Encyclopedia defines the parish as “a portion of a diocese under the authority of a priest legitimately appointed to secure in virtue of his office for the faithful dwelling therein, the helps of religion”. This definition is in consonance with the decrees of Trent that called for a clear geographical demarcation of the parish; looking upon the parish as a well-defined part of an equally well-defined diocese. Within the geographical demarcations of the parish there was to be a special parish priest—a curate—who had the authority to administer the sacraments and give further spiritual succor—cure of souls—to a defined group of people—the parishioners. Canonically, the parish concept entailed a number of reciprocal rights and duties, such as the parishioners’ annual precept to receive communion and the priest’s obligation to be present in the parish and to care spiritually for the 39

See also Harline 1990 and Eire 2006 for succint overviews of the scholarship on “popular” vs. “official” religion. 40 Larkin 2006, 191.

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parishioners with whom he had been entrusted. Finally, in a parish there should be a suitable church building, in which the parishioners should gather for Mass and other religious services.41 In seventeenth-century Mexico there were at least four concepts that could denote a parish: parroquia, doctrina, partido and beneficio. In the first edition of the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (1726-1739) the word parrochia is understood as the parish church (building), the geographical area in which the parishioners live, as well as the spiritual jurisdiction of the assigned parish priest.42 In seventeenth-century New Spain the word parroquia was, however, reserved for urban parishes and parishes in the mining districts with a predominantly Spanish or mixed population, while the other three concepts were used in relation to rural parishes with a predominantly indigenous population.43 Nevertheless, by the mid-seventeenth century there are sources that use the concept parrocos de indios to designate curates in indigenous-dominated parishes.44 The doctrina has often been described as an indigenous parish or as a kind of quasi- or proto-parish, and in particular such a thing when administered by members of the regular clergy, then known as doctrineros. That is also the basic meaning given by the Royal Spanish Academy in its first dictionary from the early-eighteenth century.45 In his book on the sixteenth-century Mexican clergy, Schwaller notes: “In general, this term [i.e., the doctrina] did not find its way into the vocabulary of the seculars”, meaning that it was not used for rural parishes when administered by secular priests.46 Although this observation is generally correct, there are several early seventeenth-century sources, including the visitation records of Bishop Mota y Escobar of Puebla, that quite persistently used the concept doctrinas de clérigos, that is, doctrinas administered by the secular clergy, thus underlining the catechetical activities in the indigenous-dominated parishes. The term doc41 42 43 44 45 46

Catholic Encyclopedia 1907-1912, vol. XI, s.v. “Parish” Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726-1739, vol. 5, 135, s.v. “parrochia”. Schwaller 1987, 70-71. E.g. Sáenz de la Peña 1642, § 3r-3v. Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726-1739, vol. 3, 326, s.v. “doctrina”. Schwaller 1987, 70.

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trina was thus preferably, but not exclusively, used for parishes administered by the religious orders.47 Nevertheless, the word partido was much more commonly used when referring to a rural parish that was administered by secular priests, while it was never used for the friars’ administrations. A standard way of expressing this was that a certain secular priest was the curate of a certain “pueblo and its partido”. In common Spanish usage of the time, the partido concept emphasized the geographical extension of the parish district, the main pueblo and its underlying areas, thus not singling out the catechetical activities carried out there in the way that the doctrina concept did.48 Finally, the fourth term—beneficio—was a much wider, but at the same time, a more precise concept than either doctrina or partido. A benefice, which was held by a beneficiary, was a solid legal and economical construct. The Catholic Encyclopedia states: [T]he term benefice is often understood to denote either certain property destined for the support of ministers of religion, or a spiritual office or function, such as the care of souls, but in the strict sense it signifies a right, i.e. the right given permanently by the Church to a cleric to receive ecclesiastical revenues on account of the performance of some spiritual service.49

An ecclesiastical benefice could thus be of many types and to distinguish it from other types the parish benefice was sometimes called a beneficio curado, a concept which entailed both the economical foundation and the priest’s obligation to serve the inhabitants with the cure of souls.50 In conclusion, in seventeenth-century New Spain the word doctrina was most often used to denote a rural parish administered by regular clergy, but could also be employed for indigenous-dominated parishes administered by the secular clergy. The concepts partido and beneficio were, however, exclusively applied to parishes administered by secular priests. 47

Mota y Escobar 1945, 192, cf. Mota y Escobar 1966. Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726-1739, vol. 5, 141 s.v. “partido”: “se llama tambien el distrito o território, que está comprehendido de alguna jurisdicción ò administracion de una Ciudad principal, que se llama su cabecera”. 49 Catholic Encyclopedia 1907-1912, vol. II, s.v. “benefice”. 50 Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 1726-1739, vol. 1, 702, s.v. “curado”. 48

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Though the clergy and their appointment to parish benefices were subject to many royal laws, the single most important piece of legislation on the matter in colonial Spanish Indies was a royal decree dated June 1, 1574, usually referred to as the Ordenanza del Patronazgo. The decree was a clear and unequivocal defense of the royal right of patronage over the Church in the Indies, which should not be conceded to any other person, except for the viceroy acting as the alter ego of the monarch. Royal patronage entailed the monarch’s right to appoint all types of ecclesiastical offices and benefices whether archbishoprics, bishoprics, cathedral chapters or parishes. When a parish benefice became vacant, the Ordenanza decreed that the bishop should publish a public edict inviting candidates to apply for the position. The candidates should then be subject to competitive exams (oposiciones or concursos) before a tribunal made up by experienced clerics who should examine them in Latinity, indigenous languages and moral theology. The Ordenanza pointed out that it was particularly important to choose worthy and experienced candidates for the benefices in indigenous parishes. Thus, in cases of equal status, in the first place the bishop should opt for candidates with earlier experience of indigenous ministry who had learned relevant indigenous languages. In the second place, “sons of Spaniards that have served us in those provinces” should be preferred to other ethnic groups.51 After the examination, the bishop should forward the names of the two most apt candidates to the King or viceroy. During the first decades after the promulgation of the 1574 Ordenanza, a royal provision was necessary in titulum perpetuo, that is, for permanent benefices, while the viceroy could only make temporary provisions. Only later, in 1609, were the viceroys entrusted with the provision of perpetual benefices in the monarch’s name. Having received the royal appointment, the bishop made the collation and canonical institution of the curate, which gave him the right to enjoy the revenues of the benefice and the right and duty to function as a curate. After taking possession of the benefice by personal presence, the priest could start administering the parish.52 51

Real Cédula, San Lorenzo del Escorial, June 1, 1574 (Carreño 1944, 314-322). For studies of its contents and implementation, see Armas Medina 1952, 126-128, Padden 1956, 352-354, and in particular Schwaller 1986. 52 Schwaller 1986, 258. See also Recopilación 1680 [1774], Lib I, tít. VI, ley 24.

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The holder of a benefice, the beneficiary, was not the only type of cleric who could be present in the parish. Often the beneficiary had one or several non-beneficed assistants, referred to as tenientes, ayudantes or, more commonly, vicarios, who helped him in the ministry, were paid by the beneficiary and could be appointed by either the bishop or the beneficiary. The use of these terms is not entirely clear as vicario could be used in a generic sense meaning just parish priest. During a beneficiary’s absence, during vacancy or during a legal process against the beneficiary, another priest could be made cura ad interim for a limited time.53 N Church Life between the Metropolitan and the Local stands as the main title of this book. The word metropolitan can be understood in several ways, describing power relations between various loci. The metropolis can for example be seen as Spain in relation to New Spain, but also as diocesan authority in relation to parish priests. Due to the establishment of the royal patronage over the Church in the Spanish Indies, the colonial Church, including the parish, was governed by both royal and ecclesiastical law. The royal legislation on the Spanish Indies, the derecho indiano, was made up by a large body of documents which, depending on their diplomatic formulas and the degree of formality, were referred to as provisiones, ordenanzas, instrucciones, cartas, but most commonly reales cédulas (royal decrees). From the second half of the sixteenth century onwards various attempts were made in both Spain and the Indies to make a functional compilation of this vast body of normative legislation. Nevertheless, it was only in 1680 with the promulgation of the Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias that such a project was completed.54 As important as that collection was for the later colonial era, for studies on earlier epochs it is preferable to take recourse to the original versions of the legislative texts as the texts were often altered and harmonized in the later compilation.55 53

Taylor 1996, 78-82. Mirow 2005, 45-48. Cf. Gómez Hoyos 1961 for the royal laws on the Church. 55 Pointed out by Mörner 1999. 54

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Several researchers have underlined the ideal and casuistic nature of the derecho indiano. When discussing the Spanish colonial legislation reference is often made to the formula: Obedezco pero no cumplo. This formula was sometimes used by the recipient of a royal decree. It literally means that the recipient of the law stated “I obey but I do not comply”. However, as Lyle N. McAlister has pointed out in a legal sense, the phrase “‘suspended’ the execution of an order pending an appeal to the crown for reconsideration”. Whether or not using the actual formula, the promulgated laws often became part of a virtually unending bureaucratic process in which the same rules were often reiterated in a number of subsequent royal decrees without much effect.56 In seventeenth-century Mexico, the most important part of the ecclesiastical legislation was made up by the decrees of the General Council of Trent and on a more local level, the decrees of the Third Provincial Council of Mexico. The parish priests were required to own and use these texts. Both the decrees of Trent and the Provincial Council were subject to the approval of the Spanish monarch before being valid law for the Church in the Indies, as were the decrees of diocesan synods. However, few diocesan synods were gathered in colonial Mexico and virtually none were celebrated in the central parts of the area. The metropolitan ecclesiastical norms which I am interested in are, however, not only found in such formal legal sources. They are also encountered in the control mechanisms and attempts at unification and centralization in the form of, for example, pastoral visitations and liturgical books. T O This study is, however, not only centered on laws and norms. It also tries to approach aspects of ordinary seventeenth-century parish life. While it is fairly easy to establish the basic royal and ecclesiastical legislation on the parish, it is much more difficult to study actual parish life. If there is such a thing as “the ordinary”, to what extent is it possible to get knowledge of it through historical documents? What of everything that once happened is likely to have been put on paper? What of all that once was recorded has been deemed important enough 56

McAlister 1984, 204.

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to be kept for the future? And what has been destroyed through conscious or unconscious acts? Working with archival records on colonial religion in Mexico, or indeed on any other time or area, one finds that unusual events are more likely to have been recorded than are less colorful everyday dealings. Indeed conflicts, together with administrative serial records, are most likely to have found their way into written form and further into the archival repositories, which are the main hunting grounds for historians. In a recent article on Bishop Palafox, historian Michael Brescia emphasizes the importance of investigating “the ordinary, everyday rituals that captured the attention, even if momentarily, of lay men and women and their parish priests”. He continues by pointing out that scholars “need to locate and explain the discursive power of the routine and mundane dimensions of ritual.”57 That, however, is of course easier said or written than done. Attendance at the daily, or at least weekly, Mass is perhaps more interesting and revealing than, say, the sumptuous processions on Corpus Christi in the big cities. But what sources do we have relating to the celebration of the Mass in a seventeenthcentury Mexican village? The attempts to reconstruct “normal”, “ordinary” or “everyday” aspects of human existence throughout history and the lives of “ordinary” people by using materials on non-ordinary situations is, of course, neither new nor unproblematic. For their famous and muchread studies on Medieval and Early Modern Europe, scholars such as Natalie Zemon Davis, Carlo Ginzburg, Giovanni Levi and Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie made prolific use of judicial materials, and in particular inquisitorial files, in attempts to capture the mentality of quite ordinary people. In several works, including his modern classic Il formaggio e i vermi (1976), [The Cheese and the Worms], Carlo Ginzburg has argued that exceptional cases in some ways may reflect the “normality” for which we often lack direct evidence. In dealing with historical sources, Ginzburg makes a distinction between evidence as used by a judge and evidence as understood by a historian. For the judge, uncertainty only has negative implications—evidence needs to be airtight. But for the historian, somewhat blurred evidence might be used if the particular 57

Brescia 2004, 499.

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evidence is related to a particular context, which Ginzburg understands as the particular geographical place with historically-determined possibilities.58 A similar case is made by Natalie Zemon Davis in her intriguing book The Return of Martin Guerre (1983), which is a study of an imposter in the sixteenth-century Pyrenees who took the place of a man who had left home. The imposter lived with his wife for a long period of time, until the husband eventually returned and the imposter was punished. The case of Martin Guerre was an unusual one and gave raise to literary works even in the sixteenth century. Still Zemon Davis argues that such an extraordinary case can uncover ordinary motivations and values that otherwise are lost forever. Her interpretation of the story of Martin Guerre, his wife and the imposter is evolved through the use of serial archival records that illuminate themes such as inheritance, kinship and marriage patterns in a local context.59 Giovanni Levi’s book L’eredità immateriale: Carriera di un escocista nel Piemonte del Seicento (1985), translated into English as Inheriting Power, is an interesting example of a microhistorical approach combined with a thorough source critical practice. In the introductory chapter to his book, Levi writes “I have chosen a banal place and an undistinguished story. Santena was a small village and Giovan Battista Chiesa an unsophisticated priest and exorcist”. Against the background of a court case against Chiesa, a priest who became a highlyactive exorcist during a brief period at the very end of the seventeenth century, Levi builds a microhistorical study of the social and economic power play, as well as the local rationality for action in what he calls a “minuscule segment” of the Italian Piedmont, mainly by employing serial records such as notarial acts and tax documents. Still, a central source for him remains the acts of the ecclesiastical trial against Chiesa and the book in which he kept track of the hundreds of exorcisms he carried out during a very brief time; sources that are quite exceptional. Throughout the book Giovanni Levi is very cautious in his use of quite feeble source material, while pointing out the problems of interpretation and the relative lack of sources.60 58 59 60

Ginzburg 1988, cf. Ginzburg 1991. Zemon Davis 1983. Levi 1985.

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For anyone perusing archival records from colonial Mexico, it is easy to find vast arrays of records on conflicts and on jurisdictional quarrels between different groups in the Church. Litigations between bishops and regular clergy, between secular priests and friars, and between different religious orders are legion.61 There are also a fair number of cases of conflict between representatives of indigenous pueblos and their local priests. Another very prolific series of documents on colonial Mexico are the acts of the Inquisition tribunal. Documents emanating from and reflecting such conflictive situations are thus common. As to their content, they are often more detailed than many other types of sources on religious matters. In line with this observation, William B. Taylor in his study on Bourbon-era Mexican priests and parishioners observes that much of the colonial documentation on religion was generated “by policing institutions, which were preoccupied with order and orthodoxy, and is skewed towards the unusual”.62 This calls for great caution when approaching the documents. Descriptions of conflict are, of course, not the only thing to be found in colonial archives. In a thought-provoking article on the socalled New Cultural History and its uses in the recent historiography on colonial Mexico, Eric Van Young notes that what most often is documented in archival files are the formal and institutional facets of the colonial system, including those of the Church. The things researchers are most likely to find are thus records that document administrative and judicial features. If lucky, the researcher may also encounter what Van Young appositely calls “freeze-dried versions of rituals, episodes of collective action, conflict situations, and so forth”.63 However, he cautions against the use of such “documentary islands rising from whole continents and subcontinents of past experience [that] are thrust to the surface of the historical record by forms of conflict or deviance”, when trying to “recover ‘normal’ life.”64 To take recourse to such documentary islands as a way to recover a life more or less ordinary is thus not without its problems. Therefore there is a need to situate the documents, to consider their genres and diplomatic for61 62 63 64

Cf. Lundberg 2002. Taylor 1996, 47. Van Young 1999, 228-229. Van Young 1999, 229.

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mulae, and to refrain from taking them at face value or drawing too general conclusions from feeble source material. R  S In a recent article James Lockhart describes the general progress of the historiography on colonial Latin America as a movement through different kinds of sources. In his understanding, this historiographical movement began in the nineteenth century when historians mainly employed relatively easily-accessible sources such as official correspondence and chronicles, which were also often made available in printed source collections. However, contemporary historians on colonial Mexico, to a greater extent than ever before, employ sources which are much more fragmentary and restricted in scope, including mundane documents in indigenous languages.65 Thus, in the illustrative words of Eric Van Young, historians have been working their way down “the food-chain of sources” to lower, local stages and to genres such as petty litigations, notarial acts and the like, which earlier generations of scholars frowned at as being little more than archival dross.66 Throughout this study, I will assess a number of different documentary genres, found on both higher and lower stages of such a food chain of sources, considering them both as contemporary documents and as historical sources. Though perhaps patently obvious, it is important to state the impossibility of directly studying human acts that took place in the past. In the words of Brian P. Owensby, for us it is “too late to be colonial Mexican”.67 As students of bygone epochs we have to make recourse to some kind of documents, and in particular to archival records and printed matter, which we employ as sources. Although only a very limited amount of human acts and thoughts throughout history have been recorded in written form, the sheer number of possible sources that are found in archives has filled more than one researcher with panic. Moreover, often the archival records are not ordered according to subjects or at least not the type of subjects that 65 66 67

Lockhart 2007, 1. Van Young 2004, 281. Owensby 2008, 11.

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the researcher would have preferred.68 On the other hand, that very circumstance is a clear reminder that archival records were not originally created as historical sources. Practitioners of diplomatics and archival science, often looked upon as auxiliary sciences to history, but are indeed scholarly fields in their own right, thus often point out that records at their creation served other purposes. They were written as an integral part of an entity’s or a person’s activities: administrative, judicial, or otherwise. The records’ capacity to transfer information over time and their function as historical sources is therefore an addition, not a part of the intentional purpose for writing them down.69 Therefore, it is important to consider records as part of an original recording process and not only employ them as historical sources. Understanding the documentation process in itself is thus central. In his essay L’Ilusione della storia autentica, the Italian scholar of written culture Armando Petrucci makes the following statement developing on this assertion: In short, rather than being evidence of a preceding or contemporary juridical-historical event, which is to some extent external to it, the document is first and foremost evidence of a process entirely internal to its own making. And only the reconstruction of the process of documentation, of its articulations and reasons, can permit us again to consider, with both greater insight and greater humility than before, the complex relationship between written document and the event that from time to time gave (or should have given) impulse to the process of documentation: what we call, in the language of diplomatics, the connection between action and documentation.70

Archival records are thus relics of certain actions in the past and material remains of a process of documentation. Traditionally, an archive has often been likened to an organism that lives and grows freely (or at least one that used to live and grow) as a part of the activities of a 68

Cf. Dirks 2002 for an interesting description of an anthropologist’s encounter with the archives. 69 Cf. the articles in the volume The Concept of Record 1998 for contributions from archival science and Petrucci 1963 and Ghignoli 1991 for overviews of the development of the scholarly field of diplomatics. 70 Petrucci 1995, 239.

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person or entity. Nevertheless, archives, whether public or private, are hardly ever left to grow entirely freely. It is seldom the case that all the documents that have emanated from a person’s or an entity’s activities are kept for posterity. Through old indices we may sometimes know something about records that once existed, but which at some time in history have been extracted, misplaced, destroyed, or otherwise disappeared. Often, however, we do not have any clues as to whether a document has existed or not. Fire, water, vermin and general neglect are well-known natural enemies of the written patrimony, as are radical political changes or armed conflicts. In other cases, records have indeed survived until our time, but have been taken away from their original archival context and found their way into other private or public manuscript collections. That very circumstance may lessen or even obliterate the documents’ value as historical sources, due to the lack of the original documentary context, which is of utmost importance when assessing a record. A  L Most of the genres that are analyzed in this book are unpublished archival records found in repositories on both sides of the Atlantic. The Mexican national archives—the Archivo General de la Nación (AGN)—has been the single most important of the archival institutions that I have made use of. Though I have employed records from many document groups in the AGN, most records come from the rich resources of Bienes Nacionales and Indiferente Virreinal, of which the latter only recently has been catalogued and made available for researchers. I have also consulted files in the archdiocesan archives, Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México (AHAM).71 Unfortunately, the reportedly very voluminous archiepiscopal archives of Puebla are not accessible for researchers.72 Among the European 71

The material in the AGN is described in the Guia General, found online at www.agn.gob.mx, which also includes digitized material. The colonial material AHAM is described in Watson Marrón et al. 2002. For a study of different ecclesiastical genres, see Lira González & Connaughton Hanley 1996 and recently Bieñko de Peralta & Bravo Rubio 2008. 72 See Garibay 1996 for a very brief description of the archiepiscopal archives of Puebla.

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archival institutions that have been consulted, the Archivo General de Indias (AGI) in Seville is of paramount importance as the main repository for documents that were sent to the metropolis from the Spanish Indies. I have also consulted individual manuscripts in the collections of the Spanish national library, the Biblioteca Nacional (BNE) in Madrid, and the British Library (BL) in London.73 Some ministerial books from Mexican parish archives have been consulted on microfilm through the Family Research History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah (FRHL).74 Though unpublished archival material plays a significant role in this study, I have also made use of many sixteenth and seventeenth-century imprints.75 Finding such books, that are sometimes exceedingly rare, is not without challenge and I have had to consult several libraries to find the books needed. The bulk of the colonial imprints that I have used is, however, found in the British Library (BL), which has an outstanding collection of sixteenth and seventeenth-century Mexican religious literature. Almost all of these works were acquired at three im73

The inventory of the AGI is now found online through the Portal de Archivos Españoles (PARES), pares.mcu.es, which also includes digitized material. The Hispanic American material in the BNE is described in Paz Espeso 1933, and the Spanish-language manuscripts of the BL in Gayangos 1875-1893. In the latter case, see also the online manuscripts catalogue: www.bl.uk. 74 Catalogues available online at www.familysearch.com. 75 Colonial Mexico is well served with bibliographies. An early nineteenthcentury bio-bibliography, Beristáin y Souza [1816-1821] 1883 includes notes on colonial Mexican authors and makes references to both printed and manuscript works. Its accuracy when compared with other sources is, however, inconsistent. Still, it includes notes on many manuscripts and imprints that the Beristáin y Souza could consult, but which now are lost. The classic bibliography on sixteenthcentury Mexican imprints is García Icazbalceta [1886] 1954. For the seventeenth century Andrade 1899 is fundamental, but not as detailed. An early-twentieth century attempt to cover all colonial publications published in Mexico City was made by Medina 1907-1911 in eight folio volumes, completed with a separate volume on colonial imprints published in Puebla: Medina 1908. In his work Medina included the information found in the earlier mentioned bibliographies, together with many complements. Later bibliographies take Medina’s work as their point of departure, while also including works that have been discovered since, see e.g., González Cossio 1952 for Mexico City and Teixidor 1961 for Puebla. See also Rios Martínez 2009.

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portant book auctions during the second half of the nineteenth century, which followed the exodus of many important Mexican libraries after the downfall of Emperor Maximilian. The works found in the collections of the British Library are complemented by works found in the national libraries of Mexico (BNM) and Spain (BNE), as well as in the Centro de Estudios de Historia de México (CEHM) in Mexico City, the Biblioteca de Castilla-La Mancha (BCLM) in Toledo, the Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sevilla (BUS) in Seville, and the Biblioteca de la Universidad Complutense (BUC) in Madrid. In the list of references, I indicate the location of the individual copy I have used. T C Including this introduction and a very brief epilogue, the book comprises nine chapters. Most of them explore one particular type of documents reflecting both metropolitan norms and local practice. As a whole, I aim to provide a multifaceted image of both parish life and the relations between indigenous parishioners and secular clergy in parishes of the archdiocese of Mexico and the diocese of Tlaxcala during the first half of the seventeenth century. Nevertheless, the chapter that follows immediately after this introduction—Chapter Two—does not follow this pattern. In fact, it is only partially built on archival records or printed colonial material. It begins with a brief geographic and demographic outline of the two dioceses in which the patterns of parish divisions are related to the secular jurisdictions and to the Spanish colonial policies of segregation and congregation. I also briefly refer to the conflicts between the friars and the bishops over the administration of rural parishes. The chapter serves as a necessary background to what follows. The backbone of this study is, however, made up by Chapters Three through Eight, each of which focus on one particular documental genre. The basic outline of these chapters follows a common pattern. First, I make diplomatic and historical notes on the genre. Thereafter, I analyze individual documents in the corpus that I have brought together, followed by a geographical or chronological outline. Chapters Three through Six are concerned with records reflecting the metropolitan norms of the indigenous parish ministry in the form of laws, institutions of control and attempts of standardization and centralization. Chapter Three is devoted to conciliar decrees, and in

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particular the acts of the Third Mexican Council of 1585. In the fourth chapter I consider the documentation of the pastoral visitation records carried out by the Mexican archbishops and Pueblan bishops. These documents include the bishops’ evaluations of the parish ministry and parish life. In Chapter Five I analyze sacramental manuals, which were compiled to help curates and were ways to standardize the indigenous ministry in central Mexico. Chapter Six places emphasis on records relating to the so-called “extirpation of idolatry”, including descriptions of the processes and strategies employed against indigenous practices that were considered idolatrous. The last two chapters consider sources formed by parishioners and parish priests themselves. In Chapter Seven, which is the most voluminous part of the book, I analyze Nahuatl and Spanish-language petitions written by indigenous parishioners. Such documents were generally addressed to the (arch)bishop and the ecclesiastical court of law in favor or, much more commonly, against their local curate by presenting an image of the bad and good priest. The last chapter before the concluding remarks, Chapter Eight, is focused on clerical relaciones de méritos y servicios, records in which individual priests documented their family background, formation and ecclesiastical services in search of promotion. Although this kind of documentation is one of clerical self-promotion, these sources can say something about the careers patterns and working conditions of curates in the seventeenth-century diocese of Tlaxcala and archdiocese of Mexico. They are also particularly interesting for a study of what was considered to be an ideal ministry and what ways and means the priests used to present themselves as worthy ministers.

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P  T C D Después que estoy en este arçobispado he trabajado como es notorio en poner en pulicia y grande affinación las cosas del culto diuino en esta yglesia cathedral y las de el descargo de la consciencia de Su Magestad en razón de la administración de los yndios, y en este punto a sido un trabajo con notorio riesgo de mi vida y honrra, porque es cosa en que interesan mucho los religiosos de bienes temporales para los quales se a tomado por medio y grangería caudalosa el ministerio de las almas.1

A

fter a decade as the archbishop of Mexico, in a 1623 letter to the King, Juan Pérez de la Serna described his main duty as two-fold: to contribute to the elevation of the divine cult in the cathedral church and to “unburden His Majesty’s conscience” through Christian ministry to his indigenous vassals. However, in the archbishop’s view his indigenous ministry was greatly impeded by the friars who tried to escape his authority and were more interested in assembling riches than administering the sacraments to the indigenous people. In this way, the King’s conscience was not “unburdened”, as the archbishop was disobeyed by the major part of the clergy. In fact, he found his efforts constantly thwarted and, in his own view, he had to risk his “life and honor” to work towards his goals. Of course this is a highly partisan view. It is illustrative of the high pitch often used in letters from prelates and friars during the first decades of the seventeenth century. At least since the mid-sixteenth century diocesan bishops had tried to strengthen their power over the Mendicant doctrineros and increased the number of parishes that were administered by secular clerics. Both these processes were opposed by the friars. D G By the year 1600 most of the area which today constitutes Mexico was divided into dioceses. As in other regions dominated by the Spanish Crown, a developed diocesan organization was founded early on 1 AGI, M 337: Letter from Archbishop Pérez de la Serna to the King, June 4, 1623.

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in the missionary phase. A 1534 real cédula decreed that the Mexican bishops’ jurisdictions should extend fifteen leagues in each direction of the cathedral church. Although the basic boundaries between the dioceses of central New Spain were drawn up in the mid-1530s, some border areas were disputed for a long time. However, by the turn of the century clear inter-diocesan frontiers had been established throughout.2 Map 1 Dioceses of New Spain

The Archdiocese of Mexico Though it had been planned since just after the Conquest, the see of Mexico was not canonically erected until 1530 and the first bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, was not consecrated and formally installed until four years later. Initially suffragan to the archbishop of Seville, as all other bishoprics in the Spanish Indies, in 1546 the diocese of Mexico was elevated to the rank of archbishopric and a separate Mexican 2

Gibson 1952, 57.

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Church province was consequently founded.3 The obvious center of the diocese and later archdiocese was the city of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which also was the unquestionable political, administrative, judicial and commercial center of the viceroyalty of New Spain. Compared to most European bishoprics, the archdiocese of Mexico was immense, covering some 90,000 or 95,000 square kilometers. An ordinary Spanish diocese at that time often constituted less than a tenth of that area.4 Territorially, the colonial archbishopric of Mexico included the present states of Hidalgo, Mexico, Morelos, as well as the Distrito Federal, most of the state of Guerrero and fractions of Veracruz, Guanajuato, San Luis Potosí, and Querétaro. Due to the variations in altitude the climatologic differences in the area were great. In some regions, a journey of ten kilometers or even less could mean a transition from freezing temperatures and dry weather to semitropical climes. While the archdiocese included some of the most denselypopulated areas of the viceroyalty, generally high plateau regions at over 1,700 meters, the lowland areas were commonly much more sparsely inhabited and vast regions were virtually deserted by the early seventeenth century.5 The colonial archdiocese of Mexico bordered three other dioceses: Guadalajara/New Galicia, Michoacan and Puebla/Tlaxcala. The border with the immense bishopric of Guadalajara was a straight line from Tampico on the Caribbean coast through an area north of Santiago de Valles that met with the border of the diocese of Michoacan. The continuation of the border with Michoacan passed through Valles and the Huasteca Potosina and then through the Sierra Gorda on to the north-eastern corner of the present state of Guanajuato and went further through the fertile Querétaro region. The partition line continued through the highland area of the valley of Matalcingo, with most of its settlements found at an elevation of 2,400-3,000 meters. Thereafter, it went through the current state of Guerrero with hot temperatures and a rather dry climate, ending up on the Atlantic coast province of Zacatula that extended from the Sierra Madre del Sur. 3 4 5

Gil 1993, 83-85, 115. Berthe 1997, cf. Mazín Gómez 1996, 53. Gerhard 1993.

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On the other side, the archdiocesan frontier with the diocese of Puebla went from the Guachinango province and the port of Tamiahua on the Caribbean coast, through the Sierra Madre Oriental, with its widely- varying climes. The border then passed through several valleys on the slopes of the mighty Iztaccíhuatl and Popocatépetl volcanoes, each with peaks reaching more than 5,000 meters above sea level. Continuing through the Atlixco and Icúzar areas with its dry, hot climes and rich volcanic soil, the inter-diocesan border ended up in the environs of Acapulco, the main port on the Pacific coast and the gateway to the Spanish Philippines.6 Puebla/Tlaxcala Although a diocese named Carolense in honor of the monarch was founded with hazy boundaries in the Yucatan in the year of the Spanish Conquest, 1519, the first clearly territorial diocese in New Spain was canonically erected in 1525 with its see in Tlaxcala, a major Nahua center whose inhabitants had been very receptive to the Spanish during the wars of Conquest. However, the first bishop of Tlaxcala, Julián Garcés, was not at all happy with the location of the see and during the 1530s and 1540s he and others argued for its transferral to Puebla de los Ángeles, the newly- built Spanish city nearby. It would, however, take until 1543, after the death of Garcés, for the diocesan center to be transferred. His successor, Martín Sarmiento de Hojacastro, became the first bishop to take up residence in Puebla, but long after this time the diocese continued to be referred to as Tlaxcala.7 By the 1530s the borders of the diocese of Tlaxcala had at least been loosely defined, although it would take until the end of the century until they were firmly established. In the first years it at least theoretically included the provinces of Oaxaca and Chiapas, but when the diocese of Antequera or Oaxaca was erected in 1535 a demarcation line between the two was established. A little smaller than the archdiocese but still vast—80,000 to 85,000 square kilometers—the colonial diocese of Tlaxcala comprised the present states of Puebla and Tlaxcala in their 6

The description on the borders is based on Gerhard 1993. Cf. Mazín Gómez 1996, 56-59, for the change of the border with Michoacan. 7 Gibson 1952, 54-61.

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entirety, but also portions of the states of Veracruz, Tabasco, Hidalgo, as well as a minor part of Guerrero. As in the case of the archdiocese, it included both very densely-populated highland areas in the central altiplano, as well as sparsely populated or virtually deserted areas near the coastlines. In its established form the Pueblan border with the diocese of Oaxaca went from the port of Alvarado on the Caribbean coast, close to Veracruz, through the upper part of the broad valley of Tehuacán. Thereafter it continued through Guaxaca in the center of the hot dry country of Mixteca Baja and further through the rugged province of Tlapa, ending up at the Costa Chica in the south-eastern parts of the present state of Guerrero.8 Many of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century bishops of Puebla complained that the diocese was too big and in the beginning of the seventeenth century there were plans for establishing another diocese on the Caribbean coast with the see in Veracruz, which also should include parts of the archdiocese and the diocese of Oaxaca. However, these plans were not realized during the colonial era.9 P  L By the early seventeenth century, the indigenous population who lived within the confines of the two dioceses had been severely decimated in several waves of epidemic that followed in the wake of the Spanish invaders. While historical demographists agree that the decline during the century that followed the Conquest was nothing but catastrophic, the real point of contention is about the size of the contactperiod population, that is, the number of inhabitants upon the arrival of Cortés and his men in 1519. Due to the lack of sources, such a number cannot be established with any high degree of certainty. In their studies from the 1950s onwards Sherburne F. Cook and Woodrow Borah, of the so-called Berkeley School, made various attempts to compute the pre-conquest population in a 0.5 million square kilometer area of Central Mexico. In their final works they arrived at estimates of 8

For details on the inter-diocesan borders, see Gerhard 1993; cf. Gibson 1952, 58-59. 9 For the plans of the Veracruz diocese, see AGI, M 337, Archbishop García Guerra to the King, May 27, 1610.

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Map 2 States of Modern Mexico

between 18 and 30 million people. These numbers are often considered maximalist; other researchers compute a smaller original population, somewhere between 5 to 10 million. Though there are exceptions, most researchers estimate the indigenous population of central Mexico reached a demographical nadir sometime during the first half of the seventeenth century at circa 1 million, or even less. Yet these figures are rather uncertain due to the fragmentary source material.10 Though initial military violence and hard exploitation certainly contributed to mass indigenous deaths, it is well known that most of the decrease was due to their exposure to European diseases such as smallpox, typhus, and measles. Great epidemics plagued the region in the years of the Conquest and then particularly in 1545-1548 and 157610

See McCaa 2000, 252-262 for an overview of the scholarship.

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1581.11 By the early seventeenth century there are many testimonies from ecclesiastics, particularly from friars, who feared that the indigenous population was about to become completely extinguished.12 The severe flooding of the city of Mexico from 1629 onwards did not make the situation any better. However, from the second half of the seventeenth century onwards, the majority of researchers agree that a steady recovery of the indigenous population was experienced in most areas of central Mexico. Mexican historian José Miranda has computed the indigenous population increase between 1650 and 1700 at 32 percent in the case of the archdiocese of Mexico and 19 percent for the diocese of Puebla.13 Despite the mass deaths, the vast majority of the population in early seventeenth-century Mexico was still made up by indigenous people. Both in the archdiocese and in the diocese of Tlaxcala, the majority were Nahuatl speaking, while it is important to point out the considerable degree of ethnic and linguistic pluralism. Speakers of languages such as Otomi, Mazahua, Matlaltzinca, Pame, Chichimeca jonaz, Chontal, Popoluca, Popoloca, Chocho, Totonac, Mixtec, Huasteca, Tlapaneca and Tuxteca were present in major or minor geographical areas of the two dioceses. In addition, many of the languages presented local varieties that were not mutually intelligible. By the early seventeenth century, a number of the languages present in the contact period had disappeared. Still, in many areas two or more languages were spoken within the confines of a single rural parish. Apart from being the maternal tongue of the indigenous majority, Nahuatl was a lingua franca used by many speakers of other indigenous languages. Though there were areas in the city of Mexico which were dominated by indigenous people, the great majority lived in rural areas. In the contemporary Spanish expression they were indios de pueblo.14 11

McCaa 2000, 252-262. One case among many is found in AGI, M 296, where Juan Ramos OP in a letter dated May 8, 1607 wanted to inform the King about “la destruçion y acauamiento destos yndios naturales, los quales tendrían fin en breue, si con tiempo no se acude a su remedio”. 13 Miranda 1963. 14 See Gerhard 1993 for details on languages in all parts of New Spain. 12

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The group of Hispanics in seventeenth-century New Spain was made up by peninsulars, those born in Spain, but above all by a much greater and rapidly growing group of people of Spanish descent born in the Indies—often referred to as criollos (creoles). There was a considerable gap between the different social strata within the creole group, including both poor but fiercely proud descendents of the first conquerors as well as wealthy merchants and estate owners, often looked upon as parvenus by the former. In 1570 it is estimated that the Spaniards made up just 0.5 percent of the Novohispanian population, whereas by the mid-seventeenth century this proportion had increased to about 10 percent; mainly due to the decrease of the indigenous population, but also due to immigration and high birth rates. The Hispanic inhabitants in the two dioceses were chiefly concentrated in the cities of Mexico and Puebla, but others lived in the countryside, particularly in the fertile agricultural areas, such as the valleys of Puebla, and in the silver mining districts in the archdiocese.15 The number of mestizos, people of mixed Hispanic and indigenous descent, is difficult to establish. In the sixteenth century the term was mainly used for illegitimate children of Spanish men and indigenous women. It was thus a social burden that meant they were barred from many offices. It seems that many mestizos would pass as either Indians (if speaking indigenous languages) or as creoles (if being Spanish speakers). Mestizos did not appear as a very distinct social group until the late seventeenth century.16 Apart from the indigenous groups and the Hispanics, a third population element grew important during the first half of the seventeenth century. The import of African slaves to New Spain increased rapidly during the six decades of Spanish-Portuguese union (1580-1640). Thus, by 1646, it was estimated that just over 150,000 people of African descent (considered to be either blacks or mulattoes) lived within the confines of New Spain. Of these some 63,000 inhabited the archdiocese and another 23,000 lived in the diocese of Tlaxcala. The large majority of these people were non-slaves and were born in New Spain. 15 16

Borah 1951, Alberro 1992, 31, cf. Bacigalupo 1981. MacLachlan & Rodríguez 1980, cf. Mörner 1967.

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Many were employed at plantations and mines, while a sizeable minority worked as servants in urban areas.17 A basic component of the Spanish Crown’s population policy was the segregation of the indigenous population from other ethnic groups. The laws were based on a legal partition between two perceived republics”: the República de los españoles and the República de los indios, which should be kept apart geographically for the common good. According to royal legislation, particularly from the mid-sixteenth century onwards, indigenous people living in a rural pueblos de indios should be kept as free as possible from interaction with nonindigenous individuals and groups who were considered a bad example to them. At first, the royal legislation wanted to exclude vagabonds, who were considered a particular nuisance and bad example, but also calpixques (assistants of encomenderos), blacks and mulattoes, mestizos, later also the encomenderos themselves, and finally Spaniards in general. Though the Mexican countryside was mainly inhabited by Indians, the strict segregation remained only a legislative ideal. As has been shown in the essential and soundly-based studies of Magnus Mörner, the implementation of the laws varied between different regions of the Spanish Indies. In most areas at least minor groups of non-Indians lived in the pueblos de indios. Thus the Spanish segregation policy was hardly ever made reality.18 P D The basic social and geographical entity of the Nahua world before and after the arrival of the Spaniards was the altepetl (often understood as an ethnic state). Willingly or not, the basic Spanish forms of rural organization in New Spain were patterned on the altepetl. In his The Nahuas after the Conquest, James Lockhart writes that “[e]verything the Spaniards organized outside their own settlements in the sixteenth century—the encomienda, the rural parishes, Indian municipalities, the initial administrative jurisdiction—was built solidly upon individual, already existing altepetl.” The Spaniards understood the altepetl as a 17

Bennett 2005, 14-32. Mörner 1999, 43-125. See also the other specialized studies by Mörner, referred to in that monograph. 18

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pueblo, a word interestingly enough meaning both village and people. However, as Lockhart points out, the Nahuatl altepetl concept did not only point towards a core area—a village—but also included the territory that surrounded it. In Nahua understanding the altepetl was made up by a number of semi-independent units known as calpulli or tlaxicalli, one in which the dynastic ruler, the tlatoani lived. The Spanish generally understood the relation between these entities as being hierarchical. They defined one location as the cabecera—literally a head town—and the others as underlying sujetos, subjects.19 The relation between the local ecclesiastical and secular jurisdictions was sometimes a rather straightforward matter. In most cases, the Church complied with an existing cabecera-sujeto pattern, placing the parish center, a main church and resident clergy in a cabecera. It should, however, be noted that a parish could include more than one altepetl. Some cabeceras therefore became visitas (the usual ecclesiastic term for sujeto) without resident clergy, and with smaller church buildings that should be visited by the curate.20 The original post-Conquest outline of the territorial organization was challenged by the so-called congregations. In the eyes of the Spanish legislators, the decreasing indigenous population lived dispersed over too large a geographical area, a condition which impeded their efficient indoctrination in the Catholic Creed and their access to the Church’s sacraments. The congregation of people who lived in smaller sujetos to more populous cabeceras or sujetos was seen as the solution to the problem. Already by the 1550s and early 1560s, a first wave of such congregation or resettlement projects were planned and set up in practice.21 A second period of forming congregations began in the early 1590s, they were formalized by the turn of the century, and the process ended circa 1605. Apart from the religious ends, another goal with the congregations for the viceregal administration was to delimit the lands of the Indians, so that parts of it could be distributed among the Spaniards. Further, the congregation was seen as a means to at19

Lockhart 1992, 14-40, citation on p. 14. Gibson 1964, 102-104 and Lockhart 1992, 206-210. Cf. Gerhard 1993 for local details, García Martínez 1987 for a case study of the Sierra de Puebla, and Licate 1981 for another case study of the eastern Puebla basin. 21 Gerhard 1977. 20

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tain greater control over tribute collection and a potential indigenous workforce. The congregation process was initiated by a survey phase of potential resettlement sites, while the second phase included the actual resettlement. The first years of the seventeenth century did not see the construction of so many entirely new pueblos, but basically meant that people from outlying sparsely populated visitas were moved to major pueblos.22 To impede Indians from returning to their former homesteads after being congregated, their old houses were sometimes burned or otherwise destroyed. Not surprisingly, the program met great opposition from the Indians. Reports further indicate that inhabitants, in fact, often left their new homes and frequently fled to what the Spaniards referred to as the monte—the hills or mountains—considered by them as the most pernicious threat to “civilized” Christian life in settlements. The congregation policy also met great opposition from the friars. Their criticism was triggered both by the vexation the Indians felt as a result of forced migration. Another reason was probably equally important: the new organizational patterns increased the influence of the secular clergy and delimited their own influence over the ministry. Influenced by the massive opposition that the congregation program had met from several groups, by 1607 the King allowed Indians who wanted to go back to their old home sites to do so. Though the congregation projects did not succeed from the Crown’s point of view, it did mean that many old sujetos disappeared from the map.23 R  S P The archdiocese of Mexico and the diocese of Tlaxcala were patchworks of local ecclesiastical administrations in the sense that they contained parishes which were administered by either regular or secular clergy. By the mid-sixteenth century, the conflict between the two 22

The fundamental study on the seventeenth-century congregations remains Cline 1949. Cf. Quezada 1995 for a case study of the Valleys of Toluca and Ixctlacuacan; Licate 1981, 87-110, for a case study of the eastern Puebla basin, and Pérez Zevallos 1999 for an excellent overview of the sources for the congregation programs. 23 Cline 1949. See also the many letters of complaints by representatives of the regular clergy in AGI, M 293.

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types of clergy had grown bitter. Intra-ecclesiastical wars were particularly waged between the (arch)bishops and representatives of the three mendicant orders: Franciscans, Dominicans, and Augustinians. The main seeds of discord were the extent to which bishops held jurisdiction over the friars when administering the sacraments to the indigenous population and whether the Indians of New Spain should pay ecclesiastical tithes, a major source of income for the Church hierarchy and the parish clergy.24 Though rural parishes administered by secular clerics had been founded shortly after the Conquest, both in areas administered by the Crown and in those of encomenderos, a growing number of secular partidos were established during the 1560s and 1570s. In a 1585 report to the King, leading representatives of the mendicant orders wrote that in the archdiocese of Mexico there were 155 rural partidos and doctrinas, not including the urban parishes and the mining areas. Of them 63 (or 41%) were administered by secular priests, 38 (24%) by Augustinians, 36 (23%) by Franciscans, and 18 (12%) by Dominicans. For the diocese of Tlaxcala, the total number of parishes amounted to 112, of which the secular clergy held as many as 66 (59%), the Franciscans 28 (25%), the Augustinians 11 (9%), and the Dominicans a mere 8 (7%).25 By 1585, the year of the Third Provincial Council, the conflicts between regular and secular clergy reached one of its many peaks. The regular clergy, particularly the Franciscans and Augustinians were most unhappy with the recent growth in the number of rural parishes administered by the secular clergy. They simply argued that they did the work better, as they had at least three friars for every doctrina, while secular beneficiaries often were alone at a given location. They also contended that indigenous knowledge of Christian doctrine tended to wane when the seculars took over. The bishops, on their 24

For the second half of the sixteenth century, see Lundberg 2009 and Poole 1987. 25 AGI, M 287: Provincials and definidores of the Franciscan, Augustinian and Dominican orders, Mexico, November1, 1585, cf. AGI, M 287: Jerónimo de Mendieta OFM, Puebla, April 15, 1587. For a 1582 list of the doctrinas in the diocese of Tlaxcala compiled by Bishop Romano and a briefer 1591 list of secular benefices, see AGI, P 182, no. 1, ro. 3, cf. the studies of these documents by Viforcos Marinas 1999 and 2000.

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hand, asserted that the friars had been given their papal privileges to administer the sacraments to the Indians in the early years of Spanish presence, when there was a great lack of secular priests in the province. The role of the regulars should thus be looked upon as a temporary solution. However, more than five decades later there were abundant secular priests who could replace them. Though there was still the need for some friars in the indigenous ministry, the bishops argued that within three years there would be enough secular priests to cover two thirds of the friars’ doctrinas. Further, as most of the newly-ordained secular clerics were born in New Spain, many of them knew indigenous languages since childhood.26 Already by 1582, Bishop Diego Romano informed the King that more than half (53%) of the secular beneficiaries in the diocese of Puebla were born in New Spain and the majority of them were born in that very diocese.27 According to the chronicler Miguel Zerón Zapata in 1635, there were 700 secular clerics in the diocese of Puebla, almost all of whom were born in the region, and in 1646 Bishop Palafox could write that all but four of the secular parish priests in his diocese were creoles.28 Thus, there was a rather rapid creolization of the secular clergy, while the mendicant orders still had a significant number of peninsulars. For the archdiocese of Mexico, Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna, in 1622, testified that the friars held no less than 112 doctrinas: 48 by Franciscans, 36 by Augustinians, and 28 by Dominicans. Unfortunately, he did not mention the number of parishes held by secular priests; only that there were “some” benefices held by secular priests. However, the archbishop states that there were 451 ordained secular priests in the archdiocese, plus a number of ordained deacons.29 According to other sources, it is possible to compute that the secular clerics held somewhere between sixty and seventy rural partidos at the 26

AGI, M 287: The bishops of New Spain to the King, December 5, 1585, cf. AGI, M 286: Congregación de San Pedro to the King, October 30, 1583. Cf. AGI, M 287: The provincials of the three Mendicant orders to the King, November 1, 1585 and Gerónimo de Mendieta OFM to the King, Puebla, April 15, 1587. 27 Viforcos Marinas 2000, 354. 28 Referred to in Piho 1981, 111. 29 Certified copy of documents, 29 July, 1622 (Carreño 1947, 262-276).

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time. Some twenty years later, Bishop Palafox indicated that by 1641 more than a thousand secular clerics lived in the archdiocese without stable benefices.30 The secularization of the Mendicant doctrinas was a lengthy process and the royal policy was contradictory. A 1583 royal decree had declared that the doctrinas of the regular clergy should be gradually transferred to the secular clergy. However, due to the fierce opposition of the Mexican friars, the decision was reversed only two years later when the King decreed a status quo, implying that the mendicants should stay as doctrineros in all places until further royal notice.31 Although the monarch did not voice any large-scale secularization of the doctrinas for a long time, during the first four decades of the seventeenth century a series of royal decrees were issued to settle the regular-secular conflicts. Many of them sought to strengthen episcopal control over the doctrineros. In decrees from 1603, 1618, 1624, 1634, 1639 and again subsequently, the monarch gave the bishops the right to visit the friars “in their office as” curates. Further, they or their assistants were given the right to examine mendicant doctrineros in Latinity, moral theology and indigenous languages before granting them license to administer the sacraments at a given location. Without such a license, friars would not have had the right to administer the doctrinas. The King also decreed that the friars did not administer the doctrinas ex voto charitatis, (by virtue of charity) as they themselves argued, but that the bishop-doctrinero relation was a legally-binding one and that their office should be carried out under the auspices of royal patronage.32 In New Spain, large-scale secularization attempts were very few until the arrival of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza as bishop of Puebla in 1640. Shortly after his arrival, between late December 1640 and early 30

Alvarez de Toledo 2004, 92. Reales Cédulas, March 26, 1583 (AGI, México 1064, lib. 2, fol. 91v) and 25 March, 1585 (Grijalva 1624, 555-557), cf. Poole 1987, 85-86. 32 See for example Reales Cédulas, El Escorial, November 14, 1603 (Carreño 1947, 122-123); Madrid, December 10, 1618 (ibid. 177); Madrid, June 22, 1624 (ibid. 296-298); Madrid, June 1634 (ibid. 341-343), and Madrid, June 11, 1637 (AGN, IV 1685, 1), En el pleyto, López de Solís 1635?, Mañozca y Zamora 1649. Cf. Mazín 2007 for the role of the Mexican cathedral chapter’s procurators in these conflicts. 31

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February 1641, he swiftly transferred no less than 36 regular doctrinas to altogether 150 secular beneficiaries. Of the doctrinas, the great majority—31 out of 36— belonged to the Franciscans, while three were administered by the Dominicans and two by Augustinian friars. The prelude to the secularization program was that Palafox ordered the friars to subject themselves to episcopal scrutiny regarding their knowledge of indigenous language, moral theology and Latinity. They were given very short notice to conform to the orders, but if they did not comply within the stipulated time they had have to leave their offices as doctrineros. Not complying with the episcopal order, the Franciscans lost almost all their doctrinas in the diocese; the only exception being the indigenous doctrina in the outskirts of Atlixco where the friars conformed to the bishop’s ultimatum. On the other hand, the Dominicans kept most of their doctrinas that were concentrated in the Mixteca and Tlapaneca areas close to the border with Oaxaca, while the Augustinians remained present in most of their doctrinas in the Sierra Alta de Puebla.33 In many cases, the change from mendicant to secular administration was rather peaceful. At other locations the bishop’s appointees met with opposition, friars took ornaments from the church buildings considering them their own property and not the property of the secular clergy. The friars also continued to live in their monasteries in the pueblos even after the secularization of the doctrinas. On rare occasions, individual friars even resorted to physical violence, but on the whole there was no opposition from the indigenous parishioners. Rik Hoekstra has argued that this occurred because the Franciscans, unlike their Dominican and Augustinian colleagues, needed alms, a system that in fact had been institutionalized and quite expensive for the natives. Therefore the indigenous people did not oppose secularization, but in fact welcomed it. In 1643, after his thorough secularization project, Palafox reported that the diocese of Puebla by then had 120 parishes (i.e., partidos, parroquías and doctrinas), and he was quite 33

AGN, IV 1685, 1 includes original decrees of secularization including the notifications of the friars, cf. Alegaciones 1648?, fol. 43 and Palafox 2000, 114-124. For studies of the Palafox secularization, see also Piho 1981, Álvarez de Toledo 2004, 66-70, and Rubial García 1998, 239. For the non-secularized Augustinian and Dominican doctrinas in the diocese, see also Rubial García 1998, 250 and in particular Calderón Quijano 1945.

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content with the fact that almost all of them were in the hands of the secular clergy.34 In contrast to the rapid developments in Puebla, there were no equivalent ventures in the archdiocese for yet another century, when the great centralization projects of the Bourbon-era from the mideighteenth century onwards changed the situation altogether. Until then many doctrinas in the most populous areas of Mexico remained with the friars and the secular-regular conflicts continued more or less as before.35

34 35

BNE, ms. 3048, fol. 14. See Hoekstra 1993, 161-193. Taylor 1996, 83-86.

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T C  M: P C D

[N]ullum nonmovimus lapidem, nulli sumptui pepercimus, ut volumen hoc oblivioni tradditum in lucem prodiret, preloque mandaretur, ut sic ad omnium agricolarum, & operariorum manus perveniret, & tantorum Decretorum ope uberiores proventus expectarentur.1

I

n September 1622, Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna could finally send the decrees of the Third Provincial Council of Mexico to the printers. Their publication was long overdue. He stated: “I have left no stone unmoved, nor have I spared any costs to bring this volume from its oblivion and have it printed, so that it will reach the hands of all workers and laborers [of this vineyard], who with the help of so many decrees can expect more abundant fruits.” Almost four decades had passed since the celebration of the Church meeting and there was much need for a new council, but the decrees of the Third Council were deemed to still be useful for the ministers in the whole Church province. In fact, the archbishop, in his prologue decreed that all priests in the Church province should own and use the decrees in their daily ministry. Provincial councils and diocesan synods were essential features in the consolidating, reforming, and centralizing endeavors of Early Modern Catholicism. According to the final decrees of Trent, bishops should gather the clergy to diocesan synods every year, while archbishops had the right and duty to summon their suffragans to provincial councils the year after the promulgation of council decrees and then every third year. During its 24th and penultimate session, the General Council pointed out the necessity of such meetings “for the control of conduct, correction of abuses [and] settling disputes”.2 1

Prologue to the first edition of decrees of the Third Provincial Council of Mexico, September 9, 1622 (SPCM 1622, Vr). 2 Council of Trent, sess. XXIV, de reformatione, chapter 2 (Tanner 1990, vol. 2: 760-761): “Provincialia Concilia, sicubi omissa sunt, pro moderandis moribus, cor59

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An Early Modern provincial council had no competence to define matters of faith, but should ensure the application of general Church law. Trying to achieve the centralizing goals, in the post-Tridentine era, decrees of synods and provincial councils had to be subject to revision by the Sacred Congregation of the Council in Rome that oversaw whether they were in accordance with the intent of the General Council. As for the Spanish Indies, the decrees also needed to be approved by the Crown to be legally valid. In Europe series of provincial councils and diocesan synods were gathered during the decades after Trent. Thereafter, the movement slowed down considerably. Though there were exceptions, the three-year intervals decreed by Trent were hardly kept in any part of the world. Due to the great distances between the bishoprics in the Spanish Indies, the Holy See granted a dispensation from the general law declaring that provincial councils should be gathered every five years. In a later papal brief the interval was altered to seven years. Eventually in 1610, the Pope decreed that in the Indies provincial councils should be held at least every twelve years. Still, during the entire sixteenth century only three provincial councils were held in the Mexican province in 1555, 1565 and 1585. In fact, these three sixteenth-century councils were the only ones to be convened before the late colonial period when a fourth council was summoned in 1771.3 T C, I D   R  P For the Church in seventeenth-century New Spain, no piece of regional ecclesiastical legislation was more important than the decrees of the Third Council. Gathered in 1585, the Council became a medullar piece in the construction of the developed ecclesiastical organization

rigendis excessibus, controversiis componendis, aliisque ex sacris canonibus permissis renoventur. Quare metropolitani per se ipsos, seu, illis legitime impeditis, coepiscopus antiquior intra annum ad minus a fine praesentis concilii, et deinde quolibet saltem triennio post octavam paschae resurrectionis domini nostril Iesu Christi, seu alio commodiori tempore, pro more provinciae, non praetermittat synodum in provincia sua cogere: quo episcopi omnes, et alii, qui de iure, vel consuetudine interesse debent, exceptis iis, quibus cum imminente periculo transfretandum esset, convenire omnino teneantur”. 3 Dussel 1983, 472. Cf. Recopilación [1680] 1774, lib I, tit. VIII, ley 1 and Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 12 (1911), s.v. “provincial council”.

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that had grown from the mid-sixteenth century onwards. It would, however, take a long time before the decrees of the Third Council were implemented. In this chapter, I will begin by considering the almost four-decade-long process that led from celebration to printing, while also reflecting on the relation between the text that the bishops approved in 1585 and the text that eventually was printed. However, my main focus will be on the printed version from 1622 as it was the text that the secular parish priests of New Spain had access to, and which they in fact were required to own and obey. Although the bishops at the Second Provincial Council of 1565 pledged formal allegiance to Trent, a more detailed regional application only came with the Third Council that was summoned by Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras. A new council had been planned for quite some time, but by 1585 all ten sees in the Church province were filled and the time seemed propitious for such a reunion. Moreover, apart from being archbishop, Moya de Contreras had been made interim viceroy and thus had much ecclesiastical and civil power invested in his person.4 Of the ten prelates in the Church province, seven eventually came to be present at the Council. Apart from the presiding archbishop, Pedro Moya de Contreras, himself a secular cleric, they were the Hieronymite bishop Gómez de Córdova of Guatemala, the Augustinian Juan de Medina Rincón of Michoacan, the secular cleric Diego Romano of Tlaxcala, and the Dominican bishops Gregorio de Montalvo of Yucatan, Domingo de Alzola of Guadalajara, and Bartolomé de Ledesma of Oaxaca. Three of the suffragan bishops, all of them Dominicans, did not attend the Council; Antonio de Hervias, bishop of Verapaz, was on his way back to Spain, Pedro de Feria of Chiapas fell off his mule on his way to the city of Mexico and was unable to proceed, and Domingo de Salazar, bishop of far-away Manila argued that the distance between the Philippines and Mexico was too great and that his diocese could not suffer from such a prolonged absence of its main pastor.5 4

Lebroc 1968. For an overview of the growing scholarship on the Third Mexican Council, see Carrillo Cázares 2006, vol. 1, xiii-xvi, xxix-xxxvii. 5 See Carrillo Cázares 2006-2007, vol. 1:1, xxix-xxxvii for biographical notes on the bishops.

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The Third Provincial Council of Mexico was inaugurated on January 20, 1585. As Stafford Poole has pointed out, it is difficult to establish the exact chronology of the conciliar deliberations though a basic outline can be made. More than the bishops themselves, a number of consultants played an important role in the daily work of the Council. The theological consultants were the Dominican Pedro de Pravia, the Augustinian Melchor de los Reyes and the Franciscan Juan Salmerón, but of particular importance were the Jesuit Juan de Plaza and the secular priest Hernando Ortiz de Hinojosa. Along with their help the bishops could also count on a group of canonists. Apart from these consultants, other members of the religious orders, as well as representatives of the secular clergy, also took an active part in the work, although only the bishops had the right to vote. Both before and during the Council a large number of memorials were submitted to the Council by ecclesiastical and secular individuals and corporations, including, for example, lengthy memorials from the absent bishops of Chiapas and Manila. Apart from the texts submitted to the Council, the conciliar fathers themselves formulated formal consultations (consultas) on different themes, which were studied by the consultants. After the consultants’ perusal, the bishops voted on the matters until a final document was agreed upon.6 By September 1585, when the Council was nearing its end, the bishops discussed whether a royal license was needed before the promulgation of the decrees. Put in another way: whether or not the King had to give his consent to the decrees before they could be read in public and be formally approved by the bishops. Whereas the archbishop defended the view that previous regal approval was essential, his suffragan bishops contradicted him. At last, and after considerable dispute, the decrees were indeed publicly read in the Mexican cathedral between October 18 and 20, after which the bishops gave their unanimous vote of approval, their placet. This was however, not the end of the controversy. Following the public promulgation, representatives of various cathedral chapters as well as the secular clergy in general argued that the decrees were, in fact, devoid of legal value, as their complaints had not been taken into account by the prelates. In particular they opposed the rigorous penalties against clerical transgressions that 6

See Poole 1987, 126-200, cf. Carrillo Cázares 2006-2007, vol. 1:1, xxxvii-liv.

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were stipulated in the decrees. Moreover, when the new viceroy, the Marquis of Villamanrique, arrived within a week after the promulgation of the final decrees, he was very critical and ruled that the decrees should not be executed until formally approved by the King. The debates over the Council continued and the bishops had to remain in the city well into the month of December before returning to their sees.7 The Council ended, its working papers were brought to the archives of the metropolitan cathedral and for various centuries they were kept there. Today, however, these documents are in the Bancroft Library at Berkeley. The story of how they got from one place to another is an illustration of a quite common fate of colonial Mexican books and manuscripts. During the anti-clerical politics of the Juárez era, in 1861, the documents were extracted from the archiepiscopal archives by the very person who was placed to guard them, a politician from Zacatecas named Basilio Pérez Gallardo. They were subsequently purchased by Agustín Fischer, an infamous priest of German origin, later in the service of Emperor Maximilian. After the execution of Maximilian and the exile of Fischer to Europe, large parts of the priest’s important collection of books and manuscripts were sold at an auction in London in 1869 and the papers of the provincial council were sometime later acquired by the US collector and historian Hubert Howe Bancroft. In the beginning of the twentieth century, the manuscripts were eventually integrated into the library at Berkeley that bears his name.8 The 1,200 folios in four volumes in the Bancroft Library include two Spanish versions of the decrees of the Third Council, but above all a wide array of working papers that were used in the preparation of the final decrees: memorials, petitions, consultations and excerpts from other synods and councils, as well as the original decrees of the First and Second Mexican Councils, the main sources of their sequel.9 7

For details on the complicated bureaucratic turns, see Poole 1968: 129-155, 187-197. 8 See Lundberg 2006 for a detailed description of the itinerary of the manuscripts. 9 The Bancroft Manuscripts, (M-M 266—269), have been published by Alberto Carrillo Cázares, who also includes translations of the Latin documents. Cf. Carrillo Cázares 2006, for the first tome (M-M 268; 455 fols; mainly memorials and

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In order to achieve papal and royal approbation, the bishops appointed the maestrescuela of the cathedral chapter of Tlaxcala, Francisco de Beteta, to travel to Europe as their procurator. By 1586 the manuscript and Beteta had made it to the Council of the Indies, from where the matter was rapidly forwarded to the Holy See.10 Having reached Rome, representatives of the Sacred Congregation of the Council scrutinized the Latin version of the conciliar decrees that had been prepared in Mexico, probably by the Jesuit Pedro Ortigosa. This version is still found in the Vatican archives. According to Ernest J. Burrus this version was carefully examined and “thoroughly revised and radically changed” by the consultants of the Curia. In fact it was “re-written from the first to the last word”.11 Apart from linguistic corrections, Burrus, but also Stafford Poole, note that the Congregation in its revision generally tended to lessen the rigor of the penalties imposed against both laymen and clergy. They also moderated the regalistic flavor of the original.12 On October 28, 1589, Pope Sixtus V, through the bull Romanum Pontificem, approved the thoroughly-revised decrees of the Third Council, but two more years would pass until the Spanish Crown gave its approbation on September 18, 1591. Archbishop Moya de Contreras had left Mexico for Spain shortly after the termination of the Council and served as an unofficial advisor on American matters. By 1591, shortly before his death, he had become the President of the Council of the Indies.13 This circumstance most probably influenced the fact that “his” Council finally received the much sought-after royal approbation. Having thus received both royal and papal approbation, the printing of the decrees seemed to be a simple affair. However, such would not be the case. Citing the “great works and costs” involved,

consultations) in two volumes, and Carrillo Cázares 2007, for the second tome (M-M 269; 363 fols; consultations) in two volumes. A forthcoming third tome will include the remaining texts (M-M 266 and 267; 320 + 100 fols.), these two originally being bound in one volume. 10 Poole 1968, 150-151. 11 Burrus 1967, 390-402, citations on p. 390. See also Napoli 1991 and Albani 2009, 100-115 for the role of the Congregation. 12 Poole 1968, 153. 13 Poole 1968, 153. On Moya’s last years, see Poole 1990.

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in 1589, Francisco de Beteta was able to secure for himself a twentyyear papal privilege for the publication of the decrees. However, such a publication was postponed for a long time and Beteta was not able to enjoy his privilege. It even seems that the bull Romanum Pontificem was not made known in Mexico.14 In 1610, Archbishop García Guerra deplored the fact that the only printed synodal decrees of the Mexican Church province were those which had been published by Archbishop Montúfar in 1556. He stated that the acts of the Third Council were still unpublished, although 25 years had passed. A new council was long overdue. Guerra asserted that this lack of Church meetings was due to the fact that the viceroys wanted to preside over them, something which the bishops did not accept. Guerra only wanted to call a council if the bishops were granted their full ecclesiastical liberty.15 In fact, it was only after the arrival of Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna in 1613 that there is clear evidence of any concrete attempts to publish the decrees of the Third Council. In letters to the King, the Archbishop argued that the Church province needed fixed laws for those in charge of the cure of souls.16 To be on the safe side the Archbishop secured new royal privileges for the publication in 1621. In another royal letter, the new King, Philip IV, wrote that the original copy of the acts of the Council were in his court and had been sent to Mexico, but as sea transportation was uncertain he also sent a notarized copy (treslado authoriçado) with another ship.17 Finally, in 1622—38 years after the Council—the decrees of the Third Council were printed in the Mexico offices of Juan Ruiz under the title Sanctum Provinciale Concilium Mexici. This editio princeps is in a folio format totaling 148 leaves with an elaborate frontispiece by the engraver Samuel Strandanus.18 Apart from the first edition, to date 14

Poole 1987, 199-201. AGI, M 337: Archbishop Guerra to the King, 27 May, 1610. The decrees of the 1556 edition of the First Council are now available in a facsimil edition: Primer Concilio 2007. 16 Pérez Puente 2006, 26-35. 17 Reales cédulas, Madrid, 9 February, 1621 and 2 April, 1621 (SPCM 1622, IrIIr). 18 The complete title is Sanctum prouinciale concilium Mexici celebratum anno D[omi]ni millessmo. quingentessmo. octuagessimo quinto. : Praesidente in eo Illmo. 15

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the text has been published at least a dozen times; most of them in various European collections of Council decrees.19 Of the abundant written material resulting from the Council, its decrees were the only ones to be printed during the colonial era. Several other texts were prepared for publication, but would remain in manuscript form. The Council produced a smaller and a larger catechism, written by the Jesuit Juan de la Plaza,20 as well as a voluminous guide for confessors (Directorio para confesores), of which there are several known manuscript copies. The latter work was not a mere confessional aid, but a more detailed work that was planned to be used for the training of priests to hear confessions. It is a common view that the work was at least principally authored by Juan de la Plaza.21 Though not known to be extant even in manuscript form, there are notes that indicate that the Council also produced a sacramental manual to be used in the Church province.22 However, in the 1622 printed edition, apart from the decrees, there is also a collection of statutes for the Mexican Church—Statuta ordinata, à sancto Concilio Provinciali Mexicano III. These statutes included the erection documents of the Mexican cathedral from 1536 and a collection of rules for the cathedral chapters.23 ac Rmo. D. D. Petro Moya de Contreras Archiepo. Mexicano. Romae confirmatum die vigessima septima Octobris anno. 1589. Nunc vero ad instantiam et ex sumptibus Illmi. ac Rmi. D. D. Ioannis de la Serna Archiep. Mexican. iussu regio editum. Mexici: Apud Ioannem Ruiz typographum, anno Domini. 1622. [6], 102, [1], 38, [1] leaves, hereafter referred to as SPCM 1622. 19 A new separate edition was published in Mexico in 1770 under the auspices of Archbishop Lorenzana. A Latin-Spanish edition was edited in Mexico in 1859 and again in Barcelona in 1870. The recent CD-ROM edition (Concilios Provinciales Mexicanos 2004) only includes the Spanish translation. 20 Burrus 1958. 21 A transcription of the manuscript in the Spanish national library is included in the CD-Rom edition, Concilios Provincialez Mexicanos 2004 together with an introductory study by María del Pilar Martínez López-Cano, Elisa García Berumen and Marcela Rocío García Hernández. Cf. Martínez Ferrer 1996 and Martínez Ferrer 1998 for studies of the work. 22 Burrus 1967, 396, Poole 1987,162. 23 Statuta ordinate, à sancto Concilio Provinciali Mexicano III. (SPCM 1622, separate pagination 1r-37r).

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T S  I   D According to the conciliar text itself, upon publication every cathedral church in the ecclesiastical province was obliged to acquire two copies of its decrees. Moreover, within six months of its publication every parish church should have purchased a copy of the book and have it placed in the choir or in the sacristy. Apart from that, all parish priests were to purchase a copy of their own. If they failed to comply with this decree, they were to be fined.24 The opposition to the Council, its promulgation and publication had been harsh, and the conflicts did not end with its printing. By 1622, the opposition was above all voiced by the viceroy and the friars. They argued that the decrees were obsolete as almost four decades had passed, but above all the opposition had to do with the status of the doctrinas and the mendicant doctrineros, and whether the latter could be obliged to acquire and obey the decrees of the Council. In a recent article, Letitia Pérez Puente investigates the problems involved in the distribution and implementation of the decrees, relating them to the seemingly unending conflicts between bishops and friars. For Archbishop Pérez de la Serna it was patently obvious that both secular and regular ministers should have to acquire and use the newly-published book. Without any doubt, copies of the conciliar decrees were widely distributed among the secular clergy. However, as for the friars, the situation was more complex, and they probably did not use the book in any major degree, though it was found in many monastery libraries.25 Most of the legislative corpus of the Third Mexican Council is based on other legal sources. A main source was of course the decrees of the General Council of Trent (1545-1563), while only few explicit references are made to earlier ecumenical councils. References to both Spanish and Spanish American synods are numerous. Among the latter the First Provincial Council of Mexico (1555) holds the most prominent place, followed by the Third Council of Lima (1583). The list of 24

Lib I, tit. II: De constitutionibus. De auctoritate decretorum, et publicatione eorum (SPCM 1622, 6r-7r); cf. Lib III, tit. II: De officio parochi & doctrinæ cura (SPCM 1622, 46r). 25 Poole 1968, Poole 1987, 200-204, and Pérez Puente 2006. It is also interesting to know that of the many copies of the Council decrees in the Mexican national library, no less than thirteen have a clear provenance from a monastery library.

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Spanish synods and councils that served as sources is long. While some older church meetings, such as the 1512 Council of Seville and the 1554 Synod of Guadix, are included, most references are made to the series of post-Tridentine congregations and in particular to the Councils of Toledo (1565, 1582), Granada (1565, 1572), and Santiago de Compostela (1566). Most important for the bishops were also the six influential synods that were presided over by Archbishop Charles Borromeo of Milan in the 1560s and 1570s. Apart from ecclesiastical law, there are also references to royal decrees as well as the Catechism of the Council of Trent.26 The decrees of the Third Council dealt with a variety of themes. Much space was given, for example, to the organization of the ecclesiastical court of law and several decrees dealt with the bishop’s office.27 However, in the remainder of this Chapter I will only analyze the contents that have to do with priests, parish ministry and indigenous parishioners, which also were salient themes in the final decrees. Such questions were also dealt with in many of the petitions and memorials treated at the Council, but also in the unpublished Directorio de Confesores, which was prepared and approved by the Council. However, as I am only interested in the norms which secular parish priests had access to, I will only analyze the published decrees referring to the 1622 editio princeps. T P An important part of Tridentine reform had to do with the reform of the lives of priests. Referring to the 23rd session of the General Council, the Third Mexican Council presented a large number of requirements for what should characterize clerics in terms of background, education, behavior and outward appearance. Those who would be ordained should have a relevant education, show integrity of life and be renowned as honest people. Their public standing was of utmost importance. The ordination and incardination into clerical status went through various stages. The first was the tonsure—the door to 26

Lebroc 1969, 159-201, includes a comparative study of a number of passages of Trent and the Third Council of Mexico. 27 E.g. Lib 1, tit. VIII and Lib 2, tit. II, tit. 2 (SPCM 1622, 14v-32v).

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clerical status—followed by the minor orders that were not seen as part of the sacrament of Holy Orders, but as a preparatory stage, as those who had been conferred the minor orders could leave the clerical state in order to be married. However, no young man should be tonsured, which could be done at the age of fourteen, without declaring his firm intention to remain in the clerical state. To be admitted to the minor orders, the young man would have to know the basics of ecclesiastical chant and have been trained in the reading of the hours. Moreover, before being admitted to the priesthood, for which the minimum age was age 25, the candidates should be examined by the master of ceremonies of the cathedral and be questioned in moral theology.28 Ordination to the priesthood implied the right and duty to celebrate Mass, but did not per se involve the right to confess, for which a special license was required. An ordained priest to be promoted to a parish benefice should be thoroughly examined in the administration of sacraments, and in particular in the sacrament of penitence. Apart from the diocesan bishop or his vicar general, there should be a tribunal of three experienced examiners.29 After being ordained, the bishop should see to it that the clerics received further training in moral theology. All clerics, who did not hold at least a bachelor’s degree in theology or canon law, would attend classes held by a canonist or a theologian. Moreover, priests appointed to indigenous benefices were required to know the language(s) spoken in the parish, and should therefore be examined in them. If their knowledge was found inadequate they were required to improve within six months or otherwise be deprived of their benefice.30 Apart from making decrees on the formation of the clergy, the Council included a number of rules on their social background. Before being admitted to Holy Orders, the family background and moral standing of the ordinands would be investigated. Ordinands could not be known gamblers or criminals, and in the past they should have confessed and comulgated on a regular basis. Though it was pointed out 28

Lib. 1, tit. IV: De ætate et qualitate ordinandorum, et præficiendorum. (SPCM 1622, 8v-10r). 29 Lib. 1, tit. IV: De ætate et qualitate ordinandorum, et præficiendorum (SPCM 1622, 10r-12r). 30 Lib. 3, tit. I: De doctrinæ cura (SPCM 1622, 41r-42r).

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that it was of no fault of their own, no people with “natural defects”, i.e., handicapped people, were to be admitted to Holy Orders. Referring to the statutes of “purity of blood”, it was indicated, that men who were sons or paternal grandsons of people who had been sentenced by the Inquisition should not be admitted. The ordination of people other than Hispanics was a matter of contention and the Latin text of this matter is somewhat strange. Stafford Poole made a good English translation of the passage from the 1622 printed edition: “Whence also [Inde etiam] neither Mexicans [or metixi], whether from Indians or Moors, nor mulattoes in the first degree, are to be admitted to orders without great caution”. The passage had been subject to complete revision by Rome, as the bishop’s original 1585 text, in fact, barred these groups from Holy Orders, as did the First Council of 1555.31 There were also economic aspects related to the admittance to Holy Orders. As an ordained person was not allowed to perform other kind of labor, and secular clerics were not allowed to beg, the future priest should be able to prove that he would be able to sustain himself after ordination through family support, chaplaincy or another kind of benefice. However, a person with thorough knowledge in one or various indigenous languages, and in particular others than Nahuatl, could be ordained “with the title of a language”, as there was a great need in the indigenous ministry.32 In their outward appearance as well as in their behavior, priests should be clearly distinguishable from laymen. They should show honesty, modesty and composition in their way of life, so that they did not cause any scandal and thus threaten the esteem of their office and ministry. This was deemed particularly important for priests working in indigenous parishes. In line with this view, the Council included a number of very concrete rules that regulated the way they looked, how they were to be clad and stipulated what they should refrain from doing. The First Mexican Council had included many of these rules, but the bishops also referred explicitly to Trent and to various provincial councils and diocesan synods. The tonsure was a distinct mark of 31

Lib. 1, tit. IV: De vita, fama & moribus ordinandorum, (SPCM 1622, 9v-10r), translation in Poole 1981, 646. Cf. First Provincial Council of Mexico, § 44 (Primer concilio [1556] 2007, xxii r-v). 32 Lib. 1, tit. IV: De vita, fama & moribus ordinandorum, (SPCM 1622, 9v-10r).

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clerical status. At all times a priest should therefore have a well-shaved tonsure, he was not allowed to grow a beard nor wear secular clothing. Clerics should only be allowed to wear a black gown with a cape that reached down to the heels, though when travelling a somewhat shorter habit could be used. The cassock should not be made of silk or other luxurious fabrics and not be adorned in any way, if a specific academic status or office did not call for such distinctions. On the other hand, priests were not allowed to wear filthy or worn-out clothes. Transgressions against these rules, and in particular against the ban on secular clothing, should be harshly punished; in severe cases even including suspension from office or deprivation of benefice.33 Apart from the external appearance of the clergy, the Council also included a number rules on practices which the clerics should abstain from. By threat of excommunication, they were not to attend bull fights, be drunk or wear masquerade costumes. Neither should they dance, play instruments in public places or sing profane songs. Except when travelling through war zones, they were not allowed to be armed. The Council also included a small catalogue of decrees against clerical gambling, including the exercise of certain parlor games.34 As it was deemed against the nature of the clerical office, clerics were prohibited from engaging in any type of business activities which was particularly important for priests working amongst indigenous people.35 The curas de indios should not have more than two horses, own dogs or house suspicious people, gamblers or vagabonds, nor vex the Indians.36 In accordance with the clerical rules of sexual continence, priests should, of course, not have concubines and refrain from any contact with women that could be seen as suspect. When employing women as servants, they should not employ women of a “suspicious age”, least of all in pueblos de indios, but only women that had passed that age, although precisely what this age was is not specified. Depending on the 33

Lib. 3, tit. V: De clericorum habitu & cultu externo, (SPCM 1622, 52v-53v). Lib. 3, tit. V: De evitandos spectaculis vanis et actionibus prophanis, and De ludis clericis prohibitis, (SPCM 1622, 53v-56r). 35 Lib. 3, tit. XX: Nè clerici, vel monachi negotiis secularibus se immisceant, (SPCM 1622, 77v-78v). 36 Lib. 3, tit. II: De his, quæ ad Parochos indorum attinent, (SPCM 1622, 1622, 49v-50v). 34

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severity of the transgression and number of relapses, the cleric found guilty could be punished by fines, excommunication, imprisonment, suspension, loss of his benefice (thus losing his office and honor) or be forced into exile.37 In order not to cause suspicion or scandal, the priest should only hear confessions of women in the church building, in a confessionary. In line with this, the priest should not enter Indian homes unaccompanied, to ensure there would be no grounds for suspicion.38 T P M According to the Council, and referring to the Fifth Synod of Charles Borromeo, the parish priests should be guides, teachers and doctors of the parishioners: guiding them to heaven, teaching the doctrine of the Roman Church and curing them from their spiritual sicknesses.39 It was decreed that no priest should administer the sacraments in any place other than the one designated to them without the license of the bishop.40 Following the Tridentine legislation against absenteeism, the priest should not be absent from the parish without special license from the bishop and such a license should not be given without due cause. In the conciliar acts, the parish priests are presented as coadjutors to the bishop and should thus be his stand-ins on the local scene. At all times, they should consider the burden that had been laid on their shoulders by the bishops and the King and should consult the decrees of the Council for guidance. As coadjutors of the diocesan prelates, preaching and administration of sacraments were their main duties as the parish clergy. On Sundays and obligatory feast days, the priest was required to preach to the parishioners. The sermons should be given at a level deemed expedient for the audience, and be particularly centered on the Christian doctrine considered essential for attaining salvation. In each sermon, they should focus on one concrete 37

Lib. 5, tit. X: De concubinatu, & pænis concubinariorum, et leononum, (SPCM 1622, 92v-94r). 38 Lib. 3, tit. II: De his, quæ ad Parochos indorum attinent, (SPCM 1622, 49v50v). 39 Lib. 1, tit. IV: De vita, fama & moribus ordinandorum, (SPCM 1622, 9v-10r). 40 Lib. 3, tit. XI: De parochiis, (SPCM 1622, 62v).

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place in the gospels, which should be interpreted in accordance with the tradition of the Church.41 Using a phrase from St. Gregory of Nazianzus, the Third Council pointed out that the cure of alms was “the art of the arts and the science of sciences”. The sacraments were the medicine of the soul and the priest should not deny the faithful their spiritual food, but rather do all in his power to administer them.42 The celebration of the Mass should be according to the new Roman missal and the reading of the hours according to the new Roman breviary.43 Priests should take communion and celebrate Mass at least on Sundays and other feast days.44 The other sacraments should be administered with the help a new rituale to be published after revision by the Holy See.45 Such a manual was, however, not published. The priest should invigilate the lives of the parishioners, and oversee that they confessed and took communion on a yearly basis. Therefore, he should make a padrón, a list of all parishioners over the age of ten, in order to record the people who did go to confession and Mass. Those who did not go to confession or comulgate as required should be given one chance to repent; otherwise they should be castigated. Another part of the control of the parishioners was the necessity to keep books in which baptisms, marriages and deaths were recorded. As rural parishes were made up by several villages, the parish clergy was obliged to visit all the pueblos in the jurisdiction at least twice a year to instruct the people there. Apart from this, they were required to go out to spiritually attend to the sick and dying when called upon. The priests were required to know the language of the parishioners, but he should make recourse to an interpreter if necessary.46 Likewise, the Council stressed that the cleric should not give absolution if he had 41

Lib 1, tit. 1: De doctrina christiana rudibus tradenda, (SPCM 1622, 3r-5r). Lib. 3, tit. II: De officio parochi, & doctrinæ cura, (SPCM 1622, 46r). 43 Lib. 3, tit. XV: De celebratione missarum & divinorum officiorum, (SPCM 1622, 69r-72v). 44 Lib. 3, tit. V: De usu frequenti Eucharistiæ, (SPCM 1622, 56r). 45 Lib. 3, tit. XV: De celebratione missarum & divinorum officiorum, (SPCM 1622, 69r-72v), cf. Lib. 1, tit. V: De usu frequenti Eucharistiae, (SPCM 1622, 56r). 46 Lib. 3, tit. II: De aministratione sacramentorum, (SPCM 1622, 46r-47r); Lib. 3, tit. II: De his, quæ ad Parochos indorum attinent, (SPCM 1622, 49v-50v). 42

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not understood the exact contents of the confession, but in such cases refer confessants to another priest with better knowledge.47 T I P In the decrees of the Third Council there were no separate constitutions for Indians, but on many occasions the decrees specified if a certain rule was applicable to Indians or only to Spaniards or other groups. As in many other ecclesiastical sources of the time, the Indians were generally and collectively described as “new in the faith”, “new plants”, “inconsistent”, and “pusillanimous”. Believing their thought condition to be that of perpetual childhood, the curates were ordered to treat the Indians well. If they were not treated well, the Council argued, the Indians would not dare to confess their sins and thus be “deprived of the healthy remedy of penitence”. Acting like fathers of children, the priests could impart punishments on the natives, however the Council pointed out that the priest should never personally punish the Indians, but refer the actual punishment to the fiscales, and instructed that the punishment should be “moderate”.48 In line with its general view of Indians as pusillanimous, as a group they were included in the category of “rudes”, together with children and slaves. As such they were considered the most in need of catechetical teaching, so to ensure that they did not lack the fundamentals of faith necessary for salvation. The Council decreed that the catechetical instruction should be carried out according to the catechisms that were produced by the Council and should be translated into the major languages of the province, and thereafter examined. However, such a unified catechism was not printed as a result of the Council. The knowledge deemed necessary for all people, including “the rudes”, were these eight things: the Lord’s Prayer; the Hail Mary; the Apostles’ Creed; the antiphon Salve Regina; the Twelve Articles of the Faith; the Ten Commandments; the Five Commandments of the Church; and, the Seven Cardinal Sins. These parts of Christian doctrine were to be recited frequently and the priest ought to explain parts of the doctrine every Sunday after Mass, as the decree asserted that the Indians easily forgot what 47

Lib 5, tit. XII: De penitentiis & remissionibus, (SPCM 1622, 97v-99r). Lib. 3, tit. II: De solicitudine præstanda, ut peccatis remedium adhibeatur, (SPCM 1622, 49r-v). 48

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they have learned and they had to be attended to constantly. While, according to the acts of the Council, Indians should generally be taught in their own language, it is pointed out that the so-called Chichimecs should be taught in Spanish. Though it is not stated explicitly in this context, it was a common view among ecclesiastics of the time that the languages of the latter were thought to be too barbarous to convey the Christian message.49 The basic religious duties of an adult baptized person entailed hearing Mass on Sundays and obligatory feast days, fasting at prescribed times, as well as yearly confession, communion at Easter and the payment of tithes. These requirements were generally known as the Five Commandments of the Church. Though greatly discussed during the sixteenth century, the Third Council does not include any decree on whether the indigenous population should pay tithes. The First Council had included such a decree, but, due to royal opposition, the Second Council exempted them from payment.50 However, the other commandments of the Church were mandatory for the indigenous population. Thus, all indigenous parishioners should hear an entire Mass every Sunday and also attend Mass on the obligatory feast days. By means of a 1537 privilege, Pope Paul III had considerably reduced the number of feast days that Indians had to observe. Apart from the Sunday Mass, they were required to attend Mass on Christmas, the Circumcision of Our Lord, Epiphany, Easter Day, the Ascension of Our Lord, the first day of Pentecost, Corpus Christi, the Nativity of Our Lady, the Annunciation, the Purification of Our Lady, the Assumption of Our Lady, and the Feast of Peter and Paul. Other feast days, which were mandatory for other population groups were not obligatory for the indigenous population, but they should not have to work on those days.51 As regards to fasting, the same papal privilege had reduced the number of fasting days applicable to the 49

Lib. 1, tit. I: De Doctrina Christiana rudibus tradenda, (SPCM 1622, 3r4r); Lib. 1, tit. I: De sacramentis doctrinæ christianæ ignaris non administrandis, (SPCM 1622, 4v), Lib. 3, tit. II: De his, quæ ad Parochos indorum attinent, (SPCM 1622, 49v-50v). 50 See Lundberg 2002, chapter 5 for a review of the debate on Indian tithes. 51 Lib. 2, tit. III: De Feriis, (SPCM 1622, 33r-35v).

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indigenous population to a bare minimum; it only included the Fridays during Lent, as well as the vigil before Christmas and Holy Saturday.52 All seven sacraments of the church were available to the indigenous population, though indigenous men should only be admitted to Holy Orders with great caution. Of the seven sacraments, the parish priest could administer five of them while confirmation and ordination were the prerogative of the bishop. The Council declared that children should be baptized within nine days of their birth and that baptism should not be held outside the church buildings. In relation to the baptism, the bishops also declared that children should only be named after persons in the New Testament (understood as after Christ and in practice ordinary Spanish names), while they prohibited the names of the Old Testament together with the names used in Mexico before the arrival of the Spaniards.53 The indigenous population should have access to the sacrament of the Eucharist; in fact, adults were required to take yearly communion.54 The sacred sacrament could be public in areas in which it was deemed decent and safe and with license of the bishops.55 The Indians, who had reached the age of distinction, should have also have access to the sacrament of extreme unction and should not have to be brought to the church in order to receive the last rites, as the priest should go there when called upon.56 In the decrees of the Third Council one entire book—the fourth—is devoted to the sacrament of marriage, particularly based on the decrees of the 24th session of Trent. In accordance with Trent the Mexican Council took a clear stance against clandestine marriages, i.e., that marriages should be contracted in the presence of priest and witnesses or otherwise be invalid. The contract of marriage should be preceded by three public banns. It was particularly pointed out that 52

Lib. 3, tit. XXI: De observatione ieiuniorum, (SPCM 1622, 78v-80r). Lib. 3, tit. XVI: De Baptismo, (SPCM 1622, 72v-73r). 54 Lib. 3, tit. II: De administratione sacramentorum (SPCM 1622, 46r-46v). 55 Lib. 3, tit. XVII: De Sanctissimo Eucharistiæ sacramento et eius custodia, (SPCM 1622, 73r-74v). 56 Lib. 1, tit. VI: De Sacra unctione, (SPCM 1622, 12v-13v). 53

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Indians should be able to marry freely and that neither Spaniards nor their local leaders should interfere in this process.57 Finally, and referring explicitly to the decrees of the First Mexican Council, the Third Council includes a couple of paragraphs pertaining to the extirpation of idolatry. One of the main duties of the parish priest was to hinder the Indians from returning to their idolatries “as dogs to their vomit”. They should not be allowed to adorn themselves in pre-Conquest attire, sing their old songs or dance inside the church building. However, if they danced, they should not do it in a hidden place, but in public where they could be observed by the clerics. Their “idols” and “temples” should be “destroyed, and totally annihilated”. As a part of the attempts to extirpate idolatry, the Indians should not be allowed to live dispersed in mountainous areas, but be congregated in villages.58 The decrees of the Third Provincial Council were the cornerstone of ecclesiastical legislation. Among other things, the documents included laws on the duties of parish priests and parishioners and the ideal parish administration. According to the decrees and Archbishop Pérez de la Serna’s foreword to the greatly reworked text of the printed edition, all parish priests, whether secular or regular, should own and use a copy of the decrees. However, at the time of the printing the decrees were already somewhat obsolete as they had been promulgated almost four decades before. But as no ecclesiastical document of equal status was made public in New Spain during the colonial era, at least in theory, the decrees of the Third Provincial Council came to have an importance even during the nineteenth century.

57

Lib. 4, tit. I-II: De sponsalibus & matrimoniis, and De cognatione spirituali & aliis matrimonii impedimentis (SPCM 1622, 80v-83v). 58 Lib. 1, tit. I: De impedimentis propriæ salutis, ab indis removendis, (SPCM 1622, 5r-6r); cf. Lib. 5, tit. IV: De hæreticis (SPCM 1622, 87v-88r).

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T B’ E: V R

Dixe misa en este pueblo y predique en lengua mexicana a los naturales y conuirtirtiendoles mi platica en su lengua su fiscal y hallose en esta missa toda la, mas gente del pueblo de Naolinga de la Corona, sugeto en la doctrina al clérigo de Tlacolula por manera que este beneficiado consta destos tres pueblos que tienen mas 1,130 tributarios cassados. Confirmé en este pueblo ansi de sus vecinos como de los de Naolinga 1,350 criaturas españoles y naturales y asi mismo de otro pueblo que se llama Atocpa que dista quarto leguas todos sufraganeos desta doctrina. Tube oy gran auditorio de naturales expliqueles la lei de Dios y sus mandamientos y los articulos de su fee que esta escassos destos, con que se remato felizmente en seruivio de nuestro Señor y bien destos naturales deste dia de Domingo.1

T

his is how Alonso de la Mota y Escobar described his activities during a pastoral visitation to the Totonac pueblo of Jilotepec in November 1609. Throughout his almost two decades as the bishop of Puebla, Mota made a dozen longer or shorter visitation tours through large parts of his diocese. In the memorials that he kept during the tours, Mota wrote succinct notes on road quality, local climes, crops, flora and fauna, and made estimates of the population size. He also wrote down judgments on the status of the indigenous Christianity and made evaluations of the parish clergy’s mores and ways of ministry. Though Bishop Mota y Escobar was one of the most ardent visitors in central Mexico during the seventeenth century, several other archbishops and bishops made visitation tours to at least parts of their dioceses. Some of them also wrote down descriptions of their experiences. Given the vast array of information that can be obtained from visitation documents, they have often proved to be precious sources for scholars. For Early Modern Europe there is an abundance of such studies. Apart from analyses of the practice of visitations as such, there is 1

Mota y Escobar 1945, 201. 79

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also a growing number of works on social, cultural, religious and economic aspects, for which researchers have used visitation records as their main sources.2 Nevertheless, in the case of Mexico, there are still few detailed studies on pastoral visitations although in the last year things have started to change.3 T I  V Enforcing already-existing canon law, during its 24th and penultimate session, the Council of Trent decreed that bishops throughout the Catholic world should regularly and personally visit all the parishes in their dioceses.4 Although the decrees made it clear that the visitation institute should be used to combat heterodox beliefs and practices, they also stressed its pastoral and catechetical features. The chief aim of all these visitations will be to ensure sound and orthodox teaching and the removal of heresies, to safeguard good practices and correct evil ones, to encourage the people by exhortation and warning to the practice of religion, peace and blameless life, and to make any dispositions for the benefit of the people that place, time and opportunity may suggest to the wisdom of the visitors. That all this may the more easily and smoothly come about, each and all those mentioned above who are concerned in visitations are charged to embrace all with fatherly love and Christian zeal.5

According to Tridentine discourse, the diocesan bishop should above all be a pastor of his flock. But to be able to lead the people with 2

Cf. Martín Riego 1999, 157-203. For a bibliography on European visitations, see Cárcel Ortí 1999, 9-135. 3 See, however, Brescia 2002 and Bravo Rubio & Pérez Iturbe 2004. 4 The Council of Trent, sess. 24, decretum de reformatione, canon 3 (Tanner 1990, vol. 2, 761-763. 5 The Council of Trent, sess. 24, decretum de reformatione, canon 3 (Tanner 1990, vol. 2, 762): “Visitationum autem omnium istarum praecipuus sit scopus, sanam orthodoxamque doctrinam, expulsis haeresibus, inducere, bonos mores tueri, pravos corrigere, populum cohortationibus et admonitionibus ad religionem, pacem innocentiamque accendere, cetera, prout locus, tempus et occasio feret, ex visitantium prudentia ad fidelium fructum constituere. Quae ut facilius feliciusque succedant, monentur praedicti omnes et singuli, ad quos visitatio spectat ut paterna charitate christianoque zelo omnes amplectantur.”

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 ’ :  

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whose souls he had been entrusted, and to keep them within the fold, he ought to be present in his diocese. To escape from one’s obligation as a pastor without due cause was considered a grave sin. In fact, episcopal absenteeism was one of the main targets for the Catholic reform movement, both before and after Trent. As the main pastor in the diocese, the bishop should not only be present at his see. Ideally, he should be in constant interaction with his flock, but as dioceses were big the bishop had to delegate the daily responsibility for the local flock to the parish clergy, who served as his coadjutors. The regular visitation of parishes was, therefore, seen as a means to ameliorate this circumstance and bring the main pastor and his flock closer together, albeit for a short period of time. Through the pastoral visitations, the bishop should be able to get to know something about the local church life and the faithful, and the parishioners should be able to recognize the authority of the bishop.6 Building on the decrees of Trent, the Third Mexican Council (1585) emphasized the bishops’ roles as pastors and teachers. In its first book, under the heading De prædicatione verbi Dei, the Council stated that the bishops’ main duty “as successors of the apostles” was to “teach the gospel to the people” so that the faithful were “nourished with sane doctrine”.7 The Council further emphasized that the prelate should always have the people’s salvation as the main objective of all his actions. He should be a role model for the flock and look upon himself as their guardian angel.8 Under the heading De Visitatione propiae provinciae, the Council refers to the bishops’ privilege, and consequently their obligation, to visit the parishes in all parts of their dioceses. The text underscores that the flock was greatly helped by the personal presence 6

For a study of religious authority in Early Modern Spain, see Homza 2000. For a detailed contemporary commentary on the Tridentine decrees on pastoral visitations, cf. Altamirano 1581. 7 Third Mexican Council, Lib. I, tit. I: De prædicatione verbi Dei, § I, (SPCM 1622, 2r-v). Cf. the Council of Trent, sess 24, decretum de reformatione, can. 4 (Tanner 1990, vol. 2, 763). 8 Third Mexican Council, Lib III, tit. I: De his, quae ad propriam episcopi personam pertinent, § I-IV (SPCM 1622, 40r-v).

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of its main pastor and, if not legitimately impeded, he should visit all parts of his diocese annually or at least biannually.9 However, already at the time of the Third Mexican Council, the attending bishops pointed out that their dioceses were too large and that a complete visitation tour would require two or three years’ full-time work. Therefore, under present circumstances the Council legislation was seen as too demanding and the dioceses needed to be divided in smaller portions.10 If legitimately hindered to personally visit the diocese—or parts of it—the bishop could appoint a visitor general or a visitor of commission to carry out visitations in his name, as is outlined by the Third Synod in a separate chapter called De Visitationibus. Such a visitor could also assist the bishop during his personal visitations.11 The pastoral visitation of a parish had two main facets. The visitatio hominum included the scrutiny of the clergy and the parishioners, whereas the visitatio rerum consisted of the inspection of the church building and objects kept therein.12 Trying to establish a clear format for the visitation, the Third Mexican Council devoted several paragraphs to the matter. When arriving in a parish, the bishop should begin with the visitatio rerum by overseeing the status of the church building, the Holy Sacrament in its tabernacle, the holy oils, and the baptismal font, as to confirm that they were found in good order and were “decently kept”. He should further examine the relics found in the churches and oversee that they were not exhibited to the faithful without sufficient testimony of their veracity. The Council decreed that the bishop should refrain from causing the natives any nuisance during the pastoral visitation. In order to minimize problems, he should not bring too big an entourage, but only the people considered absolutely necessary. Nor should he demand or accept any money or 9

Third Mexican Council, Lib. III, tit. I: De visitatione propiæ provinciæ,§ I, III and XVI (SPCM, 1622, 42r-44). Apart from Trent, the main sources for this particular part of the decrees were the First Mexican Council (1555), the Council of Toledo (1565), and the Third Council of Lima (1582-1583). 10 AGI, M 287: The Bishops at the Council to the King, 5 December, 1585. 11 Third Mexican Council, Lib. V, tit. I: De visitationibus (SPCM 1622, 1622, 84r-85v). 12 Pueyo Colomina 1999.

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any other donations from the parishioners apart from the food necessary for his own and his assistants’ sustenance.13 While the visitation of a parish ought to be a rather low-key affair, it should include some liturgical pomp and solemnities to underline the prelate’s authority. The Manual de los Santos Sacramentos (1642), that was commissioned by Bishop Palafox of Puebla and compiled on the basis of the Roman Rituale, included some liturgical and practical guidelines regulating the roles of the bishop and the parish clergy during visitations. At the bishop’s arrival, the parish priest should receive him at the border of the parish, crucifix in hand. Having kissed the crucifix, the bishop should sprinkle the priest with holy water and thereafter proceed to the parish church together with the priest. While inside the church building, the bishop should go directly to the main altar, kiss it, and bless the people present. He should explain the reason for his visit and prepare for the celebration of the Mass. After the Mass, the prelate should proceed with the visitation proper by beginning with an inspection of the Blessed Sacrament, which he should incense before making sure that it was found safely and decently in its tabernacle. He should then take the sacrament in his hands, show it to the parishioners and thereafter continue with the inspection of the baptismal font and the chrismatories—the receptacles in which the oil of the catechumens, the oil of the sick and the chrism were kept. These acts ended the liturgical part of the visitation according to Palafox’s manual.14 When in the parish, the bishop or the person he commissioned should preach to the people, urging them to disclose the “public sins” that they were aware of including for example concubinage, superstition and usury. To give more authority, a general edict enumerating such sins was made public and fixed on the church doors. As another part of the visitatio hominum, the bishop or the visitor general should take secret testimonies from the parishioners about the behavior of the local priest or priests. The witnesses should preferably include local 13

Third Mexican Council, Lib. III, tit. I: De visitatione propiæ provinciæ, § II (SPCM 1622, 42r). 14 Sáenz de Peña 1642, fol. 189r-191r, cf. Palafox 1997, 3-6.

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Spaniards as well as indigenous officials.15 In his Direcciones Pastorales (1646), Bishop Palafox included a detailed questionnaire that could serve as a guide for such interviews. According to the document, witnesses should be asked if their priest had been absent from the parish without due cause, if he regularly visited all parts of it, if he confessed them and whether he went to the homes of sick people when called upon. Further, the inspection should enquire as to whether the curate baptized the newborn children or if due to his negligence any children had died without baptism. The indigenous parishioners should also be asked whether the curate preached to them in their language and, more importantly, whether they understood what he was saying. The questions also focused on possible moral flaws of the curate: if he was involved in any business activities, if he was a known gambler or drinker, or if he had any illicit or suspicious contact with women.16 Though not a part of the visitation stricto sensu, during their visitations the bishops often took the opportunity to administer the sacrament of confirmation to the parishioners who had not yet received it. In the Roman Church, confirmation was the bishops’ prerogative and normally could not be administered by the ordinary clergy. Though not considered an indispensable means for salvation, the Council of Trent looked upon the sacrament as an important source of spiritual strength and power. Thus if available, its receipt was obligatory for every baptized person who had reached the age of reason (around seven years).17 In its decrees, the Third Mexican Council makes it clear that the bishop should not charge anything for the celebration of this sacrament. Rather, he should serve as a good example for the indigenous people by donating the candles and the pieces of cloth (adornos de listón) that were used in the ritual.18 15

Third Mexican Council, Lib. V, tit. I: De visationibus (SPCM 1622, 84r-85v). See also Palafox 1997, 4. 16 Juan de Palafox y Mendoza ”Direcciones Pastorales. Instruccion de la Forma con que ha de gobernar el Prelado, en orden de Dios, a si mismo, a su familia, y subditos” [1646] in Palafox y Mendoza 1762, vol. III:1, 1-112. 17 Baumgartner 1970-1971, vol. 1, 222-225, and in particular Pardo 2004, 58-65. 18 Third Mexican Council, Lib. I, tit. VI, § I (SPCM 1622, 12v).

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M V R The bishop not only had to visit all the parishes in his diocese, he was also obliged to document his experiences. The Third Mexican Council states that the bishop should keep a register of all parishes in the diocese, indicating which ones he had visited and which still required a visit. During his visitation tours a notary should keep record.19 Furthermore, and in accordance with a 1610 royal decree, the bishops were also obliged to send a formal visitation report (una relación distinta, clara y especial) to the Council of the Indies indicating the parishes visited, the problems encountered and the remedies taken.20 Apart from the visitation books that were to be kept in the episcopal archives and the reports to be sent to Spain, decrees summarizing the outcome of the visitation (autos de visita) were to be guarded in the parish archives. Sometimes such documents are still extant.21 Additionally, and if favorable, certified copies of such autos were occasionally integrated in the narratives of merits and services (relaciones de méritos y servicios) that were compiled by clerics and sent to Spain in order to improve their chances of pursuing an ecclesiastical career.22 Many of the bishops in seventeenth-century New Spain at least visited parts of their dioceses on a more or less regular basis, though most of them were far from complying with the strict regulations of Trent and the Third Mexican Council. However, very few detailed visitation records written by the archbishops of Mexico and the bishops of Puebla during the first half of the seventeenth century are known to be extant. Nevertheless, apart from such detailed reports, numerous more general references to pastoral visitations can be found in letters that the bishops wrote to the King and the Council of the Indies, which now 19

Third Mexican Council: Lib. III, tit. I: De visitatione propiæ provinciæ, § XIV (SPCM 1622, 44r). 20 Real Cédula, El Escorial, 22 August, 1610 (Recopilación [1680] 1774, Lib I, tit.VII, ley 24) 21 Pueyo Colomina 1999, 480-504. For a concrete example from Mexico, see the 1631 auto de visita of the general visitor Dr. Jacinto de la Serna in the libro de bautismos of the Parish of San Miguel Arcángel in Chapa de Mota, fol. 90v. 22 See for example AGI, M 298: Relación de méritos y servicios of Br. Alonso Ximénez, 1611, and AGI, M 302: Relación de méritos y servicios of Lic. Benito Bocarro, 1628.

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are kept in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. As visitation tours were mandatory, the Mexican prelates were certainly eager to point out that they had complied with the rules or at least explain why they had not done so. The Archdiocese of Mexico In a 1602 letter to the King, the newly arrived Mexican archbishop García de Santa María Mendoza y Zúñiga (1602-1606)23 wrote that he wanted to make a general visitation tour in the archdiocese. As more than fifteen years had passed since his predecessor Pedro Moya de Contreras had left for Spain, he felt that such a visitation was a particularly important task. Nevertheless, in the same letter the prelate also claimed that the differing climes in the archbishopric were a detriment to his health and that continuous illnesses hindered him from travelling very far. Thus it seems that the visitations he did carry out during his four years as the resident archbishop were quite meager.24 Though Archbishop García’s tours were not numerous, nor particularly extensive, in a 1606 letter to the King the Mexican Franciscans did not mince matters when stating: At present while visiting his archdiocese he goes on destroying the land, trying to extract whatever riches he can find there. This causes such a scandal to the natives who in him had hoped to find solace from the many injuries and necessities they are suffering. But now they see his tyranny and his insatiable avarice, which is so great that in comparison the secular officials and the alcaldes mayores resemble angels.25

23

The first date indicates the year the (arch)bishop took residence, while the second is either the prelate’s year of death or the year of his transferral to another diocese. 24 AGI, M 336B, doc. 191: Archbishop García de Santa María Mendoza y Zúñiga to the King, December 8, 1602. 25 AGI, M 295: The Franciscans of the Mexico City to the King, May 8, 1606: “actualmente en la visita de su arçobispado que está haziendo vaya destruyendo la tierra y tratando la sacando quanto ay en ella con tanto escándalo de los naturales que que esperauan tener en él ámparo de muchos daños y necesidades que padeçen y aora ven su tiranía y cudícia insaciable, con que parecen ángeles los ministros seculars y alcaldes mayores.”. Cf. AGI, M 295: Cristóbal de la Cruz OFM et al to the King, May 9, 1606; and AHAM, Caja 30CP, 14: Denunciation of public sins, 1606.

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They saw the visitation tours as little more than a way to satisfy the archbishop’s insatiable greed. The Crown wrote several letters to the Mexican prelate admonishing him, but he died before any further actions were taken. At his arrival Mendoza y Zúñiga’s successor, the Dominican García Guerra (1608-1612), stated that no prelate had made a general visitation of the archdiocese in 24 years, that being since the time of Moya de Contreras. By late 1609, Guerra informed the King that he now was out on his first visitation tour. In summarizing his first-hand experiences so far, the Archbishop stated that he was shocked to have found so many “public sins” and “indigenous idolatries” even in pueblos close to Mexico City. Just like several of his successors, Guerra saw enquiring after indigenous idolatries as the main reason for going on visitation tours together with the administration of the sacrament of confirmation.26 In reports to the King he indicated that in the first four pueblos he come to he had punished and forcefully separated large numbers of Spanish, mestizo, mulatto and Indian couples who lived together without being married (amancebados); describing their way of life as both Godless and lawless. He thought that the work he had to carry out during the visitation was immense and hoped to be able to serve God and the King, although he asserted that he was old and a “feeble instrument”. If the situation was that bad close to Mexico City, the Archbishop wondered how bad it would be in more remote areas.27 After some six months visiting, in May 1610, Archbishop Guerra informed the King that he had had to return to the city: I proceeded with the visitation of my archdiocese until the week when I returned to my church. ... Because the hardships of the roads and the climatological differences affected me to such a degree that in order to cure me it was necessary to go back to the city, wherefrom I will not be able to

26 AGI, M 28, 3: Archbishop García Guerra to the oidor Pedro de Ortaloro, Xochimilco, December25, 1609; and Guerra to the Viceroy, Tenancingo, January 31, 1610. 27 AGI, M 28,3: Archbishop Guerra to the oidor Pedro Otaloro, Xochimilco, December 25, 1610.

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leave until October as it is the rain period during which it is not possible to travel.28

As Guerra was shortly thereafter elected interim viceroy and died after six months in office, he never got the chance to resume his visitation.29 There are no detailed reports on the visitations by Guerra’s successor as archbishop, Juan Pérez de la Serna (1613-1624). As late as 1619, he had to defend himself against accusations of not visiting his diocese by explaining that he found it impossible to visit most of the parishes administered by the religious orders, as they thought themselves exempt from his jurisdiction. However, three years later in one of his letters to the King, shortly before leaving Mexico for Spain, Pérez de la Serna alluded to visitation tours in general terms.30 Archbishop Francisco Manso y Zúñiga (1628-1635) was an ardent visitor, though almost by force due to external factors. Due to the severe flooding that affected Mexico City from 1629 onwards, living there became almost impossible for several years. In letters dated in 1632 and 1633 Manso stated that he had recently made a visitation tour to parts of the archdiocese, confirming no less than 70,000 people. In this context he asserted that he had travelled through some areas that were considered particularly harsh and fierce, such as Hueychiapa, Cerro Gordo (Sierra Gorda) and Rio Verde, situated close to the border with the dioceses of Guadalajara and Michoacan. In these areas there lived many groups that he referred to as Chichimecs and other “uncultivated people, gentile pagans”, who were not baptized and had no access to the sacraments on a regular basis. At the same time he was convinced that they wanted to receive the Church’s doc28

AGI, M 337: Archbishop García Guerra to the King, May 7, 1610: “la visita de mi arçobispado con la qual prosegui asta la semana que bolbí … porque la aspera de los caminos y diferencia de temples me apretaron de manera que fue forzoso venir a curarme a la ciudad de donde no podré salir asta el mes de octubre por ser el tiempo de las aguas en que no se puede caminar.” Cf. AGI, M 337: Archbishop Guerra to the King, April 7, 1610. 29 See, however, AGN, IV 5529, 61 and 63, which contains brief visitation records by the general visitor of the archdiocese, 1611. 30 AGI, M 337: Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna to the King, 1619. AGI, M 29, 105: Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna to the King, June 12, 1622. AGI, M 337: Archbishop Juan Pérez de la Serna to the King, October 22, 1622.

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trine, as they “had come down at the call of the pastor” (al silbo del pastór) when he was there. The main reason for their poor knowledge of Christian doctrine and their “rebelliousness”, he argued, was that these areas were administered by friars who had little or no knowledge of their languages. However, he was sure that if well-instructed secular clerics were sent there the situation would change rapidly.31 In fact, criticism against the religious orders permeates the archbishop’s visitation reports. Just as his predecessor, Manso y Zúñiga asserted that it was impossible for him to visit the parishes that were administered by the religious orders because the friars argued that they were exempt from his jurisdiction. If this was true, he could not visit the lion’s share of the parishes in the archdiocese. He wrote when experiencing the friars’ behavior firsthand he found it difficult to believe that he was living in a “Catholic country”.32 Apart from the archiepiscopal visitations, there are a number of documents from the Manso administration that prove the existence of supplementary visitations made by visitor generals.33 Finally towards the mid-century, Archbishop Juan de Mañozca y Zamora (1645-1650) made two quite extended visitation tours in the archdiocese. In a report sent to Spain, Mañozca informed the King that he had wanted to go on a visitation tour as soon as possible after being consecrated bishop in February 1645. However, the ongoing construction of the cathedral church hindered him from leaving the city for a year. Just as Archbishop Guerra four decades earlier, Mañozca asserted that his main reason for going out on a visitation tour was to unearth indigenous “idolatries” and to confer the sacrament of confirmation to those who had not yet received it.

31

BL, ms. add.13,974, fols. 111r-112v: Archbishop Francisco Manso y Zúñiga to Dr Juan de Solorzano of the Council of the Indies, Zacualtipan de la Sierra, March 5, 1633. The letter includes fragments from another letter dated in Guastepec, February 1, 1632. Cf. AGI, M 337: January 25, 1633. See also various letters on Manso’s forced renunciation in AGI, IG 3017. 32 AGI, M 337: Archbishop Manso y Zúñiga to the King, October 29, 1630. 33 See e.g., Parish of San Miguel Arcángel in Chapa de Mota, Libro de bautismos fol. 90v: auto de visita of Dr. Jacinto de la Serna; AGN, BN 822, 7: visitation by Don Pedro Solis Calderón 1636; and AGN, BN, vol. 644, 15: visitation of Coapa, 1637.

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I went out on a visitation tour to the larger part of my archbishopric as I felt compelled by the faithful’s need for spiritual succor, which they with great distress have lacked for many years. This is particularly the case in a couple of indigenous villages in which idolatry has extended itself. And despite the many years that have passed since their reduction [to the Christian faith], the ashes and roots of their forefathers are still alive.34

Mañozca’s visitation produced the first reasonably longer description of a pastoral visitation in the archdiocese of Mexico. It is an eleven-folio document sent to the Council of the Indies which now is kept in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. The document narrates the archbishop’s four-month journey between January and May 1646 through the valleys of Amilpas, Tenancingo and Toluca. Thus the prelate’s assertion that he had visited “the larger part” of the archdiocese was somewhat exaggerated.35 In the visitation entry for the Dominican parish of Coyoacan, the first he came to after having left his cathedral, the archbishop described the general manner in which he proceeded in all the villages and towns he visited. They received me according to the ceremonial and customs. With much courteousness and love they housed me in their monastery. And the following day I visited their church, the sagrario, the chrismatories of the holy oils, the altars, the relics, and the ornaments that were found there as well as the books of baptisms, matrimonies, and deaths, both those of the Spaniards and those of the Indians, as well as other nations and castes, as also was done in the other doctrinas administered by religious orders and clerical curates, which as secular curates I also visited de moribus &

34

AGI, M 337: Juan Mañozca y Zúñiga to the King, August 31, 1646: “por aber yo salido a la visita de la mayor parte de mi arçobispado a que me impelian las necessidades del socorro spiritual de mis feligreses, que con gran desconsuelo suyo auia muchos años que carecían dél, specialmente en algunos pueblos de los indios, en que yba estensiendose la idolatría que al bano de tantos años de su reducción, aun viben en ellos las çeniças y raices de sus antepassados.” 35 The short description of Mañozca’s visitation is found in AGI, M 337. A palaeographed version of the text, which I have edited, can be found in Mañozca y Zamora 2008.

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vita, while refraining from this in the case of the regular clergy, to avoid inconveniences, until a final decision is taken [on the matter].36

Before his death in 1650 Archbishop Mañozca made at least another visitation, most probably towards the north of Mexico City. Although there is no known detailed description of that second tour, in a 1648 letter the King thanked the archbishop for having confirmed 72,375 people in a radius 30 leagues around Mexico City during two visitation tours. Of these people, more than 40,000 were confirmed during the second tour.37 The Diocese of Puebla In general, the bishops of Puebla were more ardent visitors than their archiepiscopal colleagues in Mexico. At least we have access to more detailed reports on their work. Despite being virtually blind during most of his episcopacy, Bishop Diego Romano (1578-1607) referred to pastoral visitations in several of the letters he wrote to the King. In 1597, after having occupied the see for two decades, Romano deplored the fact that all the Novohispanian dioceses were so enormous that “hardly any bishops have the force or lifetime to visit their bishopric a single time”. Still, at the same time, he asserted that he had visited the entire diocese once and many of its parishes twice.38 Romano’s successor as bishop of Puebla, Alonso de Mota y Escobar (1608-1625), was a very keen visitor who also made detailed 36

AGI, M 337: Mañozca’s visitation report, 1646: “me reçiuieren conforme lo dispuesto por el çeremonial y costumbre que a auido. Y con mucho agrato y amor, me ospedaron en su comuento. Y el siguiente dia vissité su iglessia, sagrario chrismeras de los santos olios, altares, aras y ornamento que en ellos auia y los libros de Bautismo, cassamiento y difuntos, assi de españoles e indios, como de otras naçiones y castas, como se hiço en todas las demas doctrinas de religiosos y clerigos curas, a quienes como curas seculares visite, tamuien de moribus & vita. Reserbando de lo, a los regulares por obiar yncombeniente, asta que este asentado.” 37 Real cédula, Madrid, 4 October, 1648 (Gónzalez Dávila 1649, 66). 38 AGI, M 343: Bishop Diego de Romano to the King, October 17 and December 24, 1581. See also AGI, M 343: Bishop Diego de Romano to the King, November 9, 1597: “apenas ningun obispo tiene fuerça ni uida para andar visitando una vez siquiera su obispado ... aunque sea Dios bendito yo le andado todo y mucha parte dos veces”.

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notes on his experiences.39 Between 1609 and 1624 he made no less than twelve visitation tours and died shortly after having attempted a thirteenth. Apart from the first of his visitation tours, which required seven months, most of Mota’s visitations took two or three months, normally beginning in November or December and ending in January or February. Alonso de la Mota y Escobar’s visitation tours 1609-1624

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9 10. 11. 12. 13.

September 1609 — April 1610 July 1610 — September 1610 November 1610 — February 1611 July 1613 — August 1613 March 1614 — July 1614 November 1615 December 1616 — January 1617 December 1617 — February 1618 November 1620 — January 1621 November 1622 — February 1623 June 1623 — July 1623 November 1623 — January 1624 December 1624

While Mota informed the King that he never sent a visitor general to carry out visitations in his name, he stated that when going on visitation tours he always brought with him a visitor who assisted him. In 1620, after twelve years as the diocesan bishop, Mota y Escobar asserted that he had visited every parish in the diocese, and most of them three or even four times. However, he also underlined that he could never really visit any of the friars’ doctrinas in the strict sense of the word, i.e., including the visitatio hominum, as they considered themselves exempt from his jurisdiction.40 39

For details on Mota y Escobar, see Schwaller 1987, 131-133, 213-216. AGI, M 343: Bishop Alonso de Mota y Escobar to the King, October 4, 1610. Cf. AGI, M 343: Bishop Alonso de la Mota to the King, June 1620. 40

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To document his visitations, Bishop Mota kept notes in a book, part of which he referred to as his visitation memorials. Today the manuscript is kept in the Spanish national library. Mota’s visitation notes seem to have been made for his personal use and the types of observations found therein are manifold, reflecting the bishop’s personal interests. Apart from notes related to the clergy, the parishioners and the status of the local church buildings, the memorial includes general information on the geography and the climates of the different parts of the diocese. Particularly during the first tours, Mota noted the quality of the roads, estimated the distance between places, and noted the existence of wild animals, trees, plants, fruits, livestock, crops, and water quality.41 Natural history, and in particular the Mexican flora, was a great interest of Mota’s. Before becoming a bishop, Mota had compiled Floresta de Virtudes, a manuscript on Novohispanian plants and their practical uses.42 It has not been possible to find notes on any visitations made by Mota’s successor Bishop Gutierre Bernardo de Quirós (1627-1638).43 However, Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1640-1649) made three longer visitations in 1643, 1644 and 1646, each with a duration of between two and five months. Through his tours, Palafox visited all the parishes that recently had been transferred from the friars to the secular clergy, as well as many of the older secular benefices. During these visitations he made succinct observations of the parishes in a 41

The original memorials are found in BNE, ms 6877, fol. 7r-92r. The whole manuscript, of which the visitation notes are a major part, is entitled Luz y razón de todas las cosas que he hecho en la administración de mi obispado de Tlaxcala desde que en él entré, etc. Años 1608-1624. Two transcriptions of the visitation documents exist: Mota y Escobar 1945 and Mota y Escobar 1987. However, neither of the editors have consulted the original manuscript, but instead have used a copy of a transcription. All transcriptions have therefore been checked against the original manuscript. 42 Diego Múñoz Camargo, Descripción de la ciudad y provincia de Tlaxcala (c. 1584) in: Relaciones geográficas del siglo XVI: Tlaxcala, vol 1, 269 mentions that Mota, by then dean in Michoacán, had prepared a voluminous manuscript called Floresta de Virtudes in which he studied the plants of New Spain and their medical uses. The manuscript is not known to be extant, nor is it mentioned in any other source known to me. 43 See the bishop’s correspondence in AGI, M 343.

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manuscript which is now in the Spanish national library. The modern editor of this manuscript, Bernardo García Martínez, indicates that the text of Palafox’s first visitation record seems to have been reworked and polished. It begins with some general introductory remarks on the bishop’s work as a visitor, which serves as an introduction to the whole series of records. The texts of the two later visitations, and in particular the third, are much less polished and have a more personal tone and a less standardized form.44 In the first text, the bishop is referred to in the third person as ‘His Excellency’ (su excelencia), while the first person is used in the latter two. Palafox’s visitation manuscript includes many of the elements as Bishop Mota’s memorials, for example notes on cabeceras and visitas, the number of inhabitants, indigenous languages and the estimated distances between the pueblos. However, Palafox’s text is more clearly church-centered and includes notes on parish priests and their abilities, the church buildings and their architectonical characteristics, as well as remarks on church inventories and cofradías, the lay religious sodalities. Apart from some general notes on the local climates, Palafox’s text only includes a few notes on the natural history, of which Mota’s work abounds. T V B Though several of the bishops of Puebla and the archbishops of Mexico made general observations on visitation tours in their letters, at present we only know of the existence of three more detailed visitation records from the first half of the seventeenth century. For the archdiocese of Mexico, the only substantial visitation report was written by Archbishop Mañozca y Zúñiga, while the diocese of Puebla is fortunate in having several detailed visitation reports compiled by Bishops Mota y Escobar and Palafox y Mendoza. Puebla: The Mota y Escobar Visitations (1609-1624) Unlike many of his Novohispanian colleagues, Bishop Mota y Escobar knew various indigenous languages. As a young man he had learned Nahuatl and Otomi, and during his visitation tours he often 44

Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 1.

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indicated that he preached in the Mexican language, i.e., Nahuatl. A hagiographical mid-seventeenth century source indicates that he also knew Mixtec and Chocho as well as “other Indian languages”.45 However, in his early visitation memorials Mota clearly pointed out that he did not have any knowledge of Chocho and nothing indicates that he knew Mixtec either, though it is not impossible that he learned at least something of these languages towards the end of his life.46 Apart from recurrent notes on the indigenous languages spoken, and the crops that were cultivated by the indigenous inhabitants, Mota rarely commented on the indigenous population who lived in the different places he visited. On a few occasions he made sweeping or somewhat more detailed evaluations of the mores of the locals. He could, for example, state that the he considered the Indians in a pueblo “good” (buenos) or “good hearted” (de buen corazón).47 In the case of Zongolica, the bishop was unusually verbose in his positive evaluation, stating that the native inhabitants who lived there were “very sincere, well treated and gentle” (mui sinzeros, bien tratados y apazibles) and claiming that no Spaniard other than the priest lived among them; something that was in consonance with the royal segregation policy, but rare in practice, at least in the central parts of Mexico. He also pointed out that they were great church singers and musicians.48 The bishop also penned some negative evaluations of particular indigenous groups. However, with very few exceptions such statements were only applied to people who lived in pueblos that were administered by friars. The comments can therefore hardly be understood without taking into account the ongoing intra-ecclesiastical conflicts. For Mota, the very fact that a parish was administered by friars was an anomaly and a cause of disorder, as he thought that the parish lacked a proper legal basis. In his memorials Mota constantly argued that in general the friars were unprepared to be entrusted with the parish ministry, particularly as he regarded most friars’ knowledge of the indigenous languages as deficient. During a pastoral visitation to Franciscan administered Tlaxcala at Easter 1614, Mota affirmed rather glumly that

45 46 47 48

AGN, J, III-24, 5. Mota y Escobar 1945. Mota y Escobar 1945, 209-210, December 4, 1609. Mota y Escobar 1945, 253-254, Zongolica, November 20, 1610.

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as the bishop he was deprived of the jurisdiction over such doctrinas. Therefore [I]t is necessary to pray much to God, so that He in a miraculous way gives a hand, as the Pope is far away and the King is misinformed. And here I want to explain that I never go to the doctrinas of the religious orders with any hope to remedy anything, because I have no power to do so, and I have informed His Majesty about the inconveniences ... . I only go [there] in order to confirm those who have not yet received the sacrament and I would save much time if the religious could administer it [themselves], so that I do not have to go to their houses [at all].49

Moreover, the only times the reader of Mota’s memorials encounters remarks on “indigenous idolatries” are in his entries on some Franciscan and Augustinian doctrinas. When arriving in Jalapa during his first visitation tour in 1609, Mota pointed out that all the Indians there “live in constant drunkenness” (viven en continua embriaguez todos ellos) and that they were very deficiently instructed in the Christian creed, as the Franciscan friars did not preach to them.50 According to the bishop, such a general state of drunkenness and ignorance also characterized the native inhabitants in the two of the Franciscans’ most important and populous doctrinas, Tlaxcala and Tepeaca.51 According to the bishop, the situation was even worse in the Augustinian doctrina of Tlapa, which covered a vast area on the border with the archdiocese. He thus asserted that the Nahua speaking inhabitants of the Tlapa region were “badly indoctrinated, wild and uncultivated in the law of the Christians and thus have a fame of being idolaters, and in my opinion the Indians are not the only ones to be blamed for this.” According to the bishop, the situation was not only 49

Mota y Escobar 1945, 280-281, Tlaxcala, March 2, 1614: “es necesario rogar mucho a Dios, ponga su mano miraculosamente en ello, porque el Papa está lejos y el Rey mal ynformado. Y aclaro aqui que no salgo a doctrinas de religiosos con ánimo de remediar nada, porque no soi poderoso para ello y yo e dado noticia a su Magestad de los inconuenientes ... . Solo voi con animo de confirmar a los que no an receuido este Sacramento que holgara yo mucho lo pudieran ministrar los religiosos, para que ahorrara yo el yr a sus cassas”. 50 Mota y Escobar 1945, 203: Jalapa, November 16, 1609. 51 Mota y Escobar 1945, 275-276: Tepeaca, August 2, 1613 and p. 279-281: Tlaxcala, March 24, 1614.

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the fault of the Nahua inhabitants themselves, but their Augustinian doctrineros were also to be blamed.52 On quite a number of occasions in his text, Bishop Mota referred to personal encounters with indigenous individuals. In the very case of Tlapa, the bishop noted that he had made an investigation against the Nahua principal Domingo de Tobar, to whom the bishop links a veritable catalogue of sins. Apart from being punished as an idolater, a drinker, a fornicator, an embezzler and a rebellious person, the bishop also accused him of taking unjust advantage of the “ordinary people” (the macehuallis) as a work force.53 Nevertheless, most indigenous people mentioned individually were singled out for being pious, good or generous. Such evaluations often appeared when the bishop described how gobernadores, alcaldes, regidores and caciques presented him with gifts. However, Mota’s main reason for including such cases in the document was probably to counter possible accusations against him for taking economic advantage of the people he visited, something which would contradict Tridentine legislation. Therefore, he explained why he sometimes did accept the gifts. In Olintla, during his 1610 visit, the bishop was offered a cotton blanket by the alcalde Don Ambrosio de Salazar, which he stated that he had accepted for not wanting to offend such a “noble and principal person”.54 In a visitation entry for Acatlan, Mota referred to his meeting with Don Domingo de los Ángeles, whom the bishop thought harbored much of the virtues of the caciques of “old times”. He had presented the bishop with a cotton canopy (pavellón) which his daughters had woven, together some cocoa beans. Again the bishop accepted the gifts not wanting to let him down, but at the same time noted that he had promised to send the cacique some gifts once he returned to Puebla.55 However, in the neighboring pueblo of Xochitonala, subject to Ayutla, the inhabitants presented various item to the bishop, but in this context Mota asserted that he found it impossible to accept gifts from such poor people.56 Likewise, in the Totonac pueblo 52 53 54 55 56

Mota y Escobar 1945, 263: Tlapa, December 24, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 263: Tlapa, December 24, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 228: Olintla, February 1, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 267: Acatlán, January 11, 1611. Mota y Escobar 1945, 267: Xochitonalá, January 13, 1611.

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of Ponotlan, the governor Don Andrés de Luna wanted to give him some cotton fabric and some fowl, but the bishop declined the offer.57 One aspect of indigenous local church life which the bishop referred to was the existence of indigenous cofradías, lay religious sodalities. By the time of Mota’s first visitations such communities do not appear as generally present in the rural parishes, though they existed in some pueblos, particularly those administered by friars. Their existence was only mentioned briefly in a couple of the bishop’s entries and consistently in negative terms. According to his remarks, the bishop saw indigenous cofradías as a serious problem and he thought they were little more than a way for their majordomos to embezzle money from the native commoners. He, therefore, did not want to grant licenses for the foundation of new cofradías and generally complained of those that had already been founded. During a visitation to Icpatepec, the Mixtec inhabitants there asked the bishop for a license to found a cofradía devoted to the Rosary, but the bishop wrote “that I refused to save them from a great den of robbers (ladronera), because the indigenous cofradías are nothing else”.58 In similar terms he criticized the workings of the indigenous cofradías in other places. In the 1613 visitation to Quecholac, he spoke about the lies of the majordomos of the cofradías, referring to such people as “well-known robbers of the divine” (famosos ladrones por lo divino).59 If the notes on the indigenous population are quite rare, throughout his memorial, and in particular during his first three visitation tours, Mota made many remarks on the status of the parish priests in relation to their knowledge of the native languages, their mores, and the ways in which they administered the parishes. He based these evaluations on the parishioners’ testimonies and on his own analyses of the sermons the clerics had to preach in his presence. Most space is devoted to problems encountered and to priests who did not comply with the requirements of the office. Nevertheless, Mota sometimes made positive remarks about individual priests being a “good minister” (buen ministro), that the investigation about the priest turned out “favorably” (fa57

Mota y Escobar 1945, 225: Ponotlan, January 25, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 260: Icpatepec, December 14, 1610. 59 Mota y Escobar 1945, 277: Quecholac, August 16, 1613, cf. Mota y Escobar 1945, 288-289: San Juan Cuezcomatepec, December 17, 1617. 58

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vorable), that “nothing was found against him” (nada contra él), that there were “no charges against him” (no hubo capítulos) or that “he did not find anything bad” (no halló cosa mala) during the visitation. Good or at least sufficient knowledge of the native languages was also pointed out. Referring to ministers accused of excesses and wrongdoings, Mota’s criticism was most often only rendered in general terms, sometimes referring to a legal process against the cleric or to special memorials which were not included in the visitation record. On other occasions Mota was more concrete, indicating both the character of the clerical transgressions or omissions and the punishment that was meted out against the priest. As regards to bad parish administration, such accusations generally focused on a couple of themes. One common problem that he observed was the non-existent or insufficient knowledge of the indigenous languages. In the case of the beneficiary of the pueblo of Misantla, Juan Bautista de Villegas, the bishop pointed out that he was “phlegmatic” and that he knew Totonac only deficiently. Having ordered Villegas to preach in the language, and after consulting a Totonac speaking assistant, the bishop concluded that he used Totonac “in a disorderly manner” (turbadamente). Consequently, Villegas was ordered to study the language and to preach more frequently in order to improve his practical knowledge.60 It is quite frequently noted that a minister was considered to have sufficient knowledge of the language in order confess, but too little to be able to preach. In the case of Father Salguero, a substitute beneficiary of Chila, the bishop stated that he knew Nahuatl and some Totonac in order to confess, but that he was only able to preach with the help of an interpreter.61 A Doctor Durán had been the beneficiary of Papantla for some time, and though the bishop considered him a learned theologian, he did not know Totonac. Therefore Durán was transferred to Nahuatl-speaking Jalacingo and was replaced by Bernardino Pinelo, whom the bishop considered one of the most eminent Totonac speaking clerics in the diocese.62 In yet another case, the situation was deemed worse. The interim beneficiary of the Nahuatl 60 61 62

Mota y Escobar 1945, 219: Misantla, January 5, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 229-230: Chila, February 2, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 232-233: Papantla, February 11, 1610.

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and Totonac speaking pueblo of Huitzilan, Bartolomé Pérez, did not know either of the languages. When the bishop ordered him to preach in Nahuatl, he could hardly utter a word. However, the bishop mainly blamed himself for this situation, stating: “those are my sins as I have put him there” (pecados mios que allí le tengo puesto). As a result of the visitation, Mota wrote that Pérez should be replaced with a suitable person, who knew both languages.63 During a visitation to the Nahua pueblo of Moyutla in the northern parts of the present state of Veracruz in 1610, the bishop made a secret investigation against the beneficiary, a Father Maldonado, who had held the office for more than two decades. The result of the investigation was deemed very grave and the bishop indicated that the curate lived an entirely secular life, being involved in trade activities and that he was a known gambler. According to indigenous testimonies, many people in the area had died without confession and the priest was said never to have preached to them in either Nahuatl or Spanish. After a brief judicial process, Mota sentenced Maldonado to a substantial fine and suspended him for a year, but though the bishop considered him a “useless priest” he was not deprived of the benefice perpetually. As he was old, almost deaf and sick, the bishop thought it would be too harsh a sentence. However, he ordered an auxiliary priest should be installed to carry out the ministry at the cost of the beneficiary.64 In many cases, the parishioners’ accusations against their curates’ mores were not spelled out, but were only referred to in a general manner as “minor charges” (capitulos leves), minor offenses (culpas leves) or as “public claims but of little importance” (demandas públicas pero de poca monta). In cases that were elucidated, clerical greed was a recurrent accusation. Parishioners complained about the provisions that they had to give to the parish priest on a regular basis or the fees that they had to pay him when he performed weddings or burials. For his ministry the priest was not ask for more money than was stipulated in the diocesan fee schedules (aranceles), and as regards to the regular offering of food items, in his sermons the bishop explained that the indigenous parishioners should only give the priest what they wanted. The priest’s basic salary was taken from the tribute paid to the Crown 63 64

Mota y Escobar 1945, 227: Huitzilan. January 29, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 239: Moyutla, March 6, 1610.

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or the encomendero. During the visitation, the Totonacs in Hueytlalpan wanted the bishop to moderate the provisions that the curate was given on a daily basis. As a result the bishop made up a document stating an exact amount which the inhabitants accepted and which then was presented to the curate ordering him not to ask for more.65 Likewise, the Totonacs of Papantla complained that among other things they were forced to give the parish priests six hens (gallinas de la tierra) a day. The bishop agreed that this amount was excessive and made an agreement with the parishioners on what they were prepared to offer. Thereafter, he gave the priests a written order stating that they should not ask for anything more than was agreed upon, “not even a chickpea” (garbanzo). Instead, they should gratefully accept what they were offered, as the Indians were not legally required to give them anything.66 In Mota’s memorials, a number of clerics were mentioned as occupying themselves with activities that were not in accordance with their clerical state. While accusations of unchaste behavior are rarely indicated, the curate of Ixtacamaxtitlan was accused of being “a bad example” as he had contact “with a couple of women”, implying at least suspicion of concubinage, for which he was suspended for a year.67 During Mota’s last visitation tour in 1624, the bishop found that the beneficiary of Icpatepec had relapsed into an old concubinage that he had lived in for a long period of time.68 Involvement in business activities and ownership of haciendas was a more common charge. The beneficiary of Zautla, Alonso López Rico, was accused of owning a hacienda in the pueblo for which he made excessive use of indigenous workforce. He was therefore temporarily suspended and given half a year to sell his landed estate.69 Luis de Benavides, the curate of Quimixtlan, was sentenced to pecuniary fines and a temporary suspension from his office for bad treatment of the Indians and for making economic profits from them.70 The beneficiary of the Mixtec pueblo of Silacayoapan, 65

Mota y Escobar 1945, 227: Hueytlalpan, January 29, 1610. See also e.g. p. 229-230, Chila, February 6, 1610. 66 Mota y Escobar 1945, 232-233: Papatla, February 10, 1610. 67 Mota y Escobar 1945, 195: Ixtacamaxtitlan, October 13, 1609. 68 Mota y Escobar 1945, 306: Icpatepec, January 3, 1624. 69 Mota y Escobar 1945, 195-196: Zautla, October 18, 1609. 70 Mota y Escobar 1945, 205: Quimixtlán, November 24, 1609.

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named Castroverde, was accused of owning a mine, and though he was able to present documents that indicated that it was the property of his brother, the bishop was not convinced of his innocence.71 In the Totonac pueblo of Santa María Yohualtlacualoyan, the curate Baltasar de Villegas was sentenced for being involved in fish trade and for using the inhabitants as fishers and carriers.72 Several other clerics were also sentenced or exhorted for using Indians as carriers (tamenes), forcing them travel long distances with heavy loads, which the bishop found to be a “pagan use” unworthy of Christians and even more so of priests.73 During Mota’s visit to Zacapoaxtlan in early 1610, he received a written statement from the Nahuas there containing 31 charges against the beneficiary, Alonso de Grajeda. During the questioning of witnesses the bishop said that the accusers lessened their accusations and “wanted peace with the cleric”. It was impossible to carry out a thorough investigation of the case during the few days the bishop remained there, but Mota wrote that he kept the document so that he could consult it if the problems with the cleric persisted.74 Sometimes the criticism against a cleric was not only centered on his person but was also directed against the people in his household. The cleric in Tixtla, Domínguez, who was accused of being greedy, was also ordered to sell a black slave (negro ladino) that he owned and the slave was accused of sexually harassing the indigenous and mulatto women in the pueblo.75 In a number of places in his memorials, Mota reflected on why or why not the parishioners presented complaints against their curates. Though it seems that the bishop most often considered and acted upon the charges presented to him by the parishioners, he occasionally noted that he doubted their sincerity. The Nahua parishioners of Ayacaxocuichco presented a number of allegations against their parish priest named Cabrera. However, the bishop doubted their credibility and asserted that their only reason was a recent great discontent with the congregation policy and the deep hate they felt for the cleric. Therefore, 71

Mota y Escobar 1945, 261: Silacayoapan, December 18, 1610. Mota y Escobar 1945, 222: Santa María Yohualtlacualoyan, January 14, 1610. 73 E.g. Mota y Escobar 1945, 227-228: Huitzilan, January 29, 1610. 74 Mota y Escobar 1945, 223-224: Zacapoaxtlan, January 17-23, 1610. 75 Mota y Escobar 1945, 270: Tixtla, January 21, 1611: “no dexaua negra mulata ni yndia principal con quien no esuiese amigado”. 72

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he did not give the charges any credence.76 While visiting Chicontepec, Mota received an unsigned letter filled with charges against the beneficiary Juan Ramito de Morales. Although the bishop read the general edict and mentioned the case, nobody declared much against the priest during the interrogation. Still, the curate was punished for not preaching and for being involved buying and selling mules.77 Finally, when visiting San Juan Cuezcomatepec in December 1609, Mota pointed out that the gobernador, the alcaldes and some of the principales were nothing more than pettifoggers (pleitistas) who constantly sought to persecute clerics and royal officials. He, therefore, did not take their complaints seriously.78 In summary, Bishop Mota y Escobar was rather outspoken in his criticism against individual parish priests and this is made particularly clear during the first three longer visitations. During later visitations the bishop’s annotations are generally much less substantial and it is hard to know if he thought that the situation had improved or whether he merely no longer wrote down his evaluations as frequently. Puebla: the Palafox y Mendoza Visitations (1643-1646) The majority of the places that Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza visited during his three tours in 1643, 1644 and 1646 were rural pueblos de indios, though frequently at least some Spaniards lived among the native inhabitants. Only occasionally, the bishop indicated that a parish was solely inhabited by indigenous people.79 Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza did not know any indigenous languages with the fluency Bishop Mota did, though he stated that while travelling through the diocese he was instructed in the rudiments of Nahuatl. Back in Puebla the bishop also attended the classes in Nahuatl taught by the curate of the cathedral, Dr. Diego de Hierro.80 However, Palafox still had to count on the assistance of interpreters while communicating with the native parishioners. 76

Mota y Escobar 1945, 272: Ayacaxocuichco, February 11, 1611. Mota y Escobar 1945, 240: Chicontepec, March 8, 1610. 78 Mota y Escobar 1945, 207: Cuezcometepec, December 1, 1609. 79 Such was, for example, the case of Tlacolula, cf. Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 53-54. 80 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, cf. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 73. 77

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In Palafox’s visitation records, the indigenous population rarely appear with any degree of clarity, and if they do people are generally evaluated in collective terms. On a number of instances Palafox sweepingly characterizes the native people in a pueblo as “good” (buenos; buena gente; son buenos indios aquellos), “obedient” (dóciles; obedientes) or “well-indoctrinated” (buen doctrinados; viven doctrinados). Sometimes somewhat more detailed characteristics are given. In his entry for the villa of Córdoba, which was dominated by nonindigenous people, he pointed out that the indigenous women “do not get drunk. They are devout people and come to church every day”.81 In Jalpantepec (Jalpan), where Totonac, Tepehua and some Otomi speakers lived, the bishop indicated that “the Indians are good, though they are much harassed by the alcaldes mayores, and if they are treated with love and without greed, they will come to church”.82 Visiting Papantla during Lent 1646, Palafox observed that the Totonacs there brought an image of Christ from a chapel. In the procession many men and women disciplined themselves, which the bishop saw as clear signs of their piety.83 Among the positive remarks on the indigenous population, there are also notes on the warm welcome the bishop received in some places. In Cuautinchan, one of the very first pueblos which he visited in 1643, the bishop pointed out that he was met at the parish border by “principal Indians with dances according to their way, by which they express their joy and love on such occasions”.84 When leaving Quecholac for Tecamachalco shortly thereafter, Palafox observed that many natives followed him weeping and that he had to ask them to go back.85 The overt uses of negative terms for indigenous people are rather few, and basically the antonyms of the words used to 81

Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 37: Villa de Córdoba, 1643: “Las indias no se embriagan. Son gente devota y acuden todos los días a la iglesia”. 82 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 104: Jalpantepec. 1646: “buenos aunque muy vejados de los alcaldes mayores, y siempre que les traten con amor y sin codicia acudidirán bien a la iglesia”. 83 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 107: Papantla, 1646. 84 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 8: Cuautinchan, 1643: “indios principales con danzas a su modo, con que significaban su alegría y amor”. Cf. Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 44: Quimixtlán 1643. 85 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 18: Tecamachalco, 1643.

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designate the “good Indian”. They were thus called rough or sharp (poco apacible; desapacible), stubborn (rígido; contumaz) or disobedient (poco obediente; desobediente). In the case of the pueblo of San Juan Cuezcomatepec, Palafox stated that there were “many Indians, who were somewhat stubborn and not firmly held”, but at the same time he considered the people in the underlying visitas were “good and meek”.86 In a few cases, the bishop referred to individual native persons and mostly in a positive manner. When writing about his visitation to Papantla, he mentioned an indigenous cantor and fiscal, Don Francisco, whom the bishop considered devout.87 In the entry for Ilamatlán, he wrote about a Nahua principal woman, Doña Catalina, who had donated her house to be used as a church building. Palafox asked the parish priest, the alcalde mayor and the Indians to build her a new house.88 In Jalpantepec, the bishop was approached by a principal named Don Francisco who wanted to take the name Juan de Palafox, which the bishop denied him, and exhorted him to serve the Church in better ways.89 In the entry for Zongolica during the 1643 visitation, Palafox made a quite detailed observation on a meeting with an old Nahua man, “more than a hundred years old”, whom he characterized as a good Christian. The man had written “a calendar according to the old custom in which various paintings and symbols which signified past events”, including one of Bishop Mota y Escobar’s pastoral visitations.90 One of the very few notes against an individual person is directed against Don Juan de Castilla, a Totonac principal and governor of Cuahuitlán, although it is only stated that he was accused of “very bad things” (cosas muy feas), and that the bishop started an investigation into these matters.91 86

Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 39: San Juan Cuezcomatepec, 1643. Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 107: Papantla 1646. 88 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 95: Ilamatlán, 1646. 89 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 102-105: Jalpantepec, 1646. 90 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 32: Zongolica, 1643: “tenía formado calendario a la usanza antigua en que con varios dibuxos y caracteres significaban los succesos pasados”. 91 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 114: Matlactlan, 1646. 87

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Indigenous religious practices are indirectly commented upon through Palafox’s observations on the cofradías and the less official brotherhoods (hermandades) that were found in the parishes. If Mota y Escobar, in his visitation memorials, constantly pointed out that he considered native cofradías little more than a menace and a hunting ground for embezzlers, Palafox’s treatment of cofradías is much more descriptive. Throughout the text he enumerates and names the sodalities found in each place indicating their ethnic composition (i.e., if made up by Spaniards, indigenous people, or, on a few occasions, blacks), but most often without contributing any further comments on their status. Yet from Palafox’s notes it is possible to observe that by the 1640s native cofradías had been founded with episcopal license in almost every pueblo, save for a few exceptions, which then were clearly marked out. This was not the case when Bishop Mota visited the diocese a couple of decades before.92 The bishop also included succinct observations on a few popular local religious cults. One of them was the cult of the Archangel Michael outside Santa María Nativitas, where the archangel was said to have appeared in 1631 to a Nahua man by the name Diego Lázaro and where a chapel had been built. On the location, now known as San Miguel el Milagro, there was a well whose water was considered to have thaumaturgical effects. This local cult was greatly supported by Palafox, who was able to secure a royal license for collecting alms for the cult throughout the whole of the Spanish Indies to improve the chapel.93 The other important local cult that Palafox’s mentioned was the muchvenerated image of the Virgin in Cosamaloapan in the southern-most part of the diocese, on the Caribbean coast, close to the border with the diocese of Oaxaca. According to tradition this image had been found on a dead mule and was thought to posses thaumaturgic effects. Palafox 92 Palafox y Mendoza 1997: San Antonio Otlaquiquiztlan, 1643 was an example of a pueblo without a cofradía. 93 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 70: Santa María Nativitas, 1644. On the order of Palafox, Pedro Salmerón in 1645 wrote a manuscript account on the apparition (AGN, H 1, 152r-179v), see also Florencia 1692.

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also contributed to the popularization of the cult throughout the diocese and even beyond its borders.94 As in the case of Bishop Mota some decades earlier, the only times Palafox referred to the existence indigenous “idolatries” were when writing about places that were still administered by friars. This is particularly clear in the case of the Augustinian doctrina of Tututepec, close to the border with the archdiocese. The area was divided into more than 40 visitas, where most inhabitants spoke Otomi, but where Nahuatl, Tepehua and Totonac also were used. In the bishop’s downbeat visitation entry on the parish he asserted that the region was “filled with idolatry”, indicating that most people did not attend Mass more than once a year. He stated that not knowing the languages, the friars’ way of administering was very deficient. He also pointed out that he wanted to secularize the doctrina, transforming it to three parishes administered by secular clerics.95 Palafox’s description of the parish clergy is quite detailed, mentioning the names of each parish priest whether beneficiary or auxiliary. However, if Bishop Mota in his memorials included a large number of very critical notes on the mores of individual priests, the Palafox document only includes a few detailed comments on the moral flaws of the priests. The negative notes were generally not included in the ordinary visitation records, but were reserved for another visitation document referred to as the secret account (relación secreta) which is no longer extant. However, the local inquiry process was described in a general way in the preamble to the visitation book: When he [Palafox] arrived, he called upon the Spanish people with highest credibility and the Indian alcaldes and regidores to gather before him, and he had them take an oath to declare the truth concerning the questions that were asked to them in the secret investigation on the punctuality and mores of the curate. And an edict was fixed on the doors of the church, in which it was mentioned the excesses in which he [the priest] could have fallen. And the parishioners were ordered [to disclose] if there were anything that

94 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 125: Cosamaloapan, 1646. On the order of Palafox, the Jesuit Juan Avalos wrote a Relación de la prodigiosa imagen de Nuestra Señora de Cozamaluapan en la costa del Norte del obispado de Puebla de los Angeles, printed in Puebla in 1643. 95 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 91-93: Tututepec, 1646.

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could be remedied, both concerning the curates and the vices and public sins of the others.96

As such, critical notes were not frequently included. Palafox’s visitation records, and in particular the redacted version of the first visitation, can be seen as semi-public accounts of parish life shortly after the transferral of most of the friars’ doctrinas to the secular clergy and thus indirectly a defense of his secularization project. According to Palafox’s description, almost every parish was administered by well instructed clerics who knew the local languages well. When referring to an individual priest, Palafox generally made brief remarks on his language knowledge, theological education and sometimes also his mores. In the evaluation of language knowledge, Palafox used a rather consistent evaluation scale reaching from sufficient (suficiente; aprobado), meaning that they had passed the required language tests, through good (bueno) and very good (muy bueno) to eminent (eminente). Sometimes, however, it is only indicated that a cleric knows (sabe) a language without further explanation. Of Pedro de Medina, the beneficiary of Tlacotepec, it is stated that he was “eminent in the Chocho language and that he also administers acceptably in the Mexican language”.97 The beneficiary of Zapotitlán, Juan Ramírez de Escobar, was considered a “good theologian who knows the Mexican, Chocho and Mixtec languages and has been examined in all of them”.98 In the records of the third visitation, Palafox is sometimes a little more concrete in his evaluations of individual priests. He could write that someone was a “good Mexican speaker, [and] knows some To96

Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 4, advertencias § 2: “Luego que llegaba [Palafox] mandaba llamar a su presencia a las personas españolas de más crédito y alcaldes y regidores de los indios, y les tomaba juramento de que declarían la verdad cerca de las preguntas que se les hiciesen en la información secreta que se hacía de la puntualidad y costumbres del párroco. Y se fixaba edicto a las puertas de la iglesia en que se proponían los excesos en que podia haber incurrido y se mandaba a los feligreses si había alguna cosa que remediar, así en lo tocante a los curas como en los vicios y pecados públicos de los demás.” 97 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 21: Tlacotepec, September 9, 1643: ”eminente en lengua chocha y que administra tambien aprobadamente en la mexicana”. 98 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 27: Zapotitlan, September 25, 1643: ”buen teólogo y que sabe las lenguas mexicana, chocha y misteca, y en todas está examinado”.

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tonac, sufficiently to be able to minister”.99 Or, he indicated that a young man was a “virtuous priest and good [Nahuatl] speaker, though only a beginner, (at least when it comes to preaching); exhorting him to improve in it”.100 Although the majority of the commentaries that Palafox made on individual parish priests were positive or at least neutral, infrequently he did put forward some light criticism against individual clerics, while the more serious cases were reserved for the secret visitation book. During his third visitation tour in 1646, Bishop Palafox wrote a text which can be considered a supplement to his three visitation records. This Epístola Exhortatoria a los curas y beneficiados de la Puebla de los Angeles was a pastoral letter directed to the diocesan clergy.101 In his visitation book he indicated that he began writing this very extensive pastoral letter (more than 200 pages in the 1762 edition of the bishop’s collected works) on March18, 1646, when he was on the road between Jalpantepec and Papantla, after a particularly difficult travel day when the bishop had fallen off his mule on the steep mountain paths.102 The Epístola Exhortatoria can be seen as a public summary of his experiences during the visitations, particularly reflecting upon the relationship between the parish priests and the indigenous parishioners. Palafox pointed out that since the foundation of the bishopric no diocesan synod had been celebrated in Puebla, and that he saw the letter, which was made up by an introduction and twelve thematic chapters, as a substitute, until such a Church meeting could be summoned. Summarizing his experiences of the local church life, he thought that most of the beneficiaries in the diocese fulfilled the requirements of their office. However, some did not and many things could still improve.103 To prepare themselves for the difficult tasks the 99 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 84: “buena lengua mexicana: sabe algo de totonaco y lo bastante para administrar”. 100 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 112: “sacerdote virtuoso y buena lengua, aunque principante (si bien de manera que la predica); exhortéle que se perficionase en ella”. 101 Palafox y Mendoza 1998, vol. I, 72-124, see also Palafox y Mendoza 1762, vol. III: 1, 129-334. 102 Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 105-106: Jalpantepec, March 18, 1646. 103 Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 72-75.

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parish ministry and to improve their work, the bishop indicated that the clergy ought to pray a great deal, celebrate daily Mass and live a life of mortification. It was therefore necessary that the parish clergy reserved certain hours a day for prayer and study, and others necessary for an active ministry. Study was also considered an important way to conquer clerical boredom in remote parishes.104 In his pastoral letter, Palafox dedicated much space to the indigenous languages and the ministers’ obligation to teach the parishioners the Catholic creed. For a curate in a pueblo de indios, the knowledge of native languages was of great importance as “the key” to everything else.105 The curate should therefore devote much time to the study of the local languages. In order to become “eminent”, he should constantly make linguistic observations, learning better ways to explain the creed and to communicate with the parishioners. To learn languages well was also a way for priest to uphold and defend his authority vis-à-vis the indigenous people, so that he was not mocked for saying “incorrect”, “improper” or outright “stupid things”. If the parish priest did not do anything to improve his ability to speak the language, he did not comply with the requirements that his office demanded.106 Intimately related to language study was the question of preaching and teaching. The pastoral letter dedicated two separate chapters to the teaching of children and adults respectively. As for the younger parishioners, the curate should gather all the children twice or three times a week to listen to them saying the doctrina in choir, but he should also ask them questions to find out if they understood its contents. For Palafox, it was important that the priest was in charge of this instruction and not merely delegate it to his lay assistants, the indigenous fiscales.107 From an early age, the priest should also exhort the indigenous children to refrain from idolatries and drunkenness.108 Bishop Palafox dedicates another special chapter to the indoctrination of the adult parishioners, which was a constant requirement for the parish priest. Therefore the priest was ordered to preach in the native 104 105 106 107 108

Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 87-88,113-114. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 73. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 90-91. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 76, 92. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 92-93.

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language once every Sunday, or at least once every fortnight if there was a sizeable Spanish speaking group in the parish. During his visitations he had observed that in some areas priests only preached on the great feast days, a behavior that he did not find acceptable.109 According to Palafox, priests who did not preach to their parishioners, or who did not know their languages, were like “mute evangelical dogs, who for not being able to bark” were not able to scare away the “infernal wolf as he brings away the lambs of God”.110 Palafox underlined that the ordinary parish priest’s sermons should not be erudite expositions, but should be suited to the parishioners’ level. “The priest should thus explain the rudiments of the faith in a simple and clear manner” (explicar los primeros rudimentos de la fe llanamente), while referring to the punishments of the wicked and the salvation of the just. Every sermon should not take more than half an hour and ought to be centered on salvation history, the sacraments and the Ten Commandments; following a pedagogical scheme.111 The bishop’s image of the indigenous population in the pastoral letter is more detailed than the one that appears in the visitation records. The image of the natives in the letter is one of spiritual minors, of poor and miserable people, but at the same time, people endowed with many virtues. He stated that though Indians were sometimes unwilling to learn the Christian doctrine, “obstinate” (contumaz), “resistant” or “negligent”, it was generally not their own fault, but was due to the hardships they had to endure in their lives and particularly the encounters they had had with awful or greedy priests and other Spaniards. The bishop saw drunkenness as a major indigenous vice, but pointed out that indigenous women were generally much better in this respect. However, when sober he felt that most Indians harbored virtues such as humility, modesty, silence, generosity, calmness, obedience and patience. If Spaniards lived in this way, we should consider them saints, 109

Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 76, 93-94. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 76: “Perros mudos evangélicos, que por no poder ladrar, ocupada, tal vez, la boca con la codicia, o el interés, o la sensualidad, o la ignorancia, o la pareza, o la omission, o negligencia, dejan que el lobo infernal le lleve a Dios sus ovejas, sin ladrar y espantarlo con la doctrina evangélica como son obligados.” 111 Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 94-95. 110

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Palafox asserted. As the letter was destined to the parish clergy they were exhorted not to blame their indigenous parishioners for their own shortcomings.112 During his visitation tours, Palafox had noticed that in some parts of the diocese only very few indigenous people received communion on a regular basis and sometimes they were even hindered from doing so by the curates. He stated that many Indians, both principals and commoners, men and women, had “the capacity and intelligence” to receive communion. Palafox argues at some length that curates should not require more of the native inhabitants than they did of the Spaniards. Most indigenous people should therefore be allowed to receive communion at least once a year, as the sacrament was “the only true sustainment of the soul, the doctor and medicine for souls”. To receive communion it was enough that they knew the Articles of Faith, the Ten Commandments, the Pater Noster and the Ave Maria. Drunkenness, which the bishop together with many other churchmen considered a widespread vice among the indigenous population, was not a reason for hindering them if they had made previous confession of their sins. In general, Palafox argued the vices of the indigenous people were hardly worse than those of the Spaniards.113 In his pastoral letter, Bishop Palafox asserted that indigenous idolatry was mostly a thing of the past. Nevertheless, the priests were required to preach against idolatry in places where it was encountered. But the parish priest should above all make thorough investigations against suspect idolaters, seizing and destroying all objects considered idols. It was also important for the priest to preach and teach against the use of omens and prognostications (agüeros) that were considered superstitious. In the text Palafox also made some more concrete indications of unacceptable behavior. No one, including the priest, should be allowed to enter the church with alcoholic drinks such as pulque. At All Saints, the doors to the church should be closed at night and it ought not to be a gathering place.114 Taken together with the annotations in the visitation book, the pastoral letter by Palafox gives a detailed diagnosis of the diocesan church in the eyes of the bishop. 112 113 114

Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 80-81. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 101-102. Palafox y Mendoza 1968, vol. I, 96-97.

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Mexico: The Mañozca y Zúñiga Visitation (1646) Compared to the memorials of Mota and Palafox, the report written by Archbishop Mañoza y Zúñiga after his 1646 visitation is quite meager in content. Archbishop Mañozca’s notes in the visitation document from 1646 are most often very concise. It was a document that was destined for the King and the Council of the Indies in order to testify that he indeed had complied with the duty to visit the parishes, being sure to underline the hardships he had experienced. In Xochimilco, one of the first pueblos he visited, Mañozca fell down the monastery stairs, badly injuring his hand and leg, and had to be attended to during the remainder of the visitation journey. For each pueblo that he visited, Mañozca recorded the distance travelled from the last and indicates what indigenous languages were spoken there. He also noted the name of the priests who administered the sacraments. Finally, he computed the number of people which he had confirmed during his stay. Unlike the visitation notes made by Mota and Palafox, the archbishop did not convey any criticism against the friars who administered the doctrinas, while in the introduction he indicated that he refrained from the visitatio hominum when visiting the friars’ places. Though archbishop Mañozca included some notes on the climes and the quality of the roads, such notes only appeared when they were considered extreme in some way in order to further indicate the hardships that he had gone through.115 Apart from visits to sugar mills and haciendas, the archbishop visited 54 pueblos, and villas. These places were quite evenly distributed among the three mendicant orders and the secular clergy. Fifteen of them were administered by secular clerics, 14 by Franciscans, 13 by Augustinians, and 12 by Dominicans. The 15 parishes administered by secular clergy were all administered by clerics who held at least a licentiate degree, and in two cases a doctorate. In only two cases the parishes were inhabited by a monolingual Nahuatl speaking population, while the others were inhabited by Otomi or Mazahua speakers or by several linguistic groups. The archbishop, in a letter that he wrote shortly after having returned to Mexico City again, asserted that his main reason for going 115

Original in AGI, M 337, cf. my edition, Mañozca y Zamora 2008.

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Secular parishes visited by Archbishop Mañoza y Zamora in 1646 Date April 6

Pueblo Jalatlaco

Languages Nahuatl, Otomi, Matlazinca Nahuatl, Otomi, Matlazinca Nahuatl, Matlazinca

April 9

Tescalyacac

April 15

Tenancingo

April 17

Zumpahuacan

Nahuatl

April 20

Tenango

May 4

Almoloya

Nahuatl, Matlazinca Mazahua

May 5

Ixtlahuaca

Nahuatl

May 8

Jocotitlan

Mazahua

May 10

Atlacomulco

Mazahua

May 13

Tesmascalcingo

Mazahua

May 17

Jiquipilco

Otomi

May 19

Ocelotepec

May 22

Atarasquillo

May 23

Ocoyoacac

Nahuatl, Otomi Nahuatl, Otomi Nahuatl, Otomi

May 25

Huizquilucan

Nahuatl, Otomi

Beneficiary Lic. Alonso de Rivera

Confirmed 103

Dr. Pedro Mexía de León

263

Lic. Bernabé de Molina Monterrey Lic. Don Bartolmé de Alva Dr. Juan de Aguirre Lic. Cosme Ceballos Villavicencio Lic. Andrés de Resa Braojos Lic. Hernando de Olmo Lic. Alonso Tamayo de Quesada Lic. Juan de Pantaja Basurto Lic. Juan de Závala Zamudio Lic. Pedro de Anguidano Lic. Juan Páez de Mendoza Lic. Andrés Pérez de la Camara Lic. Gerónimo de Salinas

441

462

522 342

398 395 378

379

105

583 78 500

195

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out on a visitation tour was to search for and uproot indigenous “idolatries”. However, in the visitation narrative itself there are few such remarks. The one clear exception is his entry for Toluca, where the archbishop made a very brief remark on the religious situation in the whole Valley of Toluca, stating that: “There was great harm caused by superstition among the Indians, and I had the teacher/leader (maestro) that was found guilty punished. And with God’s help I hope to be able to put an end to it.”116 While not referring to it as idolatries, Mañozca did include a couple of notes on religious practices which he considered superstitious and that he had tried to counteract. Even if it were not pointed out in the clear ways that Mota and Palafox did, such notes only appear in the entries he made for pueblos administered by friars. While in Franciscan administered Cuernavaca, he was informed that a couple of alms collectors went through the region with an image of Our Lady of San Juan de los Lagos, which was a major devotion in New Galicia. His informant said that these men were trying to persuade the indigenous people that the wick of the candles that were burnt before the image had miraculous effects. Though the archbishop had previously given the men license to collect alms for the maintenance of the church in San Juan de los Lagos, after taking testimonies he ordered them to bring back the image and revoked their license.117 Likewise, when visiting Zinacantepec the archbishop was approached by a group of Indians who told him that they had … a small image of Our Lady, which used to go away from them, and as they are ceremonious I ordered the guardian of this monastery to have it brought to the church as was made, and I did it to calm them and to free them from any vain presumption they may have.118

116

AGI, M 336, fol. 8v; Mañozca y Zamora 2008, 884: “auía gran daño de suprestiçion [!] en los indios y hiçe castigar al maestro que se halló culpado, y con el fauor de Dios espero atajarle”. 117 AGI, M 336, fol. 5v-6r; Mañozca y Zamora 2008, 880. 118 AGI, M 336, fol 8v, Mañozca y Zamora 2008, 884-885: “una imagen pequeña de bulto de Nuestra Señora que solía ausentarseles, y como son çeremoniaticos, di orden al guardian desta cassa la trujese a su iglesia como lo hiço por quietarlos y desengañarlos de alguna bana presunçion que podian tener”.

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The three visitation narratives, on which most of this chapter was based, are different in form and content. Nevertheless, neither of these manuscripts has much in common with the very voluminous, highlystandardized and notarized visitation books that were kept during the late-seventeenth century visitation by Archbishop Francisco Aguiar y Seijas (1683-1685 and 1686-1687), totaling more than a 1,000 folios.119 Instead they generally include basic observations on the visitation and the places visited. If Palafox and Mañozca’s narratives were somewhat more standardized, Bishop Mota’s text is much more personal and includes much more information that was not directly church-centered, such as an abundance of notes on the local natural history.

119 Aguiar y Seijas’s 1683-1685 visitation records are in AHAM, Caja 19CL, libro 1, whereas the book covering the 1686-1687 visitations is in AGN, IV 1460, 35.

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C V: S M

Dios ammipilhuan in yztca teo amoxtli, yppan ycioliuhtica, mottenehua, teaquiltilo, quenin temacoz, Yn itzqui tlamantli santos Sacramentos, huel, itechmonequi, inteopixqui, in aquin motlapielila, ompa motlalia, yppan Beneficios, mottecuitlahuia. Yc, huel, cacicamattiz, quenimacaxiltiz, initeopixcatequiuh: quenin teoyottica, quimmo cuitlahuiz, yni ychcatzihuan: quenim quimmotlamaquiliz, ini maçehualhuan Dios.1

W

ith these words in Nahuatl, Francisco de Lorra Baquio explained the main purpose of his Manual Mexicano printed in 1634. Partly an adaptation of the sacramental manual used in the archdiocese of Toledo, the Manual Mexicano was compiled to be a help for priests working in Nahuatl-speaking parishes and therefore included extensive parallels in that language and in Spanish. Printed in a handy format, books such as this served as a vademecum for generations of Novohispanian clerics. In fact, the copy of the Manual Mexicano in the British Library that I have consulted bears signatures of several priests dated well into the eighteenth century. A priest needed a library. In 1646, Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza wrote that every parish priest should own a number of books to be able to minister properly and compared a curate without books to a soldier without arms. According to Palafox, the essential priestly library included a Vulgate Bible, a missal, a breviary, a sacramental manual, a copy of the Tridentine decrees as well as some handbooks on moral theology. If working in an indigenous parish, he also needed to have 1

Lorra Baquio 1634, fol. 1r-v. The Spanish translation (fol. 1v): “Hijos de Dios, en esta espiritual escritura, y libro se dize, se escriue, como se han de dar, y administar los sanctos Sacramentos. Negocio muy importa(n)te, y que conuiene mucho al Sacerdote, q(ue) està en guarda en los Benificios y cuida de sus subditos: Con la qual entenderà perfectamente como ha de cumplir con su officio de Sacerdote, y Cura: como cuydará espiritualmente de sus ouejas; y como les darà el sustento del alma a los Indios, y naturales de Dios.” 117

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access to grammars, vocabularies and sermon books in relevant languages.2 In the 1640s Bishop Palafox harbored plans to collect grammars and vocabularies for all indigenous languages that were used in his diocese and bring them together in a single work.3 While Palafox’s publication project was never realized, a large number of works in and about indigenous languages had been printed in Mexico from the 1540s onwards. Magdalena Chocano Mena has estimated that indigenouslanguage works made up for about seven percent of the total book production in Mexico during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Of the total 156 native-language books included in her corpus, no less than ninety (or 58%) were written entirely or partly in Nahuatl. She also includes twenty works in Purhepecha, the predominant language of Michoacan. Most of these were published during a couple of decades in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The remainder of the corpus was divided between some twenty other native languages; most of them only accounting for one or a few titles. The volumes were basically linguistic or religious in content, almost all of them churchcentered. The former group include grammars (artes) and dictionaries (vocabularios), while most of the latter were ministerial aids such as catechisms (doctrinas), sermon collections (sermonarios), sacramental manuals (manuales), and confessional aids (confessionarios). With very few exceptions, such works were authored by ecclesiastics, the overwhelming majority of them being friars.4 C L From the early seventeenth century secular clerics began to appear more frequently as native-language authors,5 though most of their pieces remained in manuscript form and were not printed. Therefore, the collective work of cleric-linguists has been less recognized by modern scholars. Often such manuscripts were only used locally by the clerics themselves or were copied for the use of colleagues. At present 2 3 4 5

Palafox 1968, vol. I, 98-99. Palafox 1997. Chocano Mena 2000, 97-105. See also Sell 1993, 33. Sell 1993, 40-41.

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most of them are only known through passing references in bibliographies and archival records. It could, therefore, be of interest to briefly introduce some of the secular clerics who are known to have produced written works either on or in indigenous languages during the period. As for the diocese of Puebla, it is known that Diego Fernández del Hierro, a curate of Tlacolula, Veracruz and Puebla wrote a Nahuatl grammar;6 as did his colleague in Tlaxcala, Diego Vaca.7 Andrés Sáenz de la Peña, another of the beneficiaries of Tlaxcala, compiled a sacramental manual with Nahuatl portions that was printed in 1642 which is one of the works that I will analyze in depth in this chapter. Bernardino Pinelo, who subsequently served as curate in Acatlan de la Costa, Zapotitlan, and Jalacingo wrote another sacramental manual in Nahuatl, but was above all considered an eminent authority on the Totonac language, on which he composed a grammar.8 Though the language was spoken in more than twenty rural parishes in the diocese of Puebla, not a single work on Totonac seems to have been printed before the mideighteenth century.9 As knowledge of Totonac was essential for many priests, there is ample evidence that works with linguistic and catechetical content were produced during the mid-colonial era and that they did circulate in manuscript form among the priests. The beneficiary of Jonotla, Leonardo Ruiz de la Peña, was a pioneer of Totonac linguistics. In a late sixteenth-century narrative of his merits and services, he asserted that he was the first secular priest who had learned the language well and that as a result he had compiled a catechism. In this document of self-promotion Ruiz de la Peña also affirmed that many younger colleagues had learned the language through his teachings.10 6

Alegaciones 1648?, 80v, cf. AGI, M 301: Información de méritos y servicios of Diego Fernández de Hierro, 1621. 7 Alegaciones 1648?, 80v. 8 AGN, IV 4946, 42: Promotion of the benefice of Zapotitlan to Bernardo Pinelo, November 23, 1603. 9 This work was José Zambrano Bonilla, Arte de lengua totonaca, conforme a el Arte de Antonio Nebrija, Puebla, 1752. 10 AGI, M 289: Relación de méritos y servicios, Leonardo Ruiz de la Peña, 1589: “Siendo el primer clérigo que deprendió [la] lengua estraña y hizo doctrina en ella y el tiempo y mi mucho trabajo an fecho que aya al presente muchos ministros moços que la entiendan”.

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By the mid-seventeenth century several other Totonac works appeared in manuscript form. Cristóbal Díaz de Anaya, beneficiary of Olintla and Aguacatlan, who taught Totonac at the seminary in Puebla, completed both a dictionary and a grammar. It has been argued that his dictionary is equivalent with the Vocabulario totonaco conforme al uso de la Sierra Alta, which still is extant in manuscript form.11 The curate of Papantla, Antonio de Santoyo, wrote a catechism in Totonac,12 while his colleague in Tepexoxuma, Eugenio Romero, composed a grammar. There is good reason to believe that Romero’s work is the same as the anonymous Arte de la lengua totonaca, a manuscript that has been printed in facsimile in modern times.13 Just as in the diocese of Puebla, there were a number of secular priests in the archdiocese of Mexico who produced linguistic and catechetical works on indigenous languages during the first half of the seventeenth century. In his early nineteenth-century bio-bibliography, Beristáin y Souza indicates that Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, a curate of Zimapan and Huehuetoca, compiled “various Mexican [i.e., Nahuatl] and Otomi works”. However, from the curate’s own testimonies we know that he also learned Pame and that he composed a vocabulary, a catechism and a confessional aid in that language.14 In a narrative of his merits and services dated in 1623, the polyglot curate of Jiquipilco, Baltazar Muñez de Chávez, indicated that he was an archiepiscopal examiner of Nahuatl, Mazateco, Chontal, Mazahua and Otomi and that he had compiled an Otomi grammar.15 Beristáin also points to the case 11

For the teaching activities of Díaz de Anaya, see Torre Villar 2006, 247. Bernardo García Martínez (in Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 110) has suggested that Díaz de Anaya authored the Vocabulario totonaco, now Ms. 925 of the Gates collection at Tulane University. 12 Alegaciones, 1648?, fol. 80v. 13 Alegaciones, 1648?, fol. 80v, AGN, IV 6524, 56. Both Miguel León Portilla (in Autor desconocido 1990, ix-x) and Bernardo García Martínez (in Palafox y Mendoza 1997, 61) have argued that the author of the Arte most probably was Eugenio Romero. 14 AGI, M 239, n. 4: Relación de méritos y servicios of Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, 1636; AGN, BN, 765, 8; AHAM, caja 5, exp. 19: Licenses 1645; and Beristáin y Souza 1883, vol. 3, 259-260. 15 AGI, M 301: Relación de méritos y servicios, Baltazar Muñez de Chaves, 1623.

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of Antonio de Tovar Cano, a mestizo descendent of Moctezuma, who wrote a work described as “Elements of Mexican grammar”.16 As far as we know, none of these linguistic works from the archdiocese were printed or are extant in manuscript form. A native-language work which indeed was published was Bartolomé de Alva’s Confessionario Mayor y Menor en lengua Mexicana (1634), a brief confessional aid with Nahuatl-Spanish parallel text. The mestizo Alva was a descendent of the kings of Texcoco who, after studies at the University of Mexico, became a curate in Chapa de Mota and Zumpahuacán. Apart from the confessional aid, he also translated some Spanish theatrical pieces into Nahuatl.17 Another work by an archdiocesan priest that was printed during the seventeenth century was a sacramental manual in the Mazahua language by Diego de Nágera Yanguas (1637), to which I will return later in this chapter together with Lorra Baquio’s Manual mexicano (1634). T MANUALE G Sacramental manuals were quite a loose ecclesiastical genre sometimes referred to as Pastorale or Sacerdotale, but more often as Rituale or just Manuale. Taken together these terms convey the purpose of the genre. They were manuals employed by priests in their pastoral work to help them in performing certain rituals. Medieval and Early Modern manuals normally include a sacramentale, i.e., liturgical texts and instructions on how to administer the sacraments of baptism, penance, marriage, and extreme unction. They also include regulations on how to visit the sick or dying, as well as burial rites. Though the rite for the communion of the sick (the viaticum) generally was included in the manual for the convenience of the curate, the sacramental manuals did not include the ordinary rite of the Mass which was found in a separate missal. Apart from the sacramentale, the manuals usually in16

Beristáin y Souza 1883, vol. 3, 179. Alva 1634. In 1999 the book was published with an English translation of both the Spanish and the Nahuatl original text (see Alva 1999). For an edition and translation of his theatrical works, see Sell and Burkhart 2004-2008, vol. 3. Cf. AGN, BN 822, 7, fol 54: Letter from Bartolomé de Alva to the archbishop, 1636. 17

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cluded a benedictionale with benedictions, conjurations and exorcisms employed by the priests in their ministry.18 Though sacramental manuals were used in Europe during Medieval times, the genre became increasingly common during the sixteenth century. However, there was still little unification as to the details of their contents. Different dioceses and Church provinces often used their own books. Likewise, several manuals could exist side by side in any given diocese. A reinforced process towards the unification of the liturgical books followed in the wake of the Council of Trent. Shortly after the Council, a new breviary (1568) and a new missal (1570) were promulgated.19 The local implementation of these new books became an important task throughout the Catholic world, and New Spain was no exception. Already in the late 1570s Mexican editions of Spanish-authored commentaries on the new Roman missal and breviary appeared. Likewise, questions related to liturgical details in the new missal were analyzed in a number of Mexican-printed books during the decades that followed. In 1602, representatives of the Jesuit led congregation of the Annunciation of Our Lady, a group of secular clerics in Mexico City, devoted a more than 200 page book to detailed questions related to the correct way of celebrating the Mass. In 1647, Bishop Palafox commissioned the secular priest Pedro de Salmerón to publish another commentary on the Roman missal and made its use obligatory for all the priests in the diocese of Puebla.20 While a range of new liturgical books were adopted shortly after the termination of Trent, it would take until 1614 and the pontificate of Paul V before the Church adopted a new and common rituale. Unlike the other liturgical books of the Roman rite, the rituale was never imposed as the absolute standard, and local customs found their way into the different editions of the Roman manual.21 Already in 1585 the Third Mexican Council had prepared a rituale that was envisioned to be used throughout the Church province, but it was never printed and is not even known to be extant in manuscript 18 19 20 21

Baumgartner 1971-1972, vol. 2. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 9 (1910), s.v. “Liturgical Books”. Ceremonial 1579, Instructión 1579, Dudas 1602, and Salmerón 1647. Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (1912), s.v. “Ritual”.

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form.22 Therefore, the parish priests in seventeenth-century central Mexico continued to use the sacramental manuals they could get their hands on. In the early 1640s, Bishop Palafox deplored the fact that at least sixteen different printed or manuscript manuals were used by ministers in his diocese. His list of some of these manuals gives us a possibility to appreciate the great diversity of liturgical books that were employed by priests in their ministry.23 Some priests used older or newer manuals that were printed in Spain. Of these he mentioned the pre-Tridentine Salamanca and Seville manuals.24 However, of the books of Spanish provenance the manual of the archdiocese of Toledo was probably the most common. Its post-Tridentine version was printed for the first time in 1583 and received the status of official manual in most parts of Spain shortly thereafter. It included admonitions and rites of the sacraments as well as benedictions and exorcisms. The first Spanish edition of the Roman ritual was published in 1626 to which parts of the Toledo manual were appended.25 Apart from these Spanish manuals, Palafox testified to the continued use older Mexican manuals. Already in 1560 Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar had commissioned a sacramental manual for use in the Church province entitled Manuale Sacramentale secundum usum ecclesiae Mexicanae, which also appeared in a slightly revised post-Tridentine version in 1568.26 All the aforementioned manuals are in Latin, often with shorter explicative passages in Spanish, but there were also a number of Mexican manuals that included shorter or longer portions in Nahuatl. In his inventory, Bishop Palafox listed three popular manuals that were compiled by friars and published in Mexico. The first was the manual published by the Franciscan Miguel de Zárate in 1583 as Forma brevis administrandi apud Indos Sanctum Baptismi Sacramentum. The title 22

Martínez López-Cano 2005, 47, Poole 1987, 162. Alegaciones 1648?, 80v. 24 Perhaps the Manuale secundum consuetudinem alme ecclesiae Salmanticencensis, Salamanca 1532 and the Manuale Hispalense, Seville 1494. 25 García Alonso 1958, 358-388. The rituale of Paul V was published for the first time in Spain in 1626 as Rituale seu Manuale Romanum Pauli V, Pont. Max. Iussu editum. Cum cantu Toletano et aliis Quibusdam. 26 Baumgartner 1971-1972, vol. 2, 379-380. 23

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of this popular work which was reprinted several times is quite misleading and it was not reduced to the sacrament of baptism, but included the other four sacraments administered by the priest.27 A Manual breve y forma de administrar los santos Sacramentos a los indios was compiled by the Dominican Martín de Léon and published for the first time in 1614. It was later expanded by fellow friars after his death and reprinted three more times during the seventeenth century. León’s manual was a brief booklet in octavo format which included the baptismal rituals, the matrimonial act, extreme unction, the rites for burials, as well as a benedictionale according to the Toledo manual. Apart from some shorter passages in Nahuatl, this manual is in Latin.28 In 1638 the Franciscan Pedro de Contreras Gallardo published the Manual de administrar los santos sacramentos a los españoles y naturales desta Nueva España. This manual includes as the contents of Martín de León’s manual, but follows the new Roman Rituale and is much more detailed. The texts in Contreras Gallardo’s edition are generally in Latin with short commentaries in Spanish. However, other passages, including shorter sermons, are rendered in Nahuatl with a Spanish parallel. It includes the rituals for the five sacraments that were administered by the doctrineros, i.e., baptism, penance, extreme unction and matrimony, as well as the viaticum, but also burial rituals. The remainder of the book is made up by an extensive benedictionale and conjurations against vermin and advice on how to keep sacramental records.29 In his list, Palafox lastly mentions briefly three manuals that were compiled by Novohispanian secular clerics which were used by curates 27

[Miguel de Zárate OFM] Forma brevis administrandi apud Indos sanctum Baptismi sacramentum: iuxta ordinem Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae. Mexico 1583, 72 leaves (see González Cossio 1952, 14-17). According to González Cossio versions of the work were thereafter published in Mexico in 1595, 1599, and 1605 and in Madrid in 1613, 1617, 1637, 1646 and 1751. 28 [Martín de León OP] Manual breve y forma de administrar los santos sacramentos a los Indios universalmente; ex concessione Pauli Papae III, published in Mexico in 1614, 1617, 1640 and 1659. I have only had access to the 1640 edition, [2], 53, [1] leaves. 29 Pedro de Contreras Gallardo Manual de administrar los santos sacramentos a los españoles y naturales desta Nueva España conforme a la reforma de Paulo V. Mexico, 1638; [8], 147, [5] leaves.

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in the diocese Puebla. Apart from the Lorra Baquio manual published in 1634, these were the manual compiled by the curate of Jalacingo, Bernardino Pinelo, and a manual written by a licentiate by the name of Cantú, about whom nothing apart from his family name is known. Neither of the latter two seems to have been printed. T L B M () Francisco Lorra Baquio was a secular priest born in Mexico to Leonor Rodríguez, a native of Puebla, and Gaspar de Lorra Baquio, whose family originated from Biscay. The family included various priests and his aunt María Magdalena Lorra Baquio, a nun of the Hieronymite convent in the city, wrote several works describing her sufferings and visions. After studies at the University of Mexico he became the beneficiary of Tampamolón in the present state of San Luis Potosí in 1636, which had a Huastec and Nahuatl-speaking population spread over a large and sparsely populated geographical area. There he also became an ecclesiastical judge and a commissary of the Inquisition. After more than two decades in the Huasteca, Lorra Baquio was transferred closer to the center of the archdiocese, being appointed beneficiary of the predominantly Mazahua speaking parish of Atlacomulco in the north-eastern parts of the present state of Mexico. There he stayed for another decade. After a life as a secular priest, Lorra Baquio asked for the habit of St Dominic shortly before his death in 1669 and thus died as a Dominican friar.30 In 1634, before he embarked on his career as a beneficed parish priest, Francisco Lorra Baquio published his Manual mexicano de la administración de los santos sacramentos conforme al Manual Toledano, which was printed in Mexico City in the office of Diego 30

Genealogical notes on the family are found in AGN, Inq 425, 7, fol. 492r-495r: Francisco Lorra de Baquio’s application for becoming a commissary of the Holy Office in Tampamolon and in the Huasteca, June 30, 1646. On his aunt, see Lavrín 2008, 331-333. His appointment to Tampamolon in AGN, BN 822, 7: Letters from Francisco Lorra Baquio, June 10 and 21, 1636, cf. the royal provision in BN, 1253, 1. See also AGN, IV 1432, 39: Presentation of Lorra Baquio to the benefice of Atlacomulco, January 18, 1658, and AGN, RC D17, 249 and AGN, RC D15, 517. The year of death is from Beristáin y Souza 1883, vol. 3, 191.

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Gutiérrez.31 The work, including 144 leaves in octavo format, was dedicated to the provisor de indios of the archdiocese, Andrés Fernández de Hipenza, whom the author thanks for his devotion to the teaching of indigenous languages to future ministers. In one of the letters of approbation that precedes the text of the Manual mexicano, the Jesuit censor Juan de Ledesma expresses hope that by granting license for the publication of this manual he will animate its author to “publish other things of greater importance”, a rather standard formulation.32 As far as we know, Lorra Baquio did not publish any other major work. However, Beristáin claims that he did write a “lamentation on the terrible inundation that Mexico City suffered in the year 1629”. This sermon was an exposition on the first verse of the Old Testament book Lamentations: Quomodo sedet sola Civitas plena populo (“How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people”), applying the fate of ancient Jerusalem to the flooded city of Mexico. If this latter work ever reached the printing press, no copy is known to exist today.33 The Nahuatl-Spanish Manual mexicano was principally conceived as a guide for parish ministers. Seen from the author’s prologue, however, he did not write only for a clerical audience, but also envisioned a Nahua readership; perhaps fiscales and other literate native people who wanted to learn more about the Church’s creed and sacraments. In a part of the introduction that was only printed in Spanish, the author emphasizes that his intention is not to write a learned treatise on sacramental or moral theology. Neither does he want to produce a detailed ritual that will serve as a substitute for other works. Instead, he considers the work to be a complement to the Manual Toledano and the Mexican manuals compiled by Martín de León and Miguel de Zárate. Throughout, Lorra Baquio’s work is primarily catechetical. He includes questions and admonitions in Nahuatl with Spanish transla31

Francisco de Lorra Baquio, Manual mexicano, de la administracion de los santos sacramentos, conforme al Manual Toledano, Mexico, 1634, [8], 111, 111 [bis], 112-133, [2] leaves [A-Q8, R7]. 32 Lorra Baquio 1634. 33 “Lamentacion sobre la terrible inundación que padeció México en el año de 1629, en que se expone pateticamente el verso de Jeremías: Quomodo sedet sola Civitas plena populo”, Beristáin y Souza, 1883, vol. 3, 191 as well as Andrade 1899, 173.

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tions that the curates can use when explaining the effects of the sacraments to their Nahua parishioners. However, it also integrates detailed norms for the behavior of the faithful when receiving the sacraments. The catechetical component of the work is thus clear and the author points out that there are four basic things that Christians must know: how to pray, how to confess one’s faith, how to act and what to receive. They must know the pater noster and the credo, but in order to act correctly they must have knowledge of the Ten Commandments and the five Commandments of the Church. Finally, they must grasp what the sacraments are and how to receive them in a dignified way.34 Apart from the two introductory parts, the Manual mexicano is divided into sixteen chapters. They include explanations of all seven sacraments, not only the five sacraments that are administered by the priest, but also confirmation and holy orders which are the prerogative of the bishop. Much emphasis is given to penance, as the book includes a confessional aid. The sacraments are presented in the order given in the decrees of the seventh session of the Council of Trent, i.e., baptism (chapter I), confirmation (II), Eucharist (III), penance (IV-X), extreme unction including the viaticum (XI-XII), holy orders (XIII) and matrimony (XIV). The last chapter that Lorra Baquio wrote himself (XV) is a complement to the chapters on penance and matrimony, containing Nahuatl numerals and terms used to describe consanguinity and affinity. The book ends (XVI) with a sample of benedictions and conjurations, which are taken verbatim from Martín de León’s 1614 manual. The sacraments thus have a prominent place in the manual. In line with the scholastic standard account, the sacraments are described as visible signs instituted by Christ that constitute the channels of God’s grace. Employing medical terminology, the sacraments are perceived as good medicine (qualli pahtli) for the soul that helps humanity to combat sin.35 Baptism is the prerequisite for the other sacraments and the door to salvation, without which salvation is not possible. It is the sacrament that washes away original sin. When being presented with an infant, the priest should discern if he or she had been baptized by lay people in the case of an emergency and whether they used the cor34 35

Lorra Baquio 1634, 1v-3r. Lorra Baquio 1634, 8r.

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rect words. In this context, Lorra Baquio asserts that Indians should not be trusted, as they will probably say that the child was baptized according to the rite of the Church even if it was not. If there is any doubt, the infant should be baptized conditionally (sub conditione) using the formula si non es baptizatus, ego te baptizo in nomine Patris & Filii, & Spiritus Sancti, Amen: ‘if you are not baptized, then I baptize you’. For liturgical details on baptism the author refers the reader to the Manual Toledano.36 Normally only the bishop conferred the sacrament of confirmation. However, Lorra Baquio includes it in his Manual mexicano as it belongs to the curate’s office to prepare his parishioners in order to receive the sacrament. The main effect of the sacrament is described as spiritual fortitude. Confirmation is seen as a kind of armor that helps in the battle against sin and bad inclinations. Lorra Baquio also explains to his audience that during the confirmation liturgy, apart from anointing the forehead with chrism, the bishop gives every person a light stroke on the cheek. This act is a symbol of the harshness that the Christian has to endure by following Christ, who had been tormented and eventually killed. Confirmation is presented as being of great importance and it should be received if the opportunity arises, while it is a great sin if anybody through “laziness, negligence, shame or fear” refrains from receiving it. The author explains to his audience that to administer this sacrament to them the bishop has to travel a long way and therefore they should love, obey and revere him. Just as in the case of baptism, a person should only be confirmed once and the author points out that to be confirmed a second time constitutes a grave sin.37 The third chapter of the Manual mexicano is devoted to the Eucharist, but also includes a brief catechism — catechismo en mexicano—focusing on knowledge of which is regarded as a prerequisite to be admitted to communion. It is a catechism laid out in questions and answers following the articles of the Apostolic Creed and focusing on the doctrines of the divine nature, the Trinity, the redemptive work of Christ, the Virgin Mary and heaven and hell. After the exposition of the creed, the author turns to the treatment of the Eucharist. As might be expected, the text does not refer to the liturgy of the Mass which is 36 37

Lorra Baquio 1634, 8r-12v. Lorra Baquio 1634, 13v-22v.

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found in the missal. Instead, Lorra Baquio gives quite detailed advice on how the communicants should prepare themselves and how they should act when receiving the host. Before taking communion they should confess. It is intimated that it is the confessor’s task to decide whether a person is worthy of taking communion. On the day of communion they should keep fast from midnight onwards and if married they should abstain from sexual intercourse for one or two days beforehand. In church they should appear in newlywashed clothes and when taking communion they should not be afraid, but look directly on the host. They should receive it without haste and without opening their mouth too widely, only putting out their tongue a little. After receiving the host they should close their mouth slowly and not chew on the wafer. If the wafer sticks in the mouth, they are advised to move it gently with the tongue and not employ their hands. Having received the sacrament, the communicants are to be given some water to drink so that no remnant of the host remains in their mouth. In his admonitions, Lorra Baquio stresses that the parishioners should in no way see this water as anything other than plain water; it has no sacramental or holy qualities. He also points out that those who have taken communion should refrain from spitting for some time, as not to risk a bit of the host falling on the ground.38 The sacrament of penance occupies the most significant portion of the Manual mexicano. Initially the author explains the relationship between the sacraments of baptism and penance, arguing that the former was instituted to free human beings from original sin and that the latter constitutes the cure of the soul when it has fallen ill through mortal sin. He writes, “it is certain that sin soils, blackens, and causes bad odor, as that penance cleanses and beautifies our soul”.39 According to the Council of Trent, contrition, confession and satisfaction are the three constitutive parts of the sacrament of penance, the quasi materia of the sacrament. In his exposition, Lorra Baquio also includes a first preparatory step to contrition: those who are about to go to confession should seek solitude so that they can examine their lives in order 38

Lorra Baquio 1634, 35r-39r. Lorra Baquio 1634, 42v: “porque es cierto que el pecado ensucia y ennegrece, y da mal olor, y la Penitencia limpia, y hermosea nuestra anima.” (Text only in Spanish). 39

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to “collect and count” their sins. Thereafter they should show remorse for their sins and demonstrate a willingness to repent. The third step is to confess all one’s sins while kneeling before the priest. The fourth, and final step, is to comply with the satisfaction given by the priest.40 Apart from this general introduction to the sacrament of penance, the Manual mexicano includes quite a detailed confessional aid, which includes questions the minister should ask the confessant in order to search for sins. The Decalogue combined with the five Commandments of the Church comprises the backbone of the confessionary. Apart from some general remarks on the first commandment, this part includes thirteen questions about “auguries and superstitions” which might constitute transgressions of the first commandment. Before this group of questions, Lorra Baquio remarks in Spanish without a Nahuatl translation indicating that these questions should not be asked to all penitents, but should only be asked in cases where the confessor had suspicions.41 Having dealt with the first three commandments of the Decalogue, Lorra Baquio turns to the five Commandments of the Church: hearing Mass, confessing at Lent, taking communion at Easter, fasting when the Church so mandates and paying tithes. The Mass duty implies that all baptized people should attend Mass every Sunday and every obligatory feast day. Lorra Baquio specifies what he means by attending the Mass: to stay in church during the entire Mass, to sit quietly in church and to look at the priest not at other things.42 However, most of this paragraph is dedicated to excesses in eating and drinking. Most of the questions relate to establishing degrees of drunkenness, ranging from the simple drunkenness (Cuix otitlahuan?) to a complete loss of consciousness (Cuix otiyhuiotic, huel oticpoli intlalli, intlanextli?). In the same context Lorra Baquio also includes questions related to the use of psychotropic mushrooms and even cannibalism.43 40

Lorra Baquio 1634, 42r-46v. Lorra Baquio 1634, 46v-52v: “De agueros y supersticiones no se han de preguntar a todos, sino conforme juzgare la prudencia del Confessor, segun la calidad del penitente y circunstancias de su confesion”. 42 Lorra Baquio 1634, 52v-64v. 43 Lorra Baquio 1634, 56v-57r. 41

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In the following brief chapters, Lorra Baquio continues with his treatment of the last seven commandments of the Decalogue. As is always the case in Early Modern confessional aids, the questions relating to the sixth commandment are many and detailed. Most of them are directed explicitly to males; only a few clearly apply to female confessants. The male confessant is questioned as to whether he has had sexual relations with women other than his wife. A number of questions are thereafter devoted to discerning the status of the women and in particular if she was a relative, either through consanguinity or affinity. Other questions are devoted to nocturnal pollution, masturbation, sexual relations between two men or two women, as well as sexual relations with animals.44 After his detailed treatment of the sacrament of penance, Lorra Baquio devotes quite some space to the remaining three sacraments, i.e., extreme unction, holy orders and matrimony. Extreme unction is treated closely with the viaticum, the host given to the severely ill or dying person, generally when the priest visits the parishioner’s home.45 The chapter on holy orders does not include any liturgical formulas, but instead gives a brief explanation of Christ’s institution of the Eucharist and the priesthood. Given that the clergy are entrusted with the celebration of the Mass, priests should be looked upon as fathers and “loved, honored, and obeyed”.46 In preparation for the contraction of marriage, the curate should ask the couple a number of questions to make sure that they are getting married out of free will and are not being forced by their parents or any other person. The witnesses should be consulted to ensure the couple are not related in the forbidden degrees of consanguinity, affinity or spiritually and that they are not already married. Having heard the witnesses, the banns are to be proclaimed on three consecutive feast days, in order for those who know of any impediment to be able to disclose them.47 The sacramentale is completed with a brief benedictionale, which Lorra Baquio took verbatim from Martín de León’s manual. It includes 44 45 46 47

Lorra Baquio 1634, 70r-72v. Lorra Baquio 1634, 77v-96v . Lorra Baquio 1634, 96v-99v. Lorra Baquio 1634, 99v-111r.

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priestly conjurations against storms, hail, locusts and vermin, as well as benedictions for fields, gardens and vineyards, but also objects such as rosaries, habits and scapulars.48 T N Y M () At his death in 1636, the curate of Jocotitlan, Diego de Nágera Yanguas, left a manuscript described as a “manual for the administration of the Church’s sacraments to speakers of the Mazahua language”. In his last will and testament the curate bequeathed money to secure its posthumous publication. One of the parishioners brought the manuscript to the dean of the Mexican cathedral chapter Diego Guerra, who was the governor of the miter during the see’s vacancy. Having consulted the curate of Ixtlahuacan, Andrés de Resa, who was the archdiocesan examiner in the Mazahua language, the dean conceded a license to publish the work. The book was printed in 1637 under the title Doctrina y Enseñança en la lengua Maçahua de cosas muy utiles y provechosas para los Ministros de Doctrina, y para los naturales que hablan la lengua Mazahua. As the manuscript was called a manual and the printed work was named a doctrina, some bibliographers have thought that they constituted two different works. In fact they are the same work, as becomes clear from the author’s introduction.49 Diego de Nágera Yanguas was born in Mexico to Catalina de Aguilar and Pedro de Nágera. After studies at the University of Mex48

Lorra Baquio 1634, 118v-135r. Diego de Nágera Yanguas, Doctrina y Enseñança en la lengua Maçahua de cosas muy utiles y provechosas para los Ministros de Doctrina, y para los naturales que hablan la lengua Mazahua. 1637, [5], 177, [2]: A-Y8, Z5. I only know of the existence of four copies of the original, currently found in the Biblioteca Pública del Estado de Jalisco in Guadalajara, John Carter Brown Library, Newberry Library and the Bibliotèque Nationale de France. There exist two fascimile editions of the work, published in 1953 and 1970 respectively, that are made after the Guadalajara copy. In this context it should be emphasized that the text that was published in Actes de la Société Philologique 27 (1898), 239-294, and 28 (1899), 169-304 under the title “Manual en Lengua Maçahua” is not another work by Nágera Yanguas, but is in fact the Doctrina. It was transcribed from a copy in the French national library that lacks the title page. Therefore the anonymous editor reproduced part of the title that is found in the foreword. 49

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ico he obtained the degree of licentiate and was ordained by title of a chaplaincy that had been founded by his grandfather. In 1593 he was made beneficiary of the Mazahua speaking benefice of Jocotitlan in the present state of Mexico, where he stayed for more than four decades until his death in 1635. His brother and one of his uncles already lived there. From his last will and testament we know that Nágera Yanguas became a wealthy man, having been active in cattle trading on a large scale. In his testament he was therefore able to make sizeable bequests to a large number of institutions and pious works, including the church and parish of Jocotitlan. He paid for hundreds of masses to be celebrated for his own soul and those of his close relatives, but also for all the people who had died in Jocotitlan during the more than four decades that he had been its curate. From his testament, we also know that he was a member of the Congregation of St Peter, as well as the third order of the Franciscans.50 In Nágera Yanguas’s time, as well as today, the Mazahua language was primarily spoken in the north eastern parts of the current state of Mexico and in minor, adjacent regions in the state of Michoacan. The name Mazahua employed by the Spaniards is of Nahuatl origin and the speakers themselves currently refer to their language as Hñatho. Together with Otomi, Matlatzinga and Ocuilteco it forms the Otomian subgroup of the Oto-Manguean linguistic family.51 In his prologue to the Doctrina y Enseñança, Nágera Yanguas writes that the main reason for compiling the book was to gather experiences from his 43 year-long ministry in Jocotitlan. As he points out that not a single printed book on the language existed, he wanted to “unload his conscience” by compiling such a work, which he thought could be of great importance to ministers as well as to the natives themselves.

50

AGN, BN 758, 3: Last will and testament of Diego de Nágera y Yanguas, August 31, 1620, with several later changes; the last on August 29, 1635. AGN, RC D3, 276: Real Cédula, March 26, 1593. Cf. AGN, BN 758,2; BN 1435, 6 and BN 1420, 2. See also Iracheta Cenecorta 2000, who has also studied notarial records in the local archives and are able to present many details on his business activities and family relations, and Pellicer 2006 for a study of the Mazahua text. 51 Soustelle 1937.

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In this treatise I have tried, in the best and clearest way that has been possible, to include the most important and necessary things that the natives must know for their spiritual good, as well as the things that their spiritual ministers should teach them.52

In fact, the Doctrina y Enseñança would remain the only work published in Mazahua during the entire colonial era. It is a rather eclectic work, probably based on a number of manuscripts that the author used in his ministry and towards the end of his life were brought together in an order that is not always very easily understandable. In its 184 leaves of an octavo format, it includes many of the things found in the Lorra Baquio manual, but also many other things, including a concise grammar called Advertencias en lengua castellana muy necessarias para hablar con propriedad la lengua que llaman maçahua. It also includes a collection of Mazahua phrases following the pattern of Pedro de Arenas’ Vocabulario Manual de las Lenguas Castellana y Mexicana (1611), including conversations relating to many daily situations such as asking for directions or asking a servant to prepare the priest’s horse.53 Of a more religious nature, the work contains a brief catechism as well as Mazahua versions of the per signum crucis, the pater noster, the ave Maria, the credo and the salve regina.54 The lion’s share of the work is, however, built upon MazahuaSpanish parallel texts on issues relating to the parish ministry, and particularly the administration of sacraments. It does not include any Latin passages, save some Vulgate texts, but only the Mazahua and Spanish explanations. These texts often have the form of short admonitions, declarations and sermons (pláticas) with catechetical content, which the curate could use when addressing the parishioners. Their content can be described as most consequent (or monotone) with the same basic moral and theological ideas being presented over and over again. The author points out that the human being is comprised of a 52

Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, [A1-A2]: “En este tratado, è procurado, con el mejor, y mas claro estilo que me à sido posible poner las cosas mas importantantes, y necessarias, que los naturales deuen saber para su bien espiritual, y las que comunmente sus ministros espirituales les deuen enseñar.” 53 Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 1r-10v, 79v-81r, 84r-105v. 54 Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 81r-83v, 174r-177v.

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body and soul and that the latter is immortal. Depending on how a person lives during life, his or her soul goes to heaven or hell after death or stays in the purgatory. If people confess all their mortal sins they can escape hell, the house of Satan, and the eternal punishments there. Heaven is described as the house of God, where the Virgin Mary and the saints abide. In his description of the nature of heaven, the author’s description becomes quite contextualized. He writes that the native people who are in heaven do not have to take part in communal work (Nahuatl: cohuatequitl; Mazahua: becheche), they do not have to go to the milpa to attend the maize plants, nor work as tlamenes carrying heavy loads; there are no gobernadores, alcaldes or regidores who tell the commoners what to do. Against this theological perspective, the author presents the Church’s sacraments as means instituted by Christ, which the priest, as “the image of Christ”, administers to the parishioners to help them escape eternal punishment.55 In its treatment of the Church’s sacraments, the Doctrina y Enseñança only devotes a little space to baptism. Nágera Yanguas includes a short description of the “way of preceding when there is someone to be baptized”. This reference is directed to the sacristan who should go and ask the fiscal if there were any newly born children who have not been baptized yet. If there are such infants, the priest should ask the sacristan to fill up fresh water in the font to bring the chrismatory and the priest’s surplice, and to light the candles on the altar. The author also includes an admonition to the godparents who are present with the children about to be baptized. The priest asks them if any of the children have been baptized in the case of an emergency. After baptism, the priest admonishes the godparents about their responsibility to see that the children learn the Church’s doctrine. He also explains that by being godparents they were now spiritually cognate with both the child and the child’s parents, and cannot marry or have sexual relations with either of them.56 Confirmation is the subject of one of Nágera Yanguas’s sermons to be held when the archbishop visits the parish to administer the sacrament. The text begins with a lengthy general exposition of the Church’s sacraments and only towards the end includes a short description of the 55 56

Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953. Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 76v-78r.

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effects and role of confirmation. The author states that he, as a priest, could administer most of the sacraments, but that only a bishop can confer the sacrament of confirmation which gives more fortitude to one’s faith.57 The sacrament of the Eucharist is the subject of a couple of short notices and sermons, which are particularly devoted to the preparation for those who are about to communicate at Easter. It also includes a short sermon to be preached after the reception of communion and an admonition not to sin anymore since the communicants have received the grace of God through the sacrament. There is also an admonition to the sacristans to prepare the altar for the celebration of Mass. They should clean the altars and the images, bring forward the chalice and the other liturgical vessels, the wafers and the missal, placing them on the altar, and take the surplice and the biretta from the sacristy so that the priest can prepare himself. Thereafter they should ring the church bell to gather the parishioners to Mass.58 Just as in the case of the Lorra Baquio manual, the treatment of the sacrament of penance is the most detailed part of the Doctrina y Enseñança. In fact, this sacrament permeates the entire manual. Nágera Yanguas includes both a short confessional aid and a number of sermons against sins. The confessional aid includes a list of questions and possible answers, which basically follows the commandments of the Decalogue and the five Commandments of the Church, but without any clear division into chapters. Though a whole range of possible sins appear in the confessional aid and the sermons, a triad of sins appears more clearly: drinking, fornication, and theft. The questions and sermons relating to drinking, the use of pulque (Mazahua: noçhemi) as well as pahtli (Mazahua: neñechi) and psychotropic mushrooms (Mazahua: yocho) are numerous. In one sermon particularly devoted against drinking, the curate compares the drunkard to a “beast” or more specifically to a “horse”, identifying them as a human being who has lost his or her rationality and judgment. He states that people laugh at a drunkard, but drunkenness should not be considered a laughing matter as it constitutes a great offense to God and leads down a road to hell. The admonitions against the 57 58

Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 156r-170r. Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 44r-48r, 78r-79v, 105v-114v.

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use of pulque are sometimes combined with rebukes against the use of pahtli and psychotropic mushrooms, which were used for divinatory purposes. However, in order not to incite such use, the author advises that the confessor should refrain from asking questions on the use of pahtli and mushrooms, if the confessant does not bring up the matter first.59 As in the case of Lorra Baquio’s manual, much space in Nágera Yanguas’s confessional aid is given to transgressions of a sexual kind. Many of the confessional enquiries are attempts to establish if and in what way the confessant has had pre- or extramarital relations, and if and in what way they are related to the partner. As for the questions about homosexual practices (referred to as sodomy), Nágera Yanguas’s strategy is the same as in the case of pahtli use. He clearly states that the curate should not make queries on such matters to confessants, but only to those who admit to such behaviors themselves.60 The third primary theme in the confessional aid and the sermons regards the seventh commandment of the Decalogue, theft, which is presented as a particularly common sin. In this context, the author points out that the confessor should be very detailed in his questioning, trying to establish whether the confessant has stolen “anything of which the Indians often steal such as corn, hens, livestock, et cetera”. The confessional aid also includes detailed admonitions to restore the stolen objects to the rightful owner, or if the owner is not known, to give it to the parish church.61 In the confessional aid some space is also awarded to one of the Commandments of the Church, namely that all baptized Christian should attend Mass every Sunday and feast day. It includes a short declaration with which the priest can make the parishioners aware of the fact that an obligatory feast day is forthcoming. When writing about the Mass, the author consistently uses the verb “to see”; for a parishioner to attend Mass is to see Mass, not to hear it. When in church the parishioners should not speak, not “play around” or do anything else but see Mass. To comply with the Mass duty, all parishioners should also listen to the priest’s sermon. After Mass has ended, they should 59 60 61

Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 25v-29r, 65r-66r. Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 18v-22r. Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 12v-31r, 42v-44r, 65r-66r.

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listen to announcements made by the governor and the fiscal, and not leave church until everything is over. If anybody leaves before Mass ends to go home or to the market they have not fulfilled their religious duty.62 In the Doctrina y Enseñança, the sacrament of extreme unction is described in close relation to the administration of the viaticum and the confession of the sick. There is a description of the acts of the priest when he is called to the home of a sick person. The treatment of the visitation of the sick begins with a description of the dialogue between the priest and the sacristan. The sacristan is asked to prepare the horse or the mule so that the priest can travel to the parishioner’s home. He should thereafter go to church and bring back the blessed host and the box with the oils. The author also includes a number of questions that the priest should ask in order to establish the gravity of the sickness and whether there is a house altar in the sick person’s home. Leaving his home the priest travels to the sick person’s house accompanied and guided by the person who sent for him.63 T S   P M () The Manual de los Santos Sacramentos conforme al Ritual de Paulo Quinto (1642) was commissioned by Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza of Puebla as a way to combat liturgical diversity. To prepare the manual Palafox had gathered together a group of theologians who served as consultants, but the final version of the manual was compiled by the curate of Tlaxcala, Andrés Sáenz de la Peña. He was a native of the Canary Islands who had arrived in New Spain as a young man where he studied at the Colegio de Todos los Santos and at the University of Mexico, from which he eventually received a doctorate in Theology. In 1641, one year before the manual was published, Sáenz became one of the beneficiaries of Tlaxcala, but in 1646 he left the diocese to become a member of the cathedral chapter of Michoacan, only to later come back to Puebla to fill the archdeaconate of its cathedral.64 62

Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 63r-65r. Nágera Yanguas [1637] 1953, 66r-76v. 64 Beristáin y Souza 1883, vol. 2, 312. See also AGN, RC D35, 129: Real Cédula, June 6, 1641. Palafox 1997, 74, 80 and Mazín Gómez 1996, 164. 63

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In 1642, when the Manual was published, Palafox had reached the zenith of his career. Apart from being bishop of Puebla and general visitor, he was briefly archbishop-elect of Mexico and interim viceroy of New Spain. No friend of ritual differences, in his preamble to the manual Palafox wrote that the multitude of manuals used in the Church province should be ended so “that most beautiful unity, that uniform whiteness, that equal grace with which the Church wants that it ministers for its faithful”. He therefore decreed that from March 1643 onwards the Manual de los Santos Sacramentos should be used by all priests in the archdiocese and the diocese of Puebla. If anybody made use of other manuals after the stipulated date they would be excommunicated latae sententiae and fined 200 pesos.65 Taking into account the conflicts between Bishop Palafox and other powerful ecclesiastical actors in the following years it is difficult to know to what extent the work really was used outside the diocese of Puebla in the midseventeenth century, as the bishop’s name figured prominently on the title page. What is clear is that the work was republished several times during the colonial era and even as late as the mid-nineteenth century, both in the archdiocese and in the diocese of Puebla.66 The Manual de los Santos Sacramentos basically follows the outline of the Roman ritual, though with several alterations, omissions and additions. Just as its Roman prototype, it begins with a brief description of the sacraments in genere. Thereafter, the Mexican manual includes the rituals of baptism, penitence, the Eucharist, extreme unction and matrimony. It also contains the burial rites, which in the Roman ritual precede the sacrament of matrimony. All the rituals are preceded by explanations and admonitions directed to the priests. Just as its Roman model, the Mexican manual ends with a great number of benedictions to be used by clerics in different circumstances, together with rules for religious processions, rites of exorcisms, and rules for excommunication and censures, while ending with notes on pastoral 65

Sáenz de la Peña 1642: “hermosissima unidad, aquella uniforme blancura, aquella ygual gracia con que la Yglesia quiere que se obre por sus fieles”. On Palafox’s church policy, cf. Palafox y Mendoza 1644, 1646, 1649a and 1649b. 66 Apart from the first edition, the work was reprinted twice in 1691 (Mexico and Puebla) and 1712, 1758 and 1789 (Mexico). Later editions from 1809, 1826, 1847 and 1864 were all published in Puebla.

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visitations. While the Manual by Sáenz de la Peña basically follows the general pattern of the Rituale Romanum, all the introductions to the different rites are written in Spanish and not in the original Latin. It also includes a great number of additions (or supplements) taken from the Manual Toledano or the old Manuale Mexicane (1560, 1568), as well as the Roman Catechism and the decrees of the Third Provincial Council. There are two versions for every sacrament, one regarding its administration to Spaniards and the other to indigenous people. The latter of the two also includes lengthy texts in Nahuatl to be used by the minister. The introductory chapter on the sacraments in genere is a verbatim translation of the text in the Rituale Romanum. The text confers a basic contemporary view on the role and effect of the sacraments in the life of the Catholic Church. A sacrament is basically a kind of spiritual medicine instituted by Christ for the good of humanity. They are seven channels of divine grace. To administer the sacraments is thus a most important task for the priest. Though the personal behavior of the priest does not blemish the sacraments, priests who administer them without piety bring condemnation upon themselves. Priests should therefore be just, chaste and pious. They should confess often and at least make an act of contrition before confessing others. When administering the sacraments, save for that of penance, the priest should always wear a surplice and a stole, and see that the ornaments and garments used are clean. When administering a sacrament the priest should recite the words in a clear and devout way, not reciting them from memory, but reading the text from the manual. Whenever possible he should explain the “use, utility and meaning of the ceremonies” in accordance with the Roman catechism. The introductory chapter also admonishes parishioners to receive the sacraments without vane conversations, clad in decent clothing and “with modesty, piety, devotion and reverence” (compostura, piedad, devoción, y reverencia) that are called for by the proximity to the sacrament.67 Baptism is seen as the door to the Church, the sacrament that is the prerequisite for the others. The explanation of the baptismal rite makes up a significant part of Sáenz de la Peña’s Manual. The text is divided into four parts to be used for Spanish and indigenous, both infants 67

Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 1r-3v.

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and adults. The form of the sacraments is the words: Ego te baptizo in nomine Patris & Filii & Spiritus Sancti. The priest should always use the Latin version, while other people who are baptizing in the case of emergency should use the vernacular Spanish. However, nothing is explicitly stated as to the use of indigenous languages. Though the introduction to the sacrament of baptism basically follows the Roman original, it also includes a decree from the Third Provincial Council indicating that priests should baptize the children of Spaniards and Indians within nine days. Another addition, not found in the Roman Rituale, states that one priest from each province should travel to the cathedral church to bring the holy oils back to his own parish and the neighboring parishes within a fortnight of Holy Thursday. To the passages of the Roman ritual in which names are considered, the Manual also includes a text from the Third Mexican Council that decrees against the use of names from the Old Testament, excluding the names of certain saints of such as Joaquin, Ana, José, Isabel and Juan Bautista.68 According to the chapter on the christening of indigenous children, when bringing an infant to be baptized the priest should ask the godparents whether the child has already been baptized in the home of the parents according the rites of the Church, specifying who had performed the sacrament, and specifying which words had been used. However, in this context the manual discusses at some length that indigenous godparents should not be trusted, and that in case of doubt, the priest should baptize the child conditionally. “Taking into account the simplicity of these people, that if there is any doubt it is preferable that the child should is baptized conditionally, so that the infant does not remain unbaptized”.69 Otherwise, the priest should administer only the other rituals of the baptism, including exorcism, salt, saliva and oil. Apart from the baptismal questions, and the ritual of the baptism, this portion also includes a sermon on the effects and necessity of the sacrament, which is taken from the Roman catechism, that should always be preached when adults are baptized and a couple of times a year when infants are baptized. The sermon underlines the neces68

Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 4r-10v. Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 30v-31v: “atendiendo la rudeza destos hombres, es menos inconveniente que auiendo alguna duda se buelua a baptizar condicionalmente que no que se quede sin baptism al infante”. 69

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sity of baptism for salvation, being the door to all other sacraments, which makes people part of the Church and signs them with the seal of Christ.70 Unlike the two manuals that we have considered thus far, the Sáenz de la Peña manual does not include a confessional aid in the form of questions and possible answers. Instead, the manual gives general remarks on the sacrament taken from the Latin original and further includes a translation of a sermon taken from the Roman catechism on the effects of the sacraments held during Lent together with admonitions as to the confession of indigenous people, obviously not found in the Roman model. It also includes a number of catechetical questions, testing knowledge of the doctrine of the Church, which are taken from Lorra Baquio’s book. The priests are advised to be benevolent and patient when confessing Indians, stating once again the common view that they were simple people who were afraid of confession. The author of the manual therefore recommends the confessors do not trust the confessions made by indigenous people, stating that they often only offer “a prologue, that they often know by heart” that includes some mortal and venial sins. The priest should therefore investigate further, following the outline of the Ten Commandments in order to specify the nature and exact quantity of their sins. An interesting note by the author advises the confessors that the Nahuatl speaking confessant does not make a great distinction between an act and an intention to do something. The author consequently recommends the confessors to ask whether it was “by heart (as they say)”, that is by intention, or by works. He also remarks that the indigenous people often state that they have committed a sin five times, by which they meant “many times”, and they should therefore be pressed to disclose the exact number. To the author, another problem is that they sometimes confess things that were not considered sins by the Church and should therefore be absolved conditionally. Finally, it is important that the priest should not receive any money from the confessant, as they often want to give medio real when making their confession.71 70 71

Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 32r-37v. Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 47r-54r.

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Though the entire Roman rite of the Mass is not included in the manual, there are some general remarks on the administration of the communion to indigenous people. Though he considers the Indians pusillanimous and simple they should not be denied the sacrament. Particular attention is given to the communion of the infirm. It is most important that the priest should travel to the homes of sick parishioners, even if they are situated far away from the village in which he lives. When travelling with the sacrament he should either walk or go on horseback and be preceded by two Indians with lamps. The Manual clearly pointed out the infirm should not have to be carried to the church, as some priests demanded, as this “inhumane custom” could aggravate the status of the sick person, but also because the illness could be contagious. The author also remarks that the health of indigenous people often deteriorates rapidly and if called upon the priest should travel as soon as possible, in order not to risk the person dying without the sacraments, and not be angry if the sickness is not gravely ill.72 The same skepticism underlies the chapter on indigenous matrimonies. The words of the couple should not be taken for granted and should be carefully investigated. Sáenz de la Peña also includes the wedding rite in Nahuatl: the marital vows as well as the blessing of the marriage, the rings and the coins given from the groom to the bride as a pledge (arras).73 The first two manuals that we have considered, the Manual Mexicano by Lorra Baquio and the Doctrina y Ensenañza of Nágera Yanguas, are both quite eclectic. They do not include all the Latin texts that were used by the priests; instead they included catechetical texts that the priests could use to explain the effects of the different sacraments. They also enclose quite detailed confessional aids. The Manual compiled by Sáenz de la Peña is a Novohispanian application of the Roman ritual that includes detailed advise for the parish clergy for their ministry to both Spanish and indigenous parishioners, but also contains many Latin liturgical texts that ought to be employed by the clerics. There was certainly a wish for unification on the part of the bishops and in particular the constantly active Palafox. However, in the parish ministry, the priests used the small books they had access to and the 72 73

Sáenz de la Peña 1642, 70r-74r, 82v-86v. Sáenz de la Peña 1642.

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linguistic diversity of many parishes meant that curates often had to make recourse to their memory, their own manuscripts or manuscripts that had been compiled by colleagues and circulated. The Church life described in the manuals certainly represents an ideal. Particular in relation to confession, it is hard to conceive that all, or even the majority, of the questions were asked to the confessant. The coarseness and simplicity of the Indian population could be remedied by instruction and the administration of the sacraments.

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U  H: E R

Una fingida bondad no solo no es bondad, sino que es doblada malicia; quieren estos parecer Christianos, siendo idolatras; usan del traje de corderos, siendo lobos; quieren que parecerse á los verdaderos Christianos, siendo verdaderos idolatras, queriendo las más vezes en sus conjuros, curas, y supersticiones imitar los Ministros de la Iglesia, y usurparles sus officios, imitando en esto á Satanas, que quiso usurpar á Dios Nuestro Señor su gloria y honra, é imitar sus acciones.1

J

acinto de la Serna, a secular cleric and long-time general visitor of the archdiocese of Mexico, wrote a treatise on indigenous idolatry in the mid-1650s. For several decades, both as a parish priest and as a specifically-appointed judge, he had been involved in the investigation of native ritual practices, which Novohispanian ecclesiastics usually referred to as idolatry or at least superstition. The quotation is part of a manual that de la Serna wrote to help his colleagues investigating suspicious practices, beliefs and objects. Such practices included healings and offerings, as well as incantations. Not surprisingly, Serna and other contemporary churchmen made a binary division between what they regarded as Christian practices and what they considered to be idolatrous customs. The Church’s teachings and rituals were seen as truth and the road to eternal salvation, while the autochthonous alternatives constituted at least a tacit pact with the Devil and a way of darkness and ignorance that ultimately led to eternal damnation. The text is also a clear illustration of the “idols-behind-the-altar” description of the process of Christianization in central Mexico, implying that native Christianity only constituted a thin veneer covering deeply-rooted idolatrous beliefs and practices. Throughout his work Jacinto de la Serna related a number of cases that he and his older colleagues had investigated during the last fifty 1

Serna 1953, XXVIII, 1. 145

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years, which he regarded as clear indications of the continued and widespread use of native ritual practices in many parts of central Mexico. In his view the prevalence of such practices had not decreased with time, though the church organization and its ministers had been present in the region for more than a century. Rather the opposite. Particularly from the early seventeenth century, various ecclesiastics, including Serna, described what they saw as the return of idolatry. Or rather, they testified that such practices, which had existed all along, had become more visible through the congregations, when dispersed groups of indigenous people were brought together in larger villages. He also asserted that large groups of indigenous people only appeared to be Christians, while secretly they performed native rituals or at least sought the assistance of native ritual specialists who Serna and other ecclesiastics described as dogmatizers or masters of idolatry. I  J In seventeenth-century New Spain there were two courts of law that dealt with matters of heterodox religious practices and beliefs. In accordance with a royal decree, a separate tribunal of the Inquisition was founded in Mexico in 1569. In practice, it began to function two years later with the arrival of the first inquisitors. Thereafter the Mexican Inquisition held formal jurisdiction over an enormous district—some 3 million square kilometers—including not only presentday Mexico, but also the Philippines and most of Central America. The Spanish Inquisition, of which the Mexican tribunal was a part, was not an ecclesiastical court, but a royal organization governed by the Supreme Council of the Inquisition. Still, its tribunals were mainly staffed by ecclesiastics. Before the establishment of the Mexican Inquisition, the Novohispanian diocesan bishops, and ultimately the archbishop of Mexico, had the right and duty to investigate cases of heterodox beliefs and acts. Nevertheless, even after the foundation of the Mexican Inquisition the bishops continued to hold jurisdiction over cases of faith that involved one very significant group of people in the colonial society: the Indians.2 In matters of faith the Indians of central Mexico—well over 80 percent of the total population in the mid-seventeenth century—thus re2

Alberro 1988, 21-23.

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mained under the jurisdiction of the diocesan bishops. In practice, the episcopal legal authority was normally delegated to the provisor / vicario general who served as the main ecclesiastical judge and head of the episcopal tribunal, the audiencia (archi)episcopal. From the midsixteenth century throughout the first half of the following century there was also a separate provisor de indios in the archdiocese of Mexico. He was an ecclesiastical judge, subject to the ordinary provisor, who was particularly responsible for cases involving natives. In practice, the initial investigation of indigenous idolatries and superstitions was, however, most often commissioned to special judges, jueces de comisión, who were sent out to the different parts of the diocese. They were usually secular clerics entrusted with a special license to investigate a particular case in a given geographical area.3 From a legal point of view, there was thus a clear-cut division between the jurisdictions of the two courts. Indigenous people should not be persecuted by the Inquisition tribunal, which in matters of faith held jurisdiction over all other ethnic groups in colonial Mexico. However, the archives of the Inquisition, now in the Mexican national archives, do include accusations against native people. Part of the explanation for the existence of such cases in the Inquisition archives is that the tribunal’s personnel sometimes had problems defining who was to be considered a “pure Indian” (indio puro) and who was to be seen as a mestizo. There was a particular problem making a distinction between a Hispanicized, Spanish-speaking indigenous person on the one hand and a mestizo who lived in a pueblo de indios and only spoke an indigenous language on the other. Only the latter could lawfully be tried by the Inquisition. Therefore, there are a number of legal cases that were initiated against people thought to be mestizos, but who were proven to be “pure Indians”. In the latter case, the investigation would be handed over to the episcopal tribunal, whereas an initial report or an aborted judicial process was kept in the Inquisition archives.4 Apart from such 3

Traslosheros 2004, 107-131, see also Lundberg 2002, 98-109. There are a number of such cases. See e.g., AGN, Inq 287, 7: Process against Fernando Hernández for bigamy, 1610. In the initial investigation carried out in Puebla he was called a mestizo, but when he was transferred to Mexico and was questioned by the inquisitors he testified to be an Indian. After having heard a 4

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cases, there are also reports on indigenous idolatries that for some reason were sent to the Holy Office, either by its regional officials (comisarios) or by other people.5 For example, in 1605 Fray Alonso Montero, doctrinero in Izúcar, informed the inquisitors that a number of stone and clay “idols”, copal, and candles had been found on the mountain of Xochiapa. In 1620 the Carmelite friar Manuel de Santo Tomás in Querétaro denounced a woman called Juana who was described a mestiza, but who wore “Indian clothing” and used to be “transformed into a dog”. And in 1622 the Franciscan Gabriel de Zurita of Hueychiapa denounced two indigenous women, María de los Ángeles is described as a “Hispanized Indian” (india ladina), while the other, Francisca Rodríguez, is called both a mestiza and an india ladina in the same document. They were accused of making dolls of corn dough, which they transfixed with thorns and placed outside the house of people they wanted to hurt.6 Notes on people who were suspected of being indigenous ritual practitioners also appear indirectly in processes against non-indigenous people accused of having sought the consultation of the former.7 In the long run, the Mexican Inquisition was not entirely content with this division of labor. Therefore, in 1619 representatives of the Mexican tribunal of the Inquisition wrote a letter to the Supreme Council of the Inquisition in Spain arguing that they should be able to persecute indigenous people under certain circumstances. Such cases involved indigenous people who had become sufficiently incorporated in the Spanish way of life and in the life of the Church so that they could no longer be considered neophytes or even “real Indians”: It so happens that some of the most hispanized [ladinos] and malicious Indians, who return to their idolatry and to the superstitions and witchcraft,

number of witnesses, the inquisitors decided that he, in fact, was an Indian and transferred the case to the provisor de indios of the diocese of Puebla. 5 Greenleaf 1965, 141. 6 AGN, Inq 281, fol. 625r-235v, AGN, Inq 335, fol. 135r-146v, and AGN, Inq fol. 451r-457v. 7 Greenleaf 1978, 325.

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that are most natural to them, induce other indigenous people or Spaniards [to commit] the same errors.8

The Mexican Inquisition wanted to be able to investigate such people, but though the Supreme Council of the Inquisition granted the tribunal the right to take action in such cases, the policy does not seem to have been put into practice. Throughout the colonial era “indios puros” were exempt from the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. Part of the explanation is that the Mexican Inquisition continued to be a rather small bureaucracy handling cases within an enormous geographical area.9 From an historian’s perspective, the extant documentation on seventeenth-century idolatry cases is quite insufficient. In a 1965 article, Richard E. Greenleaf pointed out that in comparison to the very well-stocked archives of the Inquisition tribunal, there seemed to be only a few documents on indigenous heterodoxy within the colonial archives of the episcopal court. Greenleaf asserted: The Inquisition usually kept meticulous records on these investigations, but because of the burden of work for ministers of the spiritual flock, the Provisor or his agent kept sparse records or none at all. Therefore we must conclude that only the more serious deviations from orthodoxy came to light in the archives.10

This view is difficult to uphold today. During the more than forty years that have passed since the publication of Greenleaf’s article, through the organization of various collections in the Mexican national archives and the opening of ecclesiastical archives, much more material from the archiepiscopal court of law has been made available to researchers. These documents do not only deal with what Greenleaf named “more serious deviations”; rather the opposite. Still, unlike the Inquisition records, the extant records that emanate from the archiepiscopal tribunal of Mexico are not concentrated in one easily distinguishable archival repository. The French historian Serge Gruzinski, who 8

AGN, IV 1524, 19: Letter from the Mexican inquisitors to the Suprema, May 24, 1619: “suçede que algunos indios mas ladinos y maliçiosos que buelben a la ydolatria o a las superstiçiones y hechiçerias, que les son muy naturales induçen a otras personas indios y españoles, a los dichos herrores.” 9 Alberro 1988, 22. 10 Greenleaf 1965, 142.

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perused the AGN collections (which are now referred to as Indiferente Virreinal) long before they were catalogued, pointed to the incomplete and scattered nature of the archives on indigenous heterodoxy. He emphasized that modern scholars only have access to fragments of what once constituted the archives of the archiepiscopal court.11 Today, records from the archiepiscopal tribunal of Mexico are found among the nearly 2,000 volumes of the collection called Bienes Nacionales, but such records are also scattered among the almost 7,000 volumes of the Indiferente Virreinal, both in the AGN. Documents emanating from the archiepiscopal tribunal are also found in the Historical Archives of the Archbishopric of Mexico. Yet, even in light of these newly-ordered documents, only a fraction of the documents that remain from the archiepiscopal tribunal deal with indigenous “idolatries” and “superstitions”. Today, few of the records kept by the provisores de indios are extant and it is clear that much of the material that once existed has disappeared over the years or is still to be discovered in unknown repositories. Thus the majority of the extant documentation from the archiepiscopal audiencia focuses on civil and criminal cases in which clerics were involved or matrimonial cases. Much documentation also deals with testaments, wills, and the establishment of pious foundations. The nature of the source material on indigenous “idolatries” can thus still be considered scattered and incomplete. Despite the relative lack of sources, it is known that during the first half of the seventeenth century at least a few secular priests received special archiepiscopal commissions to investigate and persecute cases of idolatry. In what follows I will analyze three seventeenth-century texts on idolatry extirpation written by three secular priests from the archdiocese of Mexico: Pedro Ponce de León, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón and Jacinto de la Serna. Though at least the works by the latter two were prepared for publication, none of them were published until the end of the nineteenth century. By that time they were looked upon only as historical sources and not as handbooks on how to investigate idolatry. In an attempt to further situate these three texts I have also employed a number of archival records that place these works in a historical and legal context. My particular emphasis is not on the clerics’ description of the forms of “idolatry” and “superstition”. Instead, 11

Gruzinski 1993, 306.

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I will focus on the ways and procedures employed by clerics in the archbishopric of Mexico in order to investigate and punish idolatries during the first half of the seventeenth century. P P  L Pedro Ponce de León is best known as the author of the Breve relación de los dioses y ritos de la gentilidad. For several decades before his death in the late 1620s, the author was the beneficiary of the Nahua pueblo of Zumpahuacan situated some 60 kilometers south of Toluca in the present state of Mexico. The Breve Relación does not include a description on how parish priests should counteract practices considered idolatrous. It is mainly a short list of different offerings and rites used for curing, sowing and finding lost objects that Ponce de León had documented during his time as a curate.12 For Ponce de León it was clear that the Devil was the main author and recipient of all these offerings and rites. He wrote in no uncertain terms: Satan has at all times attempted to usurp the reverence and adoration that is due to Our True Lord, God, seeking it for himself, attributing to himself the created things and asking that because of them man submit to him. And thus, in past times as in present ones, he has had, and has, people who make sacrifices to him in honor of the benefits that man receives from God, Our Lord, benefits that he attributes to himself. And among the natives of New Spain [there are] believers who invoke him in their activities, seeking his favor in the things that they do. They have not forgotten the names of their Gods, for old people, youths, and children still remember them.13

Even if the Breve Relación does not contain any description of Ponce de León’s persecution of people that took part in such rituals, his anti-idolatry activities are described in other seventeenth-century records. In the 1650s Jacinto de la Serna wrote: [I]n the year of 1604 or 1605, as the bad seed of idolatry had become so rooted in the hearts of the Indians, it once more started to sprout, or more

12

Ponce 1953, 369-380. Andrews and Hassig included an English translation of the text as an appendix to their edition of Ruiz de Alarcón’s treatise (see Ponce 1984, 211-218) 13 English translation in Ponce 1984, 211.

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correctly, it began to make itself known in the whole of the Marquesado, and there a first attempt was made in order to uproot it and separate it as bad seeds or weed, so that it would not suffocate the wheat of the many devote Indian men and women (of whom there were many). This was in the pueblo of Zumpahuacan.14

For a long time this brief text was the only known account of this early extirpation attempt made by Ponce de León. However, there are some other relevant documents written in the late 1640s that I have been able to locate. These document record the memory of the punishment meted out against a number of “idolaters” in the early years of the century and completes the picture given by Serna. In a 1648 letter the gobernador, alcaldes and the other Nahua officials of Zumpahuacan approached the provisor of the archdiocese to inform him about Lucas Martín, a native man from the area who at the time was held in the archiepiscopal prison being charged with “idolatry and other superstitions”. Before being brought to prison the native officials asserted that Lucas Martín had had great influence over a group of “forty men and their women” in San Gaspar Totoltepec, a small pueblo subject to Zumpahuacan. For eight months the group had not attended Mass or instruction, nor had they confessed during Lent or taken communion at Easter time. They did not obey the curate or the fiscal and they had not paid their tributes to the King. They were therefore described as rebellious. According to the petitioners, the people of San Gaspar had obeyed Lucas Martín as they feared him greatly. The petitioners believed that his great authority was due in part to the fact that he was the son of Diego Matheo, whom they regarded as “the greatest dogmatizer (dogmatista) that has lived in these realms”.15 It is in this context the document includes testimonies about Pedro Ponce de León’s extirpation activities in the early seventeenth century, because one of those punished at that time had been Diego Matheo, 14

Serna 1953: “por el año de 1604 [ó 1]605, como esta mala yerba de la idolatria estaba tan assemillada en los coraçones de los Indios, començó otra vez á brotar, ó, por mejor decir, á conocerse por todo el marquesado, y donde se procuró començar á arrancarla, y apartarla como mala semilla, ó sizaña, para que no sufocara el trigo de muchos indios, é indias devotas (que auia muchos, y muchas), fue en el Pueblo de Çumpahuacan.” 15 AGN, IV 2347, 5. See also AGN, IV 5121, 10.

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the father of Lucas Martín. The testimonies also indicate that in the sujeto of San Lucas “today there are some people who once were among those publicly punished” by Ponce de León. One of the witnesses, a 90-year old slave named Juan Grande, testified that this public punishment had taken place “42 years ago”, i.e., 1606, a date that more or less concurs with that given by Jacinto de la Serna. On that occasion, the old man asserted Pedro Ponce de León had paraded a large number of convicted people from Totoltepec through the village of Zumpahuacan, each “with a rope around the neck” (con sogal a la garganta), one of the insignia usually employed by the Holy Office in its auto-da-fes. When the procession ended, these indigenous people were taken to be whipped. Four decades ago, Juan Grande asserted, people in Totoltepec had generally not been baptized nor had they attended the priest’s classes. Instead, they generally waited until their deathbed before calling upon the curate and asking to be baptized. In his testimony Juan Grande referred to Diego Matheo as the “great teacher/master of those rites of the demon” (grande maestro que era de aquellos rritos del demonio). Having been punished by the curate, Diego Matheo and many of the others fled to neighboring Tenantzingo, but around 1640 his son Diego Martín had come to Zumpahuacan, starting to induce people there not to attend church. The recently arrived group were looked upon as disciples to the old Diego Matheo and also testified that others of his disciples concurrently were spreading their teachings in other places such as Tetecala and Coatlan.16 Pedro Ponce de León’s extirpation activities were, however, not limited to his home parish. During, or at least in connection with, his pastoral visitation, Archbishop García Guerra gave him a special commission to investigate and punish native religious specialists in the neighboring area. According to Jacinto de la Serna: In the year of 1610, an Indian from Zumpahuacan discovered a great complicity of idolaters in the pueblo of Teutenango del Valle [Tenango del Valle], and in San Mateo Texcaliacac, Xalatlaco [Jalatlaco] and Calimaya. Having informed the Illustrious Señor Don Fray García Guerra, archbishop of this archbishopric of glorious memory, he sent a commission

16 AGN, IV 2347, 5. Cf. AGN, IV 5713, 68: Letter from Ponce de León to the provisor, September 25, 1614.

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to the said Licentiate Don Pedro Ponce de León to investigate the guilty, to punish them, and to search for, and unveil, similar offenses.17

Pedro Ponce de León was known as an excellent authority on Nahuatl. But as both Otomi and Matlatzinga were also spoken in the area, the archbishop gave another commission to Diego Gutiérrez de Bocanegra, the beneficiary of Jalatlaco, who had knowledge of these languages. However, nothing more is known about the practical work of the latter, and during his own work Ponce de León employed another Matlatzinga interpreter.18 The same events are also alluded to in a letter from the Viceroy Luis de Velasco to the King dated in 1610: In two or three doctrinas de clérigos, two of them in the archdiocese and one in the bishopric of Tlaxcala, one has discovered some idolatries among individual Indian men and women. Being such a good prelate and zealous of the good of his lambs, the archbishop of this church has proceeded with much carefulness by appointing clerical commissaries who have understanding of the life and customs of the Indians and who have good language skills in order to make the investigations to understand it ... I consider the native so frail that just as the demon with great easiness deceive them, they will have the same facility to show repentance and [to] do the penitence that is imposed on them according to their weakness and misery.19

17

Serna 1953: “Vn indio de Çumpahuacan descubrió el año de 1610, vna gran complicidad de idolatras en el Pueblo de Teutenango del Valle, San Matheo Texcaliacac, Xalatlaco, y Calimaya, y auiendose dado cuenta á el Illmo. Señor Don Fray García Guerra, Arçobispo de este Arçobispado de gloriosa memoria: embió comission á el dicho Licenciado Don Pedro Ponce de Leon para las averiguaciones de los culpados, y para castigarlos, y para inquirir, y descubrir semejantes delitos.” 18 On Bocanegra see AGI, M 228, 23: Relación de méritos y servicios of Br Diego Gutiérrez de Bocanegra, November 28, 1608 19 AGI, M 28,7: Luis de Velasco to the King, October 20, 1610: “en dos u tres doctrinas de clerigo, las dos deste arçobispado y la una del obispado de Tlaxcala se an descubierto algunas ydolatrias en yndios y yndias particulares y el arçobispo de esta yglessia como tan buen perlado y çelosso del bien de sus obejas a proçedido con mucho cuydado nombrando clerigos comissarios ynteligentes de la vida y costumbres de los yndios y buenas lenguas para hazer las aueriguaçiones que sacar esto en limpio ... A los naturales tengo por gente tan flaca que como lo an sido para que el demonio con façilidad los engañen tendran la misma en mostrar arrepentimiento y en hazer la penitençia que se les ympusire comforme a su flaqueza y miseria.”

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There are few contemporary sources on the outcome of Ponce de León’s commissions. However, there is a brief report to the archbishop appended to a letter the prelate sent to the King. In the report dated May 17, 1610, Ponce de León states that the day before he had concluded the case against the “idolatrous Indians” (yndios ydolatras) in Teutenango (Tenango del Valle). Apart from people who had been absolved through the sacrament of penitence, he had publicly paraded seven native people forcing them to wear penitential head garments (carozas). Some of them had also been whipped. On the same occasion, Ponce states that he had preached in Nahuatl and a Franciscan friar, who remains anonymous, preached in Matlatzinga. Both had based their sermons on a passage of the Old Testament book of Joshua (chapters 6 and 7) discussing the idolatry of the Israelites and the punishments that God meted out against them. It has not been possible to uncover any more detailed judicial process of the case or any of his other investigations carried out under the commission of the archbishop.20 H R  A Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón can be looked upon as a younger parallel to Pedro Ponce de León. Both were secular parish priests with excellent knowledge of Nahuatl who investigated native ritual practices both within their own parishes and in other places. In 1629 Ruiz de Alarcón completed a manuscript entitled Tratado de los supersticiones y costumbres gentilicas que oy biven entre los indios naturales desta Nueva España. The author was a member of a wealthy creole family from Taxco dedicated to silver mining. One of his brothers was the famous playwright Juan Ruiz de Alarcón who made a career in Spain. Another brother, Pedro, was a priest in the archdiocese. As a young man, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón received bachelor degrees in the Arts and in Theology from the University of Mexico and later in life he was referred to as a licentiate. In 1610 he became the beneficiary of the partido of Atenango del Río, close to Iguala in the present state 20 AGI, M 337: Report from Pedro Ponce de León to Archbishop Guerra, May 17, 1610.

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of Guerrero, where he stayed for more than two decades until his death which occurred shortly before 1635.21 Though the Tratado is the most detailed source for Ruiz de Alarcón’s extirpation activities, there are a few other contemporary documents that refer to them. In 1614 one of the Mexican inquisitors received a testimony from a Spanish man, who wanted to “unload his conscience”. Among the things that he told the inquisitor was that a year before he had heard that Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón had staged an auto-da-fe-like ceremony (una como auto de Inquisición) in Atenango in order to punish some indigenous people. As such matters could constitute a usurpation of the Inquisition’s jurisdiction and procedures, the tribunal ordered its commissary in Tepoztlán, the Dominican Bernardino de Rojas, to make further enquiries. Carrying out the order, Rojas questioned four Nahua men from Atenango about their curate’s chastisement of people accused of being “sorcerers” (hechiceros) or “witches” (hechiceras).22 The most detailed of these testimonies were presented by the governor Don Toribio de la Cruz and the fiscal Don Diego Díaz. They state that on Palm Sunday 1613, as the parishioners waited for Mass to begin, two local women, María Magdalena and María Martínez, were brought through the village eventually ending up outside the church. Both women had ropes (sogas) tied around their necks, they wore penitential head garments (corozas) on which demons and burning flames 21

Notes on Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón’s family background are found in AGI, M 299: Relación de méritos y servicios of his brother Pedro Ruíz de Alarcón, 1613. See also AGN, Inq 304, 39, fol. 266v stating that Ruiz de Alarcón in 1614 had been a beneficiary in Atenango for four years. Likewise, in 1611 Ruiz de Alarcón was made comissary judge in the case against the curate of Oapan, Francisco Gudiño (AGN, BN 443, 1). Other documents relating to Ruiz de Alarcón’s time in Atenango are found in AGN, RC, D9, fol. 194r-v (March 30, 1627), fol. 282v (March 11, 1628), and fol. 372v (January 16, 1629) which include notes on the salaries paid to him. See also AGN, C 1, fol.130r-132r in which the curate asked for assitance to bring back indigenous parishioners who had fled from the parish. Testimony that he had died shortly before 1635 is found in AGN, BN 326, 27 in a judicial process against his successor, Juan de Guerrero. 22 AGN, Inq 304, 39, fols. 256-281. Cf. AGN, IV 5172, 39: Process against a mulato for taking hallucinogenic drugs and against a Spanish woman for having consulted an “india sortilega”.

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had been painted, and in their bound hands they carried penitence candles. All these insignia were commonly used by the Inquisition in its autos. At the church entrance, the curate approached them. Standing on a chair he preached to them in Nahuatl, denouncing the women for being unrepentant witches. When the curate had finished his speech, the women were brought into church where Mass was read. After the Mass the priest made another public denunciation against the women who thereafter were taken back to prison. The following day they were brought out from their imprisonment, preceded by a crier (pregonero) who once more denounced their transgressions. After this, they were taken away to be whipped. In his testimony, the fiscal Don Diego Díaz states that the priest had used the same insignia and forms of punishment on other occasions. On the Sunday after Easter 1613 he had punished three women accused of sorcery and earlier a man and a woman from Zacango, one of the sujetos of Atenango, had also been subject to public punishment. However, the testimony is not entirely clear as to whether this latter process referred to took place in 1613 or in 1611. Having collected these testimonies the commissary of the Inquisition, friar Rojas, remarked that the curate had acted from ignorance rather than from malice and there is no indication that the Inquisition acted further against the beneficiary.23 Apart from this investigation against him, there is a letter written by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón which is found the Inquisition archives. In a 1624 report destined to the inquisitors the curate states that he was in the Amilpas area to investigate cases of idolatry and superstitions by virtue of an archiepiscopal commission. In this context Ruiz de Alarcón described the work as “pertaining to the ordinary Inquisition tribunal of the Indians” (pertenciente al Juzgado de Inquisición ordinario de indios). Eager to defend their jurisdiction, the inquisitors must have found this expression questionable as the word “inquisition” should not have been applied to the ordinary ecclesiastical justice. However, no notes on the matter were made in the margins of the document or otherwise. In the report written by Ruiz de Alarcón during his investigations in the Amilpas he records having “discovered various superstitions, frauds, acts of sortilege, and many invocations and words that are signs of expressed or tacit pacts with the Devil (of which these In23

AGN Inq 304, 39, fols. 256-281.

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dians are full)”.24 However, the reason for writing to the Inquisition tribunal was not to describe such matters, but to inform them about a Spanish man who had consulted a native ritual practitioner and who thus fell under their jurisdiction. At the same time the curate referred to another case which involved a mulatto who lived Tepecoacualco, close to Iguala, and had consulted a native ritual practitioner. This case had taken place a year before and Ruiz de Alarcón asked the inquisitors’ forgiveness for not bringing it to their attention until now.25 The two documents from the Inquisition archives that we have considered thus far include some facets of Ruiz de Alarcón’s work. The main source for his extirpation activities in the 1610s and 1620s was, however, the Tratado de los supersticiones y costumbres gentilicas, which was written at the request of Archbishop Francisco Manso y Zúñiga. In his introductory remarks, dated 1629, the author points out that he did not consider the work a complete description of indigenous heterodox customs and beliefs. Instead, he perceived it as a guide for ministers working in indigenous parishes who needed knowledge to counteract idolatries and superstitions.26 Given the intention, it is probable that the manuscript originally was intended for publication. However, it remained unpublished until the late nineteenth century.27 The only known manuscript of the Tratado is kept in the collections of the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. Michael D. Coe and Gordon Whittaker, editors of an English 24

AGN, Inq 303, 19, fols. 78r-80r. The letter is not dated, but was received by the Holy Office on September 13, 1624: “Descubierto varias supersticiones, embustes, sortilegios, y muchas invocaciones y diversos palabras que inducen pacto expreso o tácito con el demonio (de todo lo qual están llenos los indios)”. 25 AGN, Inq 303, 19, fols. 78r-80r. 26 Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 39-41. 27 The text was published for the first time by Francisco Paso del Paso y Troncoso in 1892 and was re-edited in 1953. The first English translation was made by Michael D. Coe and Gordon Whittaker (Ruiz de Alarcón 1982), including English translations of both the Nahuatl and the Spanish portions of the text. It also includes some good introductory notes on the manuscript. The other edition is by J. Richard Andrews and Ross Hassig (Ruiz de Alarcón 1984). It includes very careful linguistic remarks on the Nahuatl texts which are transcribed, analysed and translated into English. The English translation that I use is from Andrews’s and Hassig’s edition.

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translation of the work, argue that the manuscript, consisting of 109 folio pages in quarto format, was written by four different scribes and that their handwritings are quite typical for the first half of the seventeenth century. Having compared the paleography of the document with letters in Ruiz de Alarcón’s hand, I concur with their view and argue that no portion of the manuscript was autographed. The document’s provenance is only partially known. In the mid-1880s the anthropological museum purchased it from the collections of the Mexican physician Rafael Lucio Nájera, but it is not known how he acquired it. There might, however, have existed another copy or version of the manuscript. The early nineteenth-century bibliographer Beristáin y Souza refers to a work which he had seen in the Jesuit Colegio de San Gregorio in Mexico City. If we are to believe Beristáin, this document was somewhat differently named and could constitute another copy than the one which is presently known.28 There are also some seventeenth-century references to Ruiz de Alarcón’s writings. Jacinto de la Serna stated that when visiting Atenango together with Archbishop Mañozca in 1646, he was able to look through some manuscripts written by the late Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón: [In Atenango] I found the memory and the good name of that saintly man, and the laudable customs and devotions that he preached and taught to all those Indians, above all verses devoted of The Most Holy Virgin Our Lady, written in the Mexican language. Here, I do not include anything of the many teachings I found, because I did not obtain them, as at that time I had no intention to write this treatise. For that I am sorry, because the works of such an excellent man one should be imitated and celebrated. Some loose sheets did, however, come into my hands [containing notes] on what he observed regarding superstitions or idolatries, both those which he punished in his benefice and in the region.29

28

Ruiz de Alarcón 1982, 45-53. Serna 1953, § 68: “hallé la memoria, y buena fama de tan Sancto Varon, y loables costumbres, y devociones, que á todos aquellos indios auian predicado, y enseñado, principalmente versos en la lengua mexicana á devocion de la Virgen Sanctissima Nuestra Señora; que no pongo aqui algo de lo mucho que hallé de estas enseñanças, porque no las procuré, por no auer tenido intencion entonces de hazer este tratado; y me pessa, porque se imitassen, y celebrassen obras de tan excelente Varon. Vinieron á mis manos algunos papeles sueltos de lo que observó en materia 29

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If Serna’s story should make sense, these “loose sheets” must have come into his hands at a later stage. It is, however, hard to conceive that a 109-folio manuscript could be described as some loose sheets. As Serna’s own work includes much material from Ruiz de Alarcón, he must have had access to at least major parts of the Tratado, though perhaps not the final or complete version. Ruiz de Alarcón’s Tratado, as we know it, is made up by a brief prefatory letter addressed to the archbishop, a very short prologue and six treatises. The first treatise is a general introduction to indigenous idolatry, as the author saw it. It includes notes on sacrifices, pilgrimages and hallucinogenic plants. The other five treatises are basically compilations of Nahuatl incantations used for a variety of purposes, including his attempts at Spanish translations (or paraphrases) of these texts. The second treatise includes incantations for a large variety of activities such as hunting and fishing. The third is solely dedicated to incantations used in farming, while the short fourth treatise includes some incantations used to placate anger or inspire affection. The fifth treatise is about what the author describes as fortune-telling, while the sixth and concluding treatise is devoted to incantations used for the cure of various illnesses and ailments. In the prefatory letter to the archbishop, Ruiz de Alarcón wrote that he had compiled this report “about the heathen customs, idolatries, and superstitions with tacit and express pacts [with the Devil] that today persist and are being continued and passed on from generation to generation among the Indians”.30 What makes the Tratado a particularly interesting source for my purpose is that it often situates the cases geographically and sometimes also chronologically. This makes it possible to reconstruct some of Ruiz de Alarcón’s extirpation activities and the methods he employed. In the prologue to the work, the author pointed out that treatise was the result of observations made during five years in which he had had a special commission from the archbishop. Such commissions were often given to investigate a particular case during a limited period of time, but could also be given for longer periods and for more far-reaching purposes. In his text Ruiz de Alarcón did not only refer to cases from

de las supersticiones, ó idolatrias, assi de las que castigó en su Beneficio, como en aquella comarca.” 30 Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 39 [prefatory letter]

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this five-year period. The cases explicitly mentioned in the work range between 1617 and 1627, but most cases are not dated. Apart from cases that Ruiz de Alarcón investigated himself, he also included references to cases investigated from other parts of the archdiocese as well as in the diocese of Puebla, which is evidence that he corresponded with other ecclesiastics on such matters. The cases Ruiz de Alarcón refers to in his work relate to four relatively distinct geographical areas south of Mexico City. The first group includes cases from his own parish, including both the cabecera Atenango and its visitas Comala, Cuetlaxochitlan, Tlalapan, and Tequacuilco. From one of the Inquisition documents we have already considered, we know that he had initiated such processes at least by 1613, and probably as early as 1611. However, none of these cases are dated in the Tratado. Secondly, he includes references to investigations in the nearby parish of Oapan. None of these cases are dated, neither is it explicitly stated whether they were investigated by archiepiscopal commission, although this is probable. Thirdly, however, Ruiz de Alarcón explicitly mentions that he had received a commission from the archbishop to investigate cases of idolatry in the Iguala area close to Taxco, including the very parish of Iguala and the nearby parishes of Tasmalaca, Huitzuco, and Tepecuacuilco, all of which were administered by secular priests. Some of these cases are clearly dated to 1617, 1618 and 1623, while most are not chronologically fixed. Fourthly, there are a number of cases from the Amilpas and Cuernavaca region which Ruiz de Alarcón investigated with archiepiscopal commission. Some of these cases are explicitly dated to the mid-1620s and refer to Cuauhchimalla, Tetelpa, Tlaltizapan, Temimilcingo, Tlayacapan, Yautepec, Xiutepec, and Xoxutla. All these parishes were administered by friars; most by Franciscans, others by Dominicans.31 Through his treatment of the cases, the author gives an implicit description of his investigatory methods. In the Tratado, Ruiz de Alarcón considers preaching a necessary, but nonsufficient weapon against idolatry. In a part of the work that concerns the native use of ololiuhqui (Rivea corymbosa), a plant whose seeds have hallucinogenic effects, Ruiz de Alarcón states that he found out about its widespread use in Atenango as soon as he arrived there in 1610. He records that he 31

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984.

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had immediately started to preach against it, arguing that it was harmful and a superstition, and that the natives regarded the seed as a god. However, he also took more direct actions against ololiuhqui use, confiscating large quantities of the seed that were kept in the homes of the parishioners. He thereafter had the seeds burned on a bonfire during a public ceremony and also uprooted all the ololiuhqui bushes that he found in the area.32 According to Ruiz de Alarcón, preaching was thus not a sufficient means in extirpating indigenous idolatry. The physical removal and destruction of objects considered idols or superstitions were required, as well as the investigation and punishment of people found guilty in this respect. In his text, Ruiz de Alarcón generally displayed a very low opinion of the indigenous people and their use of reason, considering them perpetual children who ought to be constantly corrected. He wrote: The [Christian] faith is very imperfectly present in the Indians and since, preaching had not sufficed, rigorous punishment is needed, because, being—as they are—children of terror, it may be that punishment may accomplish what reason has not been sufficient to, since the Apostle said, compellite eos intrare.33

The Latin words in the quotation, which most often are rendered compelle (eos) intrare—compel them to enter—are taken from the Vulgate New Testament (Luke 14:23). They were a rather standard ingredient in Early Modern Roman Catholic missionary discourse and were commented on by many theologians and jurists of the time. In such works the text was often, though not always, understood as a recommendation to use some physical force in the missionary enterprise and to make recourse to the secular authorities.34 With the help of secular officials, the priests should investigate, extirpate, and punish indigenous idolatry and superstition. In his text, Ruiz de Alarcón described his own strategies for investigating people who were suspected of possessing objects that he considered idolatrous. The first step in such an enquiry was to seize 32 33 34

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 62. Ruiz de Alarcón 1984. See e.g. Bosch 1991, 236-238.

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the suspect person, so that he or she did not have the possibility to hide the objects or search for the help of others. Therefore, the person should preferably be arrested outside the pueblo. Simultaneously, guards should be placed in the person’s home, as well as in the homes of his or her nearest relatives, so that they did not interfere with the inquest. In the view of Ruiz de Alarcón, the priest should not employ people from the pueblo to carry out such assignments, as they might be accomplices of the suspect person. Instead, he should hire outsiders. When searching for hidden objects in the suspect person’s home, the priests and his assistants should search every conceivable place where such object could have been hidden. However, according to Ruiz de Alarcón’s own experience it was most probable that they were to be found beneath or close to the small altars that many indigenous people kept in their homes. Having encountered a suspect object, the priest or his assistants should immediately seize it, so that family members did not have the possibility to hide (or even swallow) it, as he testified happened from time to time.35 In the Tratado, Ruiz de Alarcón gives more concrete descriptions of a number of cases of “idol-hunting”. One of these cases involved a woman who lived in the tlaxicalli of Tlalapan in Atenango. According to witnesses, she possessed four small tecomates (cups made from gourd) which she often used in rituals. In order to document the objects, Ruiz de Alarcón brought a notary, a constable and a couple of witnesses to her home. As the woman was brought with them, the curate stated that he “had her confess by physical force that she had them and where she had them”. The nature and degree of the physical force employed is, however, not stated. She testified that she kept the tecomates in a basket. The curate noted that the woman was very frightened and did not want to open the basket and hand over the objects, which were taken by the priest for destruction.36 Ruiz de Alarcón gives another unusually detailed account of the investigation of a woman in Cuetlaxocitlan, another part of his home parish of Atenango. In this case he took advantage of a household conflict, as one of the household members had told the priest that she had seen that the woman kept a basket filled with ololiuhqui seeds close to 35 36

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 62 [I, chapter 6]. Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 49-50 [I, chapter 2].

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the house altar. When the priest came he had the second woman search for the basket, but she could not find it where she had seen it before. Thereafter the priest brought the woman who was accused of owning the basket before him asking her many “tricky questions” and describing the appearance of the basket to her. She ultimately confessed that she had the basket, but when it was brought before the curate it was almost empty. In order to search for the seeds he arrested the woman’s sister. After having questioned her for “a whole day”, she said that she had hidden it. When asking why, the woman said that she did not dare to hand it over to him. Ruiz de Alarcón ends his description of this case with a note: And here it should be carefully noticed that this fear is not of the ministers of justice for the punishment they deserve but of the ololiuhqui, or the deity who they believe lives in it, and they have this respect and veneration for it is so firmly rooted that indeed the help of God is needed to rip it out.37

A third case that describes the methods employed comes from Tasmalaca where Ruiz de Alarcón seized one of the church singers (cantores), Miguel de Escobar, who confessed that he kept an “idol” (a white stone) in his house. To investigate the case, Ruiz de Alarcón had him imprisoned and then preceded with “all haste” to the church singer’s house. There he questioned the man’s wife and mother-in-law, who handed over the white stone to the curate. However, he suspected that there were more objects hidden, but the women denied it. In the text the curate stated that “God was served that in her [the wife’s] gestures I noticed that she had on herself what she denied” and three more objects were found on her, which were confiscated.”38 While a number of cases in the work are dedicated to “idolhunting”, most of the Tratado is dedicated to documenting what Ruiz de Alarcón understood as invocations, incantations or spells (encantos). In Nahuatl this genre was known as nahualtocaitl, which the priests looked upon as involving a tacit or express pact with the Devil. In total, Ruiz de Alarcón included well over sixty such longer or 37 38

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 61 [I, chapter 6]. Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 52 [I, chapter 2].

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shorter texts in his work. They are rendered in Nahuatl, but are completed with Spanish paraphrases. The first of these incantations that Ruiz de Alarcón recorded was in Iguala in 1618, where he had been on a commission from the archbishop. There he investigated the case of Juan Bernal, who used an incantation in order to travel safely when he was out on the roads. In the decade that followed Ruiz de Alarcón collected as many incantations as he could.39 The incantations were normally transferred orally between the indigenous people, but sometimes they were written down. If seized by the curate, such manuscripts would serve as evidence. Francisco de Santiago, a native man who had grown up in the curate’s house, had found a piece of paper on the road as he was going to bathe in the river. As he could read, Francisco de Santiago understood what kind of texts the paper contained and went straight to Ruiz de Alarcón to hand it over to him. The piece of paper was signed by a sacristan in Cuetlaxocitlan, whom the curate thought almost illiterate. Therefore he was convinced that “the Devil had helped him in order that this spell would not be lost”.40 Most often the ways in which Ruiz de Alarcón had come across the incantations were not explicitly stated. In one case, however, he makes an unusually detailed description. The case is about a man called Miguel who lived in Atenango, but who originated from Xicotlan in the diocese of Tlaxcala. He made a living from searching for bee wax and honey in the forest. As the curate was convinced that he used incantations in his office, he asked an old native man whom he trusted to spy on Miguel. Having befriended Miguel, the old man enquired about the incantations that he used to find such an abundance of honey and wax. As Miguel told him the incantation, the old man wrote down the words and later forwarded the paper to the curate. When the curate subsequently questioned Miguel about his use of incantations, he first denied it, but as the priest began to read the beginning of the text to him he confessed. Ruiz de Alarcón further indicates: Incited by the very words that he knew from memory much better than the Ave Maria, and thinking that it would not be a crime, since I had those

39 40

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 73, [II, chapter 1]. Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 84 [II, chapter 4].

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words, he confessed them and continued, without changing nor missing a single word of the ones that he had dictated earlier to the old man who gave me the paper in which he had written them.41

For Ruiz de Alarcón the extirpation of idolatry above all has to do with two interrelated aspects: the search for and annihilation of physical objects that he regarded as idols and also the documentation of incantations that he considered idolatrous or at least superstitious. In his Tratado, Ruiz de Alarcón wrote very little about the punishments of those found guilty. However, he states that the actual punishment was less important. Instead, the very investigation of the cases, the fear of punishment that followed, and the meting out of exemplary punishments were much more effective in order to uproot idolatry. In fact, Ruiz de Alarcón believed that such fear was the only thing that could counteract continued idolatrous practices. At least if this were dealt with as carefully as it should be, these pusillanimous people would stop out of fear of punishment, even if such offenses to God were not abandoned out of love and reverence for Him.42

A certain degree of threatening punishments and recourse to violence was therefore thought to be a necessary part of the “extirpation of idolatry”. J   S Jacinto de la Serna’s Manual para los ministros de indios para el conocimiento de sus idolatrias, y extirpación de ellas is the third and most voluminous of the extirpation texts that I will consider in detail. In a 1634 letter to the King, Archbishop Manso forwarded notes on a number of clerics from the archdiocese that he considered merited accolades and whose ecclesiastical careers he wished to promote. One of these clerics was Jacinto de la Serna. In his letter, the archbishop stated that Serna was born in Mexico around 1597 and that as a young man from 1615 onwards he had been a fellow of the Colegio de Todos los Santos. At the University of Mexico, Serna was awarded degrees in 41 42

Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 90-91, citation on p. 91 [II, chapter 7]. Ruiz de Alarcón 1984, 59 [I, chapter 5].

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three of the faculties: bachelor’s degrees in both the Arts and Canon Law, and bachelor’s, licentiate and doctoral degrees in Theology; the last two degrees in 1632. During thirteen years in the 1620s and 1630s Serna was the beneficiary of Tenancinco and Jalatlaco respectively. He was known for his good knowledge of several indigenous languages, and in his letter the archbishop also pointed out that Serna was knowledgeable in “the customs of the indigenous people”. Given his positive evaluation, Archbishop Manso made Serna a general visitor of the archdiocese and a general examiner of all clerics who were about to be appointed to benefices. Serna would continue to hold both offices even after Manso’s return to Spain. From 1635 onwards he was also one of the curates in the Mexican cathedral, an employment which was combined with a low-ranking office (ración) in the cathedral chapter. He was also rector of the university at various times. Serna died in 1661.43 In 1656 Jacinto de la Serna finished the manuscript known as Manual para los ministros de indios par el conocimiento de sus idolatrias, y extirpación de ellas, which he dedicated to the newly arrived Archbishop Mateo de Sagade Bugueiro. The work was clearly intended for publication, but for some reason it was not to be printed until the end of the nineteenth century.44 There is one seventeenth-century manuscript of the Manual in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico City. The provenance of this manuscript, which probably is the original, is almost certain. By the end of the sixteenth century it was the property of the Mexican savant Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora. At his death it ended up in the library of the college of San Pedro y San Pablo and later passed through the hands of the collectors Boturini and Aubin before ending up in an antiquarian bookstore in Paris where the Mexican historian and anthropologist Francisco Paso y Troncoso bought it, finally bringing the text back to Mexico, where it served as a basis for his printed edition. Moreover there are two copies: 43

AGI, M 804: Archbishop Manso to the King, July 20, 1634; AGI, IG 161, no. 296: Summary of the merits of Jacinto de la Serna, March 23, 1654; AGI, M 76, ro. 15, no. 83: Letter from Jacinto de la Serna to the King, Nov 30, 1660. In an Inquisition document from 1630, he stated that he was 33 years old at that time: AGN, Inq 369, 24. Information about his licenciate and doctoral degrees is in AGN, U 362, fols. 495 and 508. 44 I have used the 1953 edition, referred to as Serna 1953.

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one in the Hispanic Society of America in New York, which used to belong to the Mexican bibliophile Nicolás León, and one in the Spanish national library in Madrid, that might be a copy made in the mideighteenth century by the Italian historian Lorenzo Boturini.45 The Manual was Serna’s attempt to systematize the beliefs and practices considered idolatrous and was projected to serve priests working in indigenous parishes. His sources were manifold. In his introduction Serna states that though he built on his own experiences as a minister and visitor general, he also mentions that he used texts and oral accounts from a number of older experienced ministers.46 Earlier in this chapter, we saw that Serna had access to manuscripts written by Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón. Indeed, a considerable part of Serna’s work was more or less transcribed verbatim from passages of the Tratado.47 There are, however, some differences. While Ruiz de Alarcón often named the indigenous ritual specialists, such data is omitted in the Manual. Serna obviously wanted to make his observations more general, writing “for our purpose it is not important to know what someone was called, but to know what he/she did”.48 In spite of this statement, some names of native ritual practitioners were in fact included in the Manual. Though Ruiz de Alarcón was a main source, many of Serna’s detailed observations on the Nahua calendar and the indigenous deities are based on the early-seventeenth century works by the Dominican Martín de León and the Franciscan Juan de Torquemada. However, there is also data not found in any of these sources. As the well-trained theologian that he was, Serna also interspersed his work with verbose references to theologians and canonists, in particular the works of Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, trying to give a more general theological explanation of the indigenous idolatry in central Mexico. 45

See Valdés Borja 2006, chapter III. E.g. Serna 1953, 231-233: report from Andrés Pérez de la Cámara, curate in Ocoyocac. 47 According to Coe and Whittaker (Ruiz de Alarcón 1982) about forty percent of the Serna’s treatise is more or less a verbatim reproduction of Ruiz de Alarcón’s work. 48 Serna 1953, 85: “pues a nuestro intento no importa saber como se llamaba, sino saber lo que hazia”. 46

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Much of the Manual is devoted to the systematization of different types of indigenous beliefs and rites, but it also includes descriptions of concrete cases of clerical counteraction of idolatrous beliefs and works. Though the majority of these cases was reproduced from Ruiz de Alarcón, or based on reports from other ecclesiastic colleagues, Serna refers to a few of cases which he himself had investigated. In the Manual, Serna relates a chain of events that took place in 1626 when he was a young beneficiary of Tenancingo, which made him take action against local idolatrous practices. As Serna tells the story, it began when his indigenous housekeeper, Augustina, was overcome by a severe internal hemorrhage when she was on her way to the river to wash clothes. Trying to cure her, the curate gave her a potion which contained a pulverized piece of a bone from Gregorio López, which he possessed. López, the Mexican mystic and hermit who died in 1596, was famed for his sanctity and much venerated among the archdiocesan clergy. According to Serna the housekeeper recovered her health after having vomited up a piece of cotton filled with pieces of carbon, egg shells, and hair. Seeing this object, Augustina was overcome by fear and told the curate that she had been bewitched by a woman in the pueblo who had recently threatened her.49 The event led to a number of investigations into native ritual practices. Serna began his investigation by questioning a woman named Francisca, a “great medica”, to document her methods. She stated that she had inherited her abilities from her parents, who after their deaths had appeared to her and had given her the instruments (a needle and a cup) that she used for diagnosis and curing. Following this first investigation, Serna questioned some twenty people described as “doctors and midwives” (medicos y parteras), some of whom were imprisoned during the time of the investigation. This group included a woman called Leonor María who was formally accused of having bewitched his housekeeper Augustina.50 The investigation of these cases brought Serna into contact with a man called Juan Chichiton, a native of Tenango who lived in the pueblo of Tenancingo, whom the curate regarded as a “great master/teacher of superstitions” (gran maestro de supersticiones). Juan Chichiton had collected great quantities of a mushroom that in Nahuatl was known 49 50

Serna 1953, 96-100. Serna 1953, 96-100.

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as cuauhtlah nanacatl. As Serna did not know the use and effect of the mushrooms he consulted his older colleague Pedro Ponce de León in Zumpahuacán, who told him that they had similar hallucinogenic effects as peyote. According to Serna, Juan Chichiton had recently celebrated a rite in which the mushrooms and pulque had been distributed “in the same manner as communion” (á modo de communion), in which Leonor María had taken part. This was considered a most grave offense and a mockery of the Eucharist. However, before having him imprisoned, Juan Chichiton managed to escape. Wanting to search for him, Serna went to the city of Mexico where he was thought to be. The curate, however, did not find him. When in the city, Serna also informed the provisor Pedro Garcés de Portillo, who was the governor of the archdiocese during the see’s vacancy. Having received the report about the cases, the provisor gave him an order to publicly admonish the culprits during a Mass and to punish them “mercifully” (misericordiosamente). However, apart from stating that the order was carried out, no further details are given on the nature of the punishment.51 Towards the end of his voluminous work Serna states that the main responsibility for counteracting idolatry falls upon the priests who serve in the indigenous parishes. In this context, he presented two main methods that, apart from confession, the parish priest should have at hand when dealing with people suspect of idolatry: preaching and judicial investigation. According to Serna, every parish priest should constantly preach against idolatry and teach about Christian doctrine. During his many years as a visitor, he had observed that many curates refrained from preaching against idolatry, not wanting to upset the parishioners. He thought that in order to serve its purpose, Christian doctrine should be preached in small, regular portions. The priest should feed the parishioners with “small, mellow bits, as those given to sick people to recuperate their appetite and to sustain them without overfeeding them”.52 In Serna’s view this consequent preaching would in itself not end the native practices, but he considered it a necessary prerequisite for the long-term eradication of such practices. 51

Serna 1953, 100-101. Serna 1953, 346-350: “unos vocaditos bien sasonados, como los que se dan à los enfermos, para disponerles la gana de comer, y sustentarlos sin empacharles”. 52

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For Serna, as for Ruiz de Alarcón, preaching was thus not a sufficient means to counteract idolatry. It had to be supplemented with formal investigations. Even if extirpation was seen as a judicial process, when describing it, Serna made prolific use of medical metaphors. The priests were looked upon as spiritual doctors or surgeons who should heal the wounds that were caused by idolatry and persecute the false doctors (médicos falsos). Punishments were only to be carried out after an investigatory process, trying first to establish a diagnosis and understanding of the sickness. The judicial process was to be introduced by the preaching of a general edict against the people actively practicing “idolatries and superstitions”, as well as against those who consulted such people. The normal course of action against suspect idolaters was that the (arch)bishop appointed a judge of commission for the investigation of a particular case. Serna, however, argued at some length that it was preferable that such investigations were to be carried out by parish priests themselves, as the system with judges of commission was both expensive and had proven to be quite inefficient. The judges of commission often had to travel long distances just to investigate an individual case.53 Lauding the heroism he thought such judges had to show, he wrote: What hunger, what thirst and what works do not the hunters [of idolaters] suffer just to make one catch? And when do they eat and drink, what bad and little food they get! And what bad water they drink! What heat, cold, what dangers on lakes and rivers! What steep mountains and hills! And what apparent risks to their life! All this seems easy and pleasing when taken given the desire and lust to make a good catch in their hunting.54

Moreover, Serna emphasized that to make a serious investigation into idolatrous practices was most time-consuming and the first-hand experience and knowledge of the parish, its parishioners, and their relationships were of paramount importance in unearthing suspicious acts. 53

Serna 1953, 351-361. Serna 1953, 360: “Qué hambre, qué sed, y qué trabajos no sufren los caçadores solo para hazer una pressa? Y quando án de llegar á comer, y beber, qué malas, y pocas comidas, que tienen! Y qué mala agua que beben! Qué calores, qué frios, qué peligros de lagunas, y rios! Que despeñaderos de serros, y montes! Y que riesgos manifiestos de la vida! Todo lo qual les parece suave, y apeticible con la ancia, y codicia de hazer una Buena pressa en su caça”. 54

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Relating to his own experience as a general visitor, Serna confessed that he often had to leave a parish without being able to investigate suspicious cases that he had been informed of, as their perusal would require too much time. The parish priest had the time to do such investigations. He, therefore, encouraged the priests to be curious, to investigate, and to carefully document every suspicious object, ritual and incantation they discovered. Having made such observations, the curate should write to the diocesan bishop and inform him.55 The texts I have considered in this chapter all deal with the seizure of objects that the clergy considered idolatrous, the documentation of incantations, and the punishment of those found guilty after judicial processes. Most of the processes we know about from the archbishopric of Mexico during the first half of the seventeenth century were carried out by Ponce de León, Ruiz de Alarcón, and Jacinto de la Serna in a rather limited geographical area within the present states of Mexico, Guerrero, and Morelos. At the present state of investigation, it is not known if similar investigations were carried out in other parts of the archdiocese of Mexico during the first half of the seventeenth century. In the treatises written by the three ecclesiastics little is said about the actual punishment of the people found guilty of idolatry and superstition. From other documents we have seen that a combination of exemplary public denunciation and mockery, as well as whipping, was employed. The actual investigation and the annihilation of the objects found seem to play a much more central role. Though Jacinto de la Serna argues that the parish priests should be entrusted with the investigation of local idolatry, during the first half of the seventeenth century the most common method was that the archbishop appointed judges of commission to investigate a particular case.

55

Serna 1953, 357-358.

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W A: I P Memoria ynytechcopa yninnetolineliz yn maçehualtzitzintin yn honpamonemetia altepetl ypan totoltepec motenehua ahuin quintolinia yehuatl totatzin ytoca Juan Lopez de Castañeda ueneficiato.1

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n November 1609 a delegation of five Chontal men from Totoltepec, subject to the cabecera of Teloloapan, appeared before the provisor of the archdiocese of Mexico. The group, led by the gobernador Don Diego de Santiago, had travelled some 250 kilometers to hand over a Nahuatl petition, in which they made charges against their parish priest, Juan López de Castañeda. They asked the court to have the document translated into Spanish so that the provisor could consider their claims and take action against the priest. In the petition, they asserted that their curate was a greedy man who constantly asked for excessive contributions from the natives and forced them to work without payment. Even worse, if someone offered him the payment in kind, such as cocoa beans, he reproached them, demanding cash instead. The excessive exactions caused people to leave the village, taking recourse to the mountains in order to escape him. According to the beneficiary, the aim of the exactions was to buy new ornaments for the church, but the petitioners had seen no such thing. The men from Totoltepec also remarked that the curate’s ministry was very deficient. Recently, he had been absent for four months without appointing a substitute, during which time several people had died without confession. In a supplementary Spanish petition, drawn up before the ecclesiastical judge, the men from Totoltepec stated that even when Castañeda was present they found themselves “without doctrine” as he did not know their native Chontal language. Though it is not stated directly, he probably ministered them in Nahuatl, a language which was understood by some, but not all, parishioners. Therefore, they wanted Castañeda replaced with Cristobal de Lorra, famed for his knowledge of Chontal.2 1 2

AGN, IV 6486, 90, fol. 2r. AGN, IV 6486, 90, fol. 1r-5r 173

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This chapter will focus on the genre that the Totoltepec text represents: petitions or memorials. More precisely it is constructed on a corpus of Nahuatl and Spanish petitions written by indigenous communities in central Mexico and presented before the ecclesiastical courts of law in Mexico and Puebla. At times allegations gave rise to formal judicial processes. On other occasions, we only have access to the petitions themselves. In the chapter on pastoral visitations we were able to see that indigenous communities sometimes took advantage of the prelate or visitor general’s presence to present charges against their curates. Outside visitation time, indigenous delegations sometimes made the often arduous trip to Mexico or Puebla to present their indictments in hope of support and relief. Though most petitions in the corpus include accusations against a local priest, it is possible to encounter memorials written in favor of a curate who was about to be replaced or whom the Indians wanted to defend against accusations made by others. Thus, the documents are mainly evidence of local clergy-parishioner conflicts. They reflect local conflicts of varying gravity, ranging from minor omissions in the ministry to excessive exactions in kind, labor, and money, and even accusations of grave physical abuse, including sexual crimes. In any case, the problems they encountered with their curate were deemed grave enough for representatives of an altepetl to make the often long and arduous journey to the diocesan see. Petitions were common features in the colonial administrative and legal system, employed by Hispanics and Indians alike. Using diplomatic vocabulary, a petition (petitio) is part of the actio phase of the documental genesis. Although a documental process may start spontaneously, it can also be provoked by a petition. In the Spanish Indies, all the King’s subjects had the right to address petitions and memorials to the monarch or his local representatives. Parishioners could also present their complaints against the local priests to the diocesan bishop and the episcopal court of law. In practice there were no clear boundaries between a petición and a memoria(l); the two concepts seem to have been used without much distinction. In theory, however, the term memorial was employed for a record used in order to ask for a particular favor, whereas petitions were documents with which someone made judicial claims before a judge or a court of law. Such a petition could be made by the petitioner(s) in person—representing themselves or an entity such a cabildo or a cofradía—or by a legal representative

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in their name.3 In colonial Mexico, the concrete charges made against someone were often labeled capítulos, but this word could also refer to the entire record containing such charges, being in practice almost synonymous with the two other concepts.4 As indigenous petitions figure prominently in Mexican colonial archives, they have become the object of a few special studies. In his recent monograph on indigenous litigation in seventeenth-century Mexico, Brian P. Owensby builds much of his argument on a large corpus of so-called amparo petitions brought before the General Court of the Indians (Juzgado general de los indios) in Mexico City by indigenous communities and individuals in search of royal help and support. From its foundation in the 1590s onwards, this special court particularly handled cases of land and property rights, labor relations and liberty, and mistreatment and exactions made by non-Indians against indigenous subjects. The petitions presented before the General Court of the Indians were drawn up with the help of legal representatives (procuradores) in the name of the indigenous communities and were generally written in Spanish, without recourse to any of the native languages. An earlier monograph on the General Court of the Indians was published by Woodrow Borah in 1983.5 Indigenous litigation against priests has a small bibliography of its own. In 1994, Robert Haskett published a precious article on colonial Nahua-Clergy relations in the Taxco-Cuernavaca, mainly building on Nahuatl petitions from the late sixteenth through the early nineteenth century. In his study, Haskett sees the petitioners as important sources to the continuous clergy-parishioner struggle to define the boundaries of acceptable behavior.6 More recently, John Sullivan has published a corpus of twenty Nahuatl petitions, ranging in length, with Spanish translations. These documents were all written in 1618 by Nahuas of the Jalostotitlan area in the diocese of Guadalajara addressed to its cathedral chapter, presenting grave charges against their curate. Sullivan’s Nahuatl-Spanish parallel edition is preceded by a short introduc3 4 5 6

Real Díaz 1991, 58-63. Borah 1983,150f, 162. Owensby 2008, cf Borah 1983. Haskett 1994.

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tion in which he emphasizes the linguistic particularities of the corpus as representative of marginal Nahuatl areas.7 T C The backbone of my own study in this chapter is a corpus of more than one hundred indigenous petitions that are found scattered in different collections of the Mexican national archives. Most are in Bienes Nacionales and Indiferente Virreinal, whereas others are found in Clero Regular y Secular and Indios. With few exceptions, the petitions are signed by indigenous cabildo members (gobernadores, alcaldes, regidores) representing an altepetl or part thereof (tlaxicalli). Though charges against parish clergy could initially be addressed to the viceroy, the royal audiencia or the General Court of the Indians, the most common addressee was the (arch)bishop or his provisor. Due to the ecclesiastical forum and jurisdiction, only an ecclesiastical tribunal could investigate and impart punishments on a person in Holy Orders.8 In spite of this zealously upheld jurisdiction, indigenous charges against clerics were sometimes initially handled by the General Court of the Indians, which after a preliminary investigation referred it to the competent Church tribunal. Among the records of the General Court there are also native appeals for viceregal assistance in cases where plaintiffs asserted that the ecclesiastical tribunal had not taken sufficient action. In such cases, the viceroy could order the (arch)bishop to take action.9 The individual petitions in the corpus normally comprise just a few leaves, ranging from one to nine pages. Their immediate archival context differs. Sometimes we only have access to the petition as such, not knowing whether a legal process was ever initiated. On other occasions, the petition is part of a full legal process with questionnaires, powers of attorney, testimonies, and other legal records covering hundreds of folios. In such files, one or a few Nahuatl petitions are interspersed among a bulk of Spanish legal documentation. Contemporary 7

Sullivan 2003. Subsequently Sullivan has developed his study of the linguistic peculiarities of the corpus, see Sullivan 2007. 8 Traslosheros 2004, 48. 9 E.g.AGN, I, fol. 299v-300r: Carta de ruego y encargo to the bishop of Tlaxcala, 29 May, 1631.

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Spanish translations of the native-language documents were nearly always made by the officials of the court and are often appended to the originals. These translations are rarely literal, but can generally be looked upon as paraphrases, not reflecting the subtleties of Nahuatl rhetoric, and sometimes omit passages not deemed important enough by the interpreter. Sometimes the translations are mere summaries of the contents. Thus both originals and translations must be taken into account when studying the legal cases. Like their Spanish counterparts, the seventeenth-century Nahuatl petitions in my corpus were purely textual documents, not including any pictorial elements. However, one case, in which the Nahuatl original is missing, the Spanish translation mentions that the petitioners had presented both a memorial and a pintura, a painting, none of which are extent in the file.10 In litigations on the ownership or use of land, maps were often drawn and appended to the petitions, but in the petitions of the corpus, no case deals directly with such issues. Yet as to the forms of the documents, there is a considerable variety. Based on his experience of studying a very large corpus of mundane Nahuatl texts, James Lockhart observes that: Very close reproductions of Spanish formats can be found at various time periods. Some of the closest are by well-instructed Nahua writers in major centers at a very early time. In the later sixteenth century, as alphabetic writing spread to smaller and more remote altepetl with less access to Spanish instruction, and as Nahuas found ways to express traditional patterns within the new framework, Nahuatl documents in the Spanish genres tended to be rather less like the Spanish “originals”.11

Local and regional variation was thus great. But though the indigenous petitions in my corpus do not represent a highly-standardized genre, some recurrent formal and external aspects can be pointed out and compared to the Spanish diplomas of the period.12 (1) An introductory cross was an essential part of the Spanish pe-

tition. Like many other contemporary documents, the scribe

10 11 12

Lockhart 1992, 326-373. Lockhart 1992, 372. For the Spanish diplomatic norms I have relied on Real Díaz 1991, 60-61.

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  began his petition by writing a cross in the center or periphery of the upper margin, thus making reference to the Trinity, in whose name the document was written. The cross was, however, often written in such a formalized way that it resembles a minuscule alpha. In the Nahuatl petitions, the introductory cross is often, but not always present. When present, it was frequently carefully and clearly drawn and placed in the center of the upper margin. In one case, the petition was introduced by a statement naming Jesus María, without any cross. Apart from that instance, no other verbal religious invocations are made in the introductions. (2) The text of the metropolitan document starts out with the

names of the petitioner(s) or the name of the procurator. Often the geographical origin of the petitioners is stated, more rarely their office. Though not an essential part, the text may begin with a vocative phrase directed to the addressee such as Muy poderosos señores or S[acra] C[átolica] R[eal] M[ajestad]. Though a few such vocative phrases exist in the Nahuatl corpus, the majority of the petitions proceed directly to the presentation of the petitioners or at least some of them, together with their titles and provenance. Frequently only the titles and the origin appear, e.g., Tehuantin gobernador, alcaldes yhuan regidores: “We the governor, the alcaldes, and the regidores” of a given location. Another common construction is to begin with Nican ipan altepetl, “here in this altepetl”, or if presented personally in the court of law in which the petitioners had to appear before someone to present their memorial, they used the form ixpantzinco, i.e., “before” with reverential and locative suffixes. (3) In the Spanish memorials the petitioners explained their mo-

tives using phrases such as dize que or digo que. Having exposed their motives, the essential petitionary formula employed was pide y suplica or just suplica. No such set formulas appear in the Nahuatl corpus. Instead, most of the petitions are mere lists of charges, sometimes explicitly referred to with the Spanish loan word capítulo, though the Nahuatl word usually employed to designate “sin”—tlatlacol—appears in a couple of the petitions to refer to specific accusations. The charges were sometimes numbered, using digits, but more commonly numerals.

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The Nahuatl petitions do not have any set concluding formulas. Instead they most often end abruptly after the last of the charges has been presented. (4) Just as in the case of the Spanish model, the Nahuatl documents

were rarely dated. If a date appears it was not part of the original record, but was the date when it was received by the officials of the ecclesiastical court of law. (5) Whereas the Spanish documents were very rarely signed by the

petitioners, the Nahuatl petitions were nearly always signed. I have only encountered one odd case in the corpus that lacks signatures. In fact, the native petitions often include a large number of signatures—sometimes well over twenty—including people who were not explicitly named in the initial formula. Apart from the full name of the petitioners, the signatures frequently include their title, their geographical provenance, as well as a small cross. (6) In the case of the Spanish petitions, folio sized paper is normally

employed. Even if Nahuatl petitions could have used larger paper, the quarto size was more commonly used. According to a 1638 royal decree, stamped paper (papel sellado) was to be used for all kinds of petitions in the Indies. Three years later, the King specifically declared in another decree that such paper should be used when writing petitions to the ecclesiastical courts in the Indies.13 However, it was generally not used by indigenous petitioners, because they were exempt from the payment of the stamp tax. Most of the indigenous people that signed the petitions in this corpus were members of the cabildos, Spanish-style municipal councils. The cabildo was presided by a gobernador and included officials known as regidores (council men), but also alcaldes, who apart from being council men also served as first-instance judges. Sometimes the signers of a petition also included the category of principales or in Nahuatl pipiltin (noblemen). Other local officials, who were not council members, could include a mayordomo, an escibano (notary) and 13 For the use of stamped paper, see Álvarez de Toledo 2004:171-172, cf. AGN, RC 1, 2a parte, fol. 504f: Real Cédula, Madrid, July 4, 1641.

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an alguacil (constable). Sometimes the signatories indicated that they wrote in the names of themselves as well as that of the macehualtin (commoners or more general people).14 Although not as often subscribers, lay Church officials—in Nahuatl sometimes collectively referred to as teopantlaca (church people)—also figure in the petitions and lawsuits studied in this chapter. Of this group the fiscal (church steward) was the leading middleman between the priest and the parishioners at large. It was a distinguished office and was normally restricted to principales.15 The fiscal was generally appointed by the diocesan bishop. A form for appointments that was used by Bishop Romano of Puebla in the early years of the seventeenth century details the obligations of the fiscal. One of his main duties was to see that all parishioners attended Mass on Sundays and obligatory feast days. Another key responsibility was to assist the curate in his supervision of “all public sins such as idolatry, drunkenness, sorcery, conjurations, those who have married twice and other things pertaining to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction”. Becoming aware of such things, the fiscal should promptly denounce them before the curate.16 The alguacil de la iglesia or teopantopil (church constable) and the escribano de la iglesia (church notary) were other officials, and the cantores (church singers) were also often included in the teopantlaca group.17 In this chapter I will first present a number of cases in which representatives of indigenous pueblos presented charges against their parish priests. Thereafter I will focus on a few petitions written in favor of such men. The methodological approach employed could be described as what Stuart B. Schwartz recently called “serial microhistory”, understood as a “series of what are essentially case studies in which each presents peculiar individual characteristics”.18 The cases are presented 14

Lockhart 1992, 28-44, 94-96 Lockhart 1992, 210-212. 16 AGN, IV 4712, 50: Form for appointment of fiscales, January 1, 1604. “Todos los pecados públicos como son ydolatras, borracheras, sortilegos, encantadores y que se an casado dos vezes y los demás pertenescientes a la jurisdiction eclesiástica”. 17 Lockhart 1992, 217. 18 Schwartz 2008, 9. 15

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in chronological order and are situated in a geographical and historical context, thus underlining the local character and the individual testimonies. The chapter, however, ends with a brief systematic study of the images of bad and good priests as they are presented directly and indirectly through the indigenous petitions, as well as a summary of the image the parishioners wanted to give of themselves. A  P C As the petitions against parish clergy were quite numerous, the following is just a sample of the corpus of petitions dated between 1600 and 1650 that I have assembled from the AGN. The cases have been chosen to illustrate different types of accusations and different geographical areas in the two dioceses. However, as will be demonstrated, the indigenous cabildos in certain areas were more likely to present charges against their curates while certain types of accusations appeared repeatedly in many of the documents. Hueytlalpan vs. Juan de Guevera, 1600 In early May 1600, the Bishop of Tlaxcala Diego Romano considered a Nahuatl petition from the altepetl of Hueytlalpan which included a number of charges against their curate. It was signed by no less than seventeen local men identifying themselves as alcaldes, regidores, algualciles mayores, fiscales, mayordomos, teopantopiles and principales.19 Hueytlalpan was part of a Totonac and Nahuatl-speaking area in the Sierra de Puebla. There had been early Franciscan activity in the area, but as early as 1567 they left the parish in the hands of secular clergy.20 According to the petitioners from Hueytlalpan, their curate Juan de Guevara was an irascible character whom they could not bear any longer. He was reported to show no respect for the parishioners, including the cabildo members and church stewards, but constantly referred to them by epithets such as “dogs”, “drunkards” or “whores” and meted out physical punishments without cause. Little interested 19 20

The case is found in AGN, IV 4005, 19. García Marínez 1987, 131-132.

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in their pastoral care, Guevara had a vivid interest in temporal matters. Apart from the offerings collected when celebrating Mass on feast days or when confessing them, on a daily basis he required money for bread, wine, and honey and demanded excessive contributions of eggs and fish. To the petition the men from Hueytlalpan appended another document, also written in Nahuatl, which detailed his exactions during recent years. Without presenting any minutiae on the matter, they also stated that the curate had three women living together with him in his house. In short, they asked the bishop to send away Guevara and have their former curate return as he had treated them well. As an answer to the petition, Bishop Romano decided to write a letter to Guevara in which the cleric was admonished to improve his way of life and ministry. In particular, he was reprehended for his recent absence from the parish without license. It thus seems that the petitioners were stuck with their priest. Jalpantepec vs. Juan de Curiel, 1601 There is another similar case from basically the same time. In September 1601 two Totonac men from Jalpantepec, Antonio Hernández and Hernando Guzmán, appeared before the Bishop Romano and his notary. With the help of an interpreter, they presented charges against their priest, Juan de Curiel, which were written down to form a formal petition in Spanish.21 Jalpantepec was part of the lowland parish of Pantepec in the present state of Puebla. The earlier ecclesiastical divisions of the area are not entirely clear, but by the very end of the sixteenth century a secular priest lived in Pantepec serving the nearby area inhabited primarily by Totonac and Tepehuan speakers.22 According to the Jalpantepec petitioners, Juan de Curiel maltreated the natives in a number of ways and did not fulfill his ministerial duties. They asserted that people who wanted to get married had to wait a long time and that people from different parts of the parish had died without confession or without being lawfully wedded due to the unwillingness of the curate. They also claimed that Curiel had been directly involved in the death of a person, one Gabriel from Quahuapan, 21 22

The case is found in AGN, IV 4116, 18. Gerhard 1993, 116-121.

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who died without confession after having been whipped by the curate. According to the petitioners, the priest had also committed grave sins against the sixth commandment and his clerical vow of chastity. They asserted that the cleric cohabited with an Indian widow by the name of Clara “as if she was his wife”. But according to the plaintiffs, the curate’s moral depravation was not limited to the relationship with this woman. They also accused the cleric of wanting to have sexual intercourse with a young girl from Xalpantepec. As her father had hindered him he had been confined the curate’s house for four days. There he “became ill by sadness”, according to the plaintiffs, dying shortly thereafter. The Jalpantepec petition ends with a charge that the priest held mules and horses in the village of Zopititlan, which destroyed the lands sown by the Indians, and he forced the natives to guard the animals. The indigenous accusations against Curiel were counteracted by the Spanish alcalde mayor Don Andrés de Tapia y Sosa, who in a letter asked the bishop not to take the accusations seriously, as he thought that Juan de Curiel was a “very good priest”, and accused the Indians being liars and morally depraved people. Having reviewed the case, Bishop Romano ordered his visitor general to travel to Jalpantepec and investigate the accusations and also wrote the curate letter admonishing him not to maltreat the Indians in any way in the future. Nothing more is known of the case.23 Oapan vs. Francisco Gudiño, 1611-1612 The cases that have been considered so far are only known through the brief petitions and some supporting documentation. But sometimes the initial accusations gave rise to formal legal processes in the ecclesiastical court of law which is excessively well-documented. In the Bienes Nacionales document collection in the Mexican national archives, there is a bulky file on the legal process against the beneficiary of Oapan, Francisco de Gudiño, in 1611-1612.24 In the present state of Guerrero on the banks of the Balsas River, Oapan was situated within the confines of the colonial archdiocese of Mexico, but bordered 23 24

AGN, IV 4116, 18. The legal process is found in AGN, BN 443, 1.

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the bishopric of Tlaxcala. Though a predominantly Nahua area, there were also small groups of Tuxteca and Matlatzinca-speaking people living there. At the congregation in 1603 people from underlying sujetos were ordered to gather in the cabecera of Oapan, but due to the opposition of the natives these plans were not realized in any significant way. During early colonial times Oapan was ecclesiastically subject to the secular curate of Zumpango, however a new secular parish named San Agustín Oapan was established at the 1603 congregation.25 In April 1611 four detailed Nahuatl petitions signed by cabildo members and principales of Oapan, Tecuisiapan, Osomatlan, and Tetelcingo were presented to the provisor of the archdiocese. Though the contents of the petitions from the various altepetl have somewhat different tenors, all include complaints about verbal and physical harassments from the curate. In their petition, the representatives of Oapan made a number of complaints against Francisco de Gudiño. Many of them had to do with the curate’s purported greed. Apart from demanding excessive contributions in kind and money, Gudiño was accused of being very involved in the large scale production of wax candles and cups made from gourds (tecomates) by employing local women to do the work and then selling the product in the nearby mines areas and as far away as in Mexico City. As the curate was so deeply involved in these business activities, the petitioners testified that he did not have time to fulfill his clerical duties. Other accusations had to do with his bad temper and abusive behavior. In particular, the petitioners pointed out that he treated church constables (teopantopile) “as if they were dogs”, beating them without cause. Even inside the church building he was abusive. During a Sunday Mass he had pulled one of the alcaldes by his beard and expelled him from the temple in the presence of all the people. When preaching he had told the parishioners to “go to hell”. This was a type of behavior that they never had experienced from any of the other curates they had known. In short Gudiño was considered a bad priest. Although he knew Nahuatl well, when absent from the partido Gudiño left the ministry in the hands of a vicario who did not know the language. In the second petition, Gaspar Diego, Don Juan Evangelista and other cabildo members and principales from San Francisco Otzomat25

Gerhard 1993,316-318.

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lan presented a list of 21 numbered charges employing the Nahuatl word for sin (tlatlacolli). They mainly accused him of not respecting their honor and of committing various acts of verbal and physical abuse against several of the indigenous officials. They asserted that the curate had told them that they were not principales, but mere commoners. In the presence of many people, the curate had ripped the cloak of the alcalde Don Juan Evangelista, thrown his hat on to ground and threatened to break his vara, the stick that represented the authority of his office, which thus undermined his authority. Frequently Gudiño mistreated the fiscales, while stating that their archiepiscopal appointments were worthless. Don Lucas Damián, Don Marcos Juan, Don Miguel Damián, and a dozen other representatives of the altepetl of San Miguel Tecuisiapan signed a third petition. The accusations echoed those of the other two altepetl, but they also contended that the priest had forced several of them to leave their homesteads for several weeks to transport large quantities of candles that the curate sold. He also employed the church constables and the church singers to guard his pigs and hens without paying them any salary. Lastly, representatives from Tetelcingo, among them the alcalde Francisco Juárez, presented a brief petition against the curate testifying that when the Gudiño went to the city or to the mines of Taxco he entrusted the parish administration to an auxiliary who did not know Nahuatl. Being informed of the numerous accusations, the provisor appointed Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, the long-term curate of Atenango, as judge of commission, ordering him to leave for Oapan and take testimonies there. In his letter of acceptance, Ruiz de Alarcón affirmed that the locals of Oapan had a reputation of being “rather bellicose”. Apart from a notary and an interpreter, he also wanted to bring with him an armed alguacil eclesiástico as protection. Arriving in Oapan on July 10, Ruiz de Alarcón ordered the beneficiary to leave the parish and thereafter questioned fifteen indigenous witnesses about the charges made by the petitioners.26 The primary hearings ended with the inhabitants of Oapan and Tecuisiapan producing a second round of petitions which restated several of the accusations previously made. The second petition from Oa26

AGN, BN 443, 1, fol. 15r-80v.

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pan was a substantial nine-page document which testified to several behaviors of Gudiño unsuitable for a cleric. A couple of the charges had to do with the priest having a mistress. The locals asserted that when questioning his behavior, the priest had told them that he loved her, that she was his wife and that nobody could take away her, “not even the King, the viceroy or the archbishop”. Gudiño rarely wore clerical habit, nor was his tonsure visible. The priest’s very lax way of administering the parish became obvious as he did not celebrate Mass at Easter. Nor did he arrange a procession on Corpus Christi. They also contended that the priest mocked the preaching of the Holy Bull of the Crusade, a behavior that was deemed adversarial to both the Crown and the Church.27 The cabildo members of San Miguel Tecuisiapan wrote that Gudiño recently had presented them with a letter favorable to him which he forced them to sign.28 By January 16, 1612, Gudiño was incarcerated in Mexico City. In his testimony he denies most of the accusations made against him and states that it is the same group of Indians that have persecuted him for four years who he defines as both his “capital enemies” and “enemies of God and the Holy Catholic faith”. By March, another ecclesiastical judge, Francisco Hidalgo, travelled to Oapan in order to take supplementary testimonies. In the documents that are kept in the national archives, there is no clear indication of the outcome of the process.29 In any case, Gudiño died in 1615 while still the curate of Oapan.30 Atzalan vs. the Clergy of Jalacingo, 1612 The altepetl of Xalacingo in the diocese of Tlaxcala had a Totonac majority, but also a sizeable Nahuatl-speaking minority. It is situated in the central part of the present state of Veracruz in the Sierra de 27

AGN, BN 443, 1, fols. 87r-93v. AGN, BN 443, 1, fols. 124r-v. These petitions are followed by another round of testimonies which a new judge of commission, Juan Ruiz from Taxco, took in mid-August 1611. 29 AGN, BN 443, 1, fols. 126r-144r, 173r; cf. AGN, IV 4889, 71: Letter from Francisco Gudiño to the provisor, August 3, 1612, where he states that he had not seen the sentence although it is finished and AGN, IV 5529, 56: Letter from Gudiño to the provisor, September 8, 1612. 30 AGN, BN 990, 2. 28

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Puebla. Earlier in the hands of Franciscan friars, by the 1570s Atzalan and Jalacingo had become two separate parishes administered by secular clergy. However, during the first years of the seventeenth century the two were brought into a single unit with Jalacingo as the parish center.31 In 1612, six or seven years after the consolidation of the parish with Jalacingo, the governor Don Juan de San Pablo together with the alcaldes, regidores, and principales of Atzalan presented a Spanishlanguage petition to Bishop Alonso de la Mota y Escobar. Being Totonacs they were concerned by the fact that none of the recent ministers of Jalacingo had known their language. In fact, they stated that their current curate “did not speak a single word of it” (ni hablando sola una palabra della). Therefore, many people had died without confession and few of them had confessed for many years as the curate of Xalacingo only spoke to them in Nahuatl. Not understanding what the minister was saying, the petitioners wrote that they felt “neither consoled, nor satisfied” by his presence. Still, they had to pay the curate in Xalacingo “hens, fish, corn, firewood, eggs, and chili”. As a remedy for this difficult situation, some of the inhabitants had gone to confess to the Totonac-speaking curate of the nearby village of Santa María Tlapacoya. And occasionally, he had also come to Atzalan to confess them there. Still this was not a good permanent solution, especially since they did not have permanent access to any doctrinal instruction or sermons in their own tongue. Before the congregation, things had been much better. Then they had had constant access to priests who knew their language and felt great “consolation”. They also asserted that they were affected by the climate (aguaceros y frios), in having to go to Jalacingo many had fallen severely ill and died due to the journeys. Thus they asserted that there were few survivors in Atzalan. The travels also implied other major inconveniences. Every major feast they had to bring their ornaments, flags, crosses, and musical instruments, which were damaged by the climes. Thus as a whole, they were not happy and therefore asked the bishop to unite Atzalan to Santa María Tlapacoya which was administered by the curate Bernardino Pinelo. They argued the inhabitants of both places were “of one single nation and one language, kinsmen, and part of the 31

Gerhard 1993, 373-378, cf. García Martínez 1987, 131-135.

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same encomienda, who used to be part of the same parish” (ser todos de una nación y una lengua, parientes unos y otros y de una encomienda y que todos solian ser un partido). The bishop’s reaction is unknown.32 Amatepec, Tlatlaya and Hueyxahualco vs. Br. Alonso Rodríguez de Esquivel, 1614 Amatepec was situated in the archdiocese of Mexico, but close to the border with the diocese of Michoacan in the south-western part of the modern state of Mexico. Nahuatl was the dominant language. However, the mining activities in the area also meant that a more ethnically mixed population lived there, including both black slaves and Hispanics. In the sixteenth century Amatepec had been subject ecclesiastically to the curate of Zultepec. But around the time of the congregation campaigns at the turn of the century, a secular priest was installed in San Gaspar Amatepec and a separate parish was founded.33 In early 1614 Nahua parishioners from Amatepec, Tlatlaya and Hueyahualco presented charges against Alonso Rodríguez de Esquivel, the beneficiary. The documents on this legal process constitute some 350 compactly-written folios. The document begins abruptly with testimonies by witnesses from the three pueblos. Thus the initial petitions are missing and their contents can only be known indirectly through the interrogations of the witnesses and the defendant.34 Having received the parishioners’ petitions, the provisor commissioned the curate Juan de Prado to make a more thorough investigation in situ.35 When the judge of commission had finished his work in Amatepec and the other villages, he forwarded the documentation to the archiepiscopal court of law. As of April 22, 1614, the process continued on the metropolitan scene with the provisor of the archdiocese, Pedro Rodríguez de Castro, acting as judge. By that time, the curate Alonso Rodríguez de Esquivel had already been brought to Mexico City where he was held in custody in the archiepiscopal prison. During the interrogations he testified that he 32 33 34 35

AGN, BN 1044, 14. Gerhard 1993, 267-270. AGN, BN 990, 1; fols. 160r-510v. AGN, BN 990, 1, fols. 160r-231v.

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was born in Mexico City and that he had been a priest for more than three decades. He had a history of conflicts with the ecclesiastical justiciary, which are only known from other documents. While still in minor orders in 1579, he had been accused of blasphemy. Nevertheless, he was shortly thereafter ordained a priest and occupied a chaplaincy in the city. Most of his clerical positions thereafter are not known, but before coming to Amatepec in 1612 he had served as the curate of Ixcateopan for four years, where the indigenous parishioners also had accused him of physical violence and various types of excesses.36 From the provisor’s first interrogation of Alonso Rodríguez Esquivel in April 1614, it is possible to gain detailed knowledge of what the petitioners of Amatepec, Tlatlaya, and Hueyahualco accused him of. In fact, the document constitutes a veritable catalogue of sins. Some charges were part of a rather standard repertoire; others were more unusual. The petitioners from Amatepec testified that their curate had an irascible disposition and they had to suffer much verbal and physical abuse from him. Both from the pulpit and otherwise, he had called parishioners dogs, drunkards and “other things that offend pious ears”. The curate was also accused of having incarcerated the governor of Hueyahualco and harassing the inhabitants of Amatepec to such a degree that they had fled. He was also accused of being extremely violent and hitting several of the natives. The governor of Amatepec had been hit in the head, causing severe bleeding, and the priest severely whipped the governor of Tlataya after which the latter fled desperately from his homestead. In summary, the petitioners state that the inhabitants were “most unhappy and disconsolate for having a curate of such a harsh temperament”. Rodríguez de Esquivel’s ministry was also seen as extremely deficient. He was accused of being lazy in the extreme and “a friend of the bed”, not leaving it before the afternoon. The petitioners from Tlatlaya stated that the priest rarely left his home in Amatepec to attend to the sick and dying. For this reason, they asserted various villagers includ36

For his age in 1614, see AGN, BN 990, 1, fols. 234r. Cf. AGN, BN 225, 19: process against Rodríguez de Esquivel for having said “pese a Dios”, 1579 and AGN, BN 966, 5: nomination as chaplain, 1579. AGN, BN 1253,1: Provision to the benefice of Ixcateopan, 1608; AGN, BN 1267, 3: process against Rodríguez Esquivel as curate of Ixcateopan, 1611. See Lundberg (in press).

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ing Juana (the wife of Diego Matias), Doña Ángela, Isabel, Juan, Melchiora, and María had died without confession. This alleged laziness and lack of piety is also reflected in the accusation that when baptizing children he did so in groups of eight to ten, only sprinkling the holy water over them. Furthermore, he was accused of not guarding the secrecy of the confessionary. According to the petitioners, the priest’s religious life was virtually nonexistent. He did not use the breviary, nor did he read Mass on weekdays, but only on Sundays and feasts. As if this was not enough, it was publicly held that he had fathered a child together with a Nahua woman called Magdalena. His irascible temper, violence, and laziness were therefore not the only vices that the petitioners accused their curate of. They also presented him as a greedy man. On weekdays he was occupied with his business activities, including the production of candles. He was also accused of demanding large quantities of fruit, vegetables, and hens, as well as forcing locals to guard his goats and carrying large loads over long distances. The petitioners from Hueyahualco made similar charges, claiming that he never went there to confess the dying. However, they also complained that while visiting the pueblo the priest brought his bed into the church and slept there, a behavior they found most questionable and indecent.37 Being questioned by the provisor over several days, Rodríguez de Esquivel denied most of the accusations made against him. He stated that he always kept the fees of the schedule (arancel) and that the only services which he enjoyed from the natives was that a woman came twice a day to make him tortillas. In fact, he presented a detailed questionnaire in an attempt to counteract the accusations made against him by the indigenous parishioners. Wanting to show that he in fact was a tranquil and zealous person, he asserted that he had only publicly reprehended the Indians for their public sins, idolatries, fornication, drunkenness, or for not attending either Mass or doctrine lessons, which they as baptized parishioners were required to do. He testified that the petitioners were very bad Christians who did not obey him or the Church stewards and who did not want to purchase the Bull of Holy Crusade, which in this context taken to be a minimum requirement of personal piety on the part of the indigenous people. He admitted that he had physically punished individuals in some cases, but 37

AGN, BN 990, 1, fols. 234r-244r.

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argued that he had done so with due cause. He mentioned, for example, the case of a native man by the name of Angel whom he had whipped for drunkenness and for having pulled his beard. In short, Rodríguez de Esquivel argued that the petitioners’ accusations were groundless and most malicious. He identified them as his main enemies who hated him wholeheartedly, because he had rightfully punished them for their sins and excesses. In fact, according to the curate, they were nothing more than “vile drunkards with bad souls and consciences” (viles, borrachos de malas almas y consciencias). With regards to the accusations against his way of administering the parish, he stated that many of his parishioners lived seven or eight leagues from the cabecera and if someone had died without confession it was not his fault, but the fault of the Indians who had not called for him. However, he also stated that he was not required to go to outlying villages, arguing that it was custom that Indians living in the sujetos brought their sick to the main church. In one disputed case, he gave some detail stating that he had confessed the couple Simon and Isabel from Tlatlaya before dying, but that he had abstained from giving them the sacrament as they were covered in vomit and could not receive the host. In short, he testified that he was a tranquil person and pointed out that he has been zealous and thorough in his administration of the parish and the sacraments.38 The final sentence against Alonso Rodríguez Esquivel was given shortly before Christmas 1614. Although the provisor did not deprive him perpetually of the benefice, the curate was fined with 200 pesos, a sum that constituted more than a normal year’s priestly salary. At the same time he was released from prison where he had been since March. In the ruling, Rodríguez de Esquivel was admonished to administrate the parish with virtue and care, and not to cause any more problems.39 After this sentence the curate might have improved. In any case, I have not encountered any later accusations or legal processes against him, but there are some records that prove he remained in Amatepec. In a 1619 letter he complained about his heavy work load and asked for an assistant, claiming it to be impossible to minister to all the nineteen 38

AGN, BN 990, 1, fols. 303r-314v, 350r-354r; the testimonies taken on fols. 355r-489v. 39 AGN, BN 990, 1, end of expediente, without foliation.

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small villages that made up the parish.40 In 1628, a testamentary executor recorded that Rodríguez de Esquivel had recently died still curate of Amatepec.41 Santiago Mamatlac vs. Alonso Jiménez, 1614 A case from Santiago Mamatlac provides an example of a litigation of a much less violent kind. Situated in the south-western part of the state of Mexico, and populated by Mazahua, Matlaltzinca, and Chontal speakers, the altepetl of Mamatlac was ecclesiastically subject to San Lorenzo Tecicapan, close to the silver mines of Zacualpa.42 In late 1614, Don Carlos de San Miguel, Gaspar Juan and Don Diego de la Cruz, principales from Mamatlac, presented a petition in Spanish to the provisor of the archdiocese. In the name of all the natives, they stated that in Mamatlac there was a church dedicated to Santiago in which people from the village had been interred for many years. However, recently the curate of Tecicpan, Alonso Jiménez, had decreed that deceased people from Mamatlac should be brought to the cabecera to be buried there. Stating that though it was only one league between the two places, the road was difficult. In their argumentation, both petitioners and curate presented arguments from tradition and pointed to the inconveniences of the newly-introduced practice, not least “the odor that the corpses cause”. The petitioners attained their goal and on October 22 the provisor overruled the decision of the curate and gave them permission to continue burying their dead in the church of Santiago according to their old custom.43 Ixcapulzalco vs. Gerónimo Frías Quixada, 1614-1616, 1625-1626. Few early seventeenth-century parish priests seem to have been as controversial as the long-time beneficiary of Ixcateopan, Gerónimo Frías Quixada. During his three decades in the parish several bouts of accusations were brought against him, though there are also letters of 40

AGN, C, 1, fol. 138. AGN, IV 774, 17: Report from his testamentary executor Pedro de Anciando, 1628. 42 Gerhard 1993, 397-398. 43 AGN, IV 5247, 47. 41

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support written by groups of indigenous people. On June 9, 1614 two Mazatec men from Ixcapulzalco, Don Diego Osorio and Don Juan Mateo, appeared before the archiepiscopal court in Mexico City to submit a five-page petition in Nahuatl.44 The altepetl of Ixcapulzalco was ecclesiastically subject to the curate of Ixcateopan in the northern part of the current state of Guerrero. While Ixcateopan had both Chontal and Nahuatl speakers, a language called Mazatec was spoken in Ixcapulzalco. Even before the arrival of the Spaniards there had been a great deal of animosity between the Chontals of Ixcateopan and the Mazatecs of Ixcapulzalco, and conflicts continued well into the colonial era.45 The petition presented by the two Mazatec men from Ixcapulzalco included nineteen numbered sins (tlatlacol) that they asserted the curate had committed. Most of them belonged to two main categories of behavior: acts of physical violence and severe transgressions of a sexual nature. Initially the petitioners named several men and women who had been whipped or otherwise beaten by the curate, and others who he had put in the parish prison. He had whipped one local named Pedro for not bringing him fire wood, maize, and hens. Another man, Miguel Fabián, whom he had accused of theft, had been whipped and died two weeks after the punishment. It is also pointed out that the priest had whipped several husbands for quarrelling with their wives. In this context, the petitioners asserted that in marital conflicts the curate most often sided with the women, something that offended the males who signed the petitions. They also contended that the priest showed a total lack of respect towards the leading men of the pueblo, which represents another matter of complaint. In one of the chapters, it is states that once when he had met the gobernador Don Diego Osorio in the street, the curate had began to fight with him. Thereafter, the curate brought him to prison. Don Diego escaped and went to “the mountain” where he was almost eaten by “lions, tigers, and other beasts during night”. During the absence, the priest also threatened his wife. 44

AGN, BN 1099, 5. See also Lundberg (in press) for a more detailed case study of parishioner-priest conflicts in Ixcateopan in the seventeenth century. 45 Gerhard 1993, 152-154.

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Gerónimo de Frías Quixada was also accused forcing a number of women to have sexual intercourse with him. For not wanting to “offend God with him” he had put Doña Petronila in jail and on another occasion he held another local woman named Paula in his house for two days until she had sexual intercourse with him. As Doña Ana Sotelo did not want to have intercourse with him, he had threatened to take away her son and send him to the mines of Taxco. The curate’s greed is also underlined in other chapters, included over exacting the resources of his poor parishioners. As Ixcapulzalco was a center for salt production, the curate was called a salt merchant who constantly forced the inhabitants to carry loads to Taxco, where the product was sold. Summarizing their complaints, the petitioners considered the curate beyond simply “not good”, but in fact “half priest, half demon”.46 Following the presentation of the petition the provisor of the archdiocese, Pedro Rodríguez de Castro, appointed the curate of Zacualpan, Juan Ruiz de Agüero, as a judge of commission. As the accusation had reached the ears of Gerónimo de Frías, he wrote to the judge of commission stating that the charges presented by the two men from Ixcapulzalco were without foundation and did not represent the views of the rest of the parishioners; they were only the opinions of two malicious individuals who did not live in the village anymore. In summary, the curate claimed he was innocent, being falsely accused by malevolent people. He asked the judge of commission to abort his investigation and requested that Don Diego Osorio and Don Juan Mateo should be duly punished for their heinous claims.47 More or less at the same time, Agüero also received two brief petitions signed by a great number of cabildo members and principales of Ixcapulzalco and Ixcateopan respectively. These texts are, in fact, eulogies of Frías Quixada pointing out the mutual love between the priest and the natives remarking that he regularly celebrated Mass and taught them well. The documents were, however, suspiciously similar in their wording. Though the judge of commission noted the documents should be sent to the archiepiscopal court and translated into Spanish, no such translations exist in the file. In spite of this support for the curate, Juan Ruiz 46

AGN, BN 1099, 5. The petion on fols. 4r-5v; Spanish translation on fol. 9r-

10v. 47

AGN, BN 1099, fol. 8r-v

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de Agüero did travel to Ixcapulzalco. Upon arriving there on June 25 he did not, however, find either of the two petitioners and therefore aborted the investigation, reaching the conclusion that Frías had indeed been falsely accused by “people of bad will”.48 However, the same legal file includes another set of accusations against the curate a little more than a year later. In December 1615 accusations were made by a woman from Taxco named Juliana González, who is described as being dressed in the Indian manner (en habito de india), but knowledgeable of Spanish, the daughter of a mulatto man and an Indian woman. She testified that seven months before Gerónimo de Frías came to her asking her to follow him to his home in Ixcateopan to serve as his housekeeper. Shortly after her arrival the priest “wanted to make love to her and had acts of carnal intercourse with her many times” (la requirio de amores y la hizo teniendo con ella actos copula carnal muchas veces). After five months in his home, she left the curate claiming she was ill and needed to return to Taxco. Following this accusation officials were sent to Ixcateopan to arrest the priest and bring him to the archiepiscopal jail in Mexico City. However, Frías asserted that he was moribund and presented a doctor’s certificate as proof. In the months that followed, Gerónimo de Frías was repeatedly summoned to Mexico City to appear before the ecclesiastical court of law, but he continued to assert that he was too ill to make the long journey. Finally, on February 9, 1616, having failed to appear in Mexico City, Gerónimo de Frías was heavily fined by Archbishop Juan de la Serna, who also personally admonished him to refrain from causing any type of scandal in the future and encouraged him to be a good example to the faithful, to treating them well, and to teach them Christian doctrine.49 These were not the only accusations made against Gerónimo de Frías, who would continue as the beneficiary of Ixcateopan. Ten years later, in December 1625, Don Miguel Sebastián and Don Lorenzo Gaspar, both alcaldes from Ixcapulzalco, appeared before the provisor of the archdiocese, Dr Pedro Garcés Portillo. They submitted a threepage Nahuatl petition, containing nine charges against the beneficiary, which had been written at a cabildo meeting in late November. This 48 49

AGN, BN 1099, 5, fol. 10r-11v, 14r. AGN, BN 1099, 5.

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document was supplemented by a Spanish petition drawn up on January 19, 1626, in the name of the alcaldes, regidores, and the rest of the population of San Francisco Ixcapulzalco. The accusations found in these petitions were similar to the ones presented more than a decade ago. They testified that their curate had a very bad temper and constantly beat and whipped them “on their backs and buttocks”. The constant bad treatment they received from the curate had meant that many people had fled. To this declaration they appended a rather standard formulation stating that the diminishing population also meant that the tributes to the King were diminished. His violent behavior was, however, not only limited to whipping. The petitioners also alleged that the curate had chased several people, including the local church steward, with a knife and that he went around armed with a harquebus and pistol “which makes us and our wives cry with horror”. They stated that they did not attend Mass in Ixcateopan as they were frightened and for being absent they were fined. Finally, they asserted that the priest was really a merchant, constantly taking advantage of the inhabitants’ workforce, mules, and horses to transport the vegetables he was selling.50 To their petition, the alcaldes also appended a letter that the curate recently had sent them. The letter was addressed to the cabildo in no uncertain terms: “This letter should be read by the drunkards and bastards of Cicatzalco [Ixcapulzalco], the bastard alcaldes, and the bloody fiscal and the bloody regidor dogs”. In the letter the curate relates that he had sent for above-mentioned people, but that they did not want to come. He therefore called them wicked, but also drunkards, dogs, cuckolds, sodomites, and thieves. With the letter he meted out a fine of ten pesos for not showing up when he had called upon them, emphasizing that his words should not be taken lightly. To put more weight to his threats, he signed the letter with the words notoca tecuani Frias “my name is the wild beast Frias”, which the contemporary translator rendered as “the lion Frías”. It is not known if or how the provisor acted on the accusations presented against the curate of Ixcateopan in 1625-1626; no documentation other than the accusations is known to be extant.51 50 51

AGN, IV 1709, 6; fol. 1r-5v; 9r-10r. AGN, IV 1709, 6, fols. 7r-8v.

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Gerónimo de Frías would remain in Ixcateopan for yet many more years. As will be shown later in this chapter, he also received support from indigenous groups in other parts of the parish who thought him to be a good and zealous man. Only in 1640 did he make an agreement with Juan de Závala Zamudio in Tolcayuca to trade benefices with him, thereby leaving his old parish after three decades.52 By then he was once more before the ecclesiastical court of law and was suspended from the benefice of Ixcateopan. Pánuco vs. Br. Hernando Pelaez Catalán, 1629 Most of the cases from the archdiocese which have been considered thus far deal with parishes within the present states of Mexico and Guerrero, while the present case is from the eastern extreme of the archbishopric. The villa of Pánuco in the Huasteca had a resident secular curate from the 1530s and was situated in the archdiocese on the frontier with the province of Nuevo Santander and the Caribbean Ocean. Apart from Huastecs and Chichimecs, by 1610 there were 200 non-Indian families living there.53 In 1629, Br. Hernando Palaez Catalán had been the beneficiary in the Huasteca for five years and resided in the villa.54 The process against him began as the alcalde mayor of the province of Pánuco, Francisco Fernández de Olvera, came down to Mexico City to present a petition before the provisor of the archdiocese, Luis de Cifuentes. Having consulted the accusations, the provisor appointed his nephew Joseph de Cifuentes as judge of commission. The latter soon thereafter left together with the alcalde mayor. Their journey towards Pánuco was painstaking, in particular since it was the rainy season. In the document Cifuentes testifies that he feared for his life on many occasions. Some of the rivers were almost impossible to pass and they had to stay for several days in Tempoal waiting for a possibility to cross the river Paita. Three weeks after leaving Mexico City, they finally entered the villa of Pánuco only to discover that the curate had departed for Mexico City and left the administration of the parish in the hands of a 52 53 54

AGN, IV 6499, 17. Gerhard 1993 211-217. AGN, CRS 73, 1.

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Franciscan friar. During the next weeks, Cifuentes took some thirty testimonies from Huastecs, Spaniards, and people of all “castes” using a questionnaire of 24 detailed questions. The accusations against Pelaez Catalán were grave and varied. Although he had lived in the area for five years, he had not learnt the Huastec language spoken by most natives. Thus he could not administer the sacraments, nor did he preach to them. In fact, he did not preach in Spanish either. When confessing a Huastec speaker, he used a fiscal, Don Francisco Ramírez, the governor of Tausalicho, as an interpreter though sometimes he confessed them with the help of a vocabulary, still not understanding what they were saying. Inhabitants of the fishing villages went without Mass for more than a month and many had died without confession. But even in the villa of Pánuco, people died without the sacrament. Pánuco was on the border with the so-called Chichimecs indigenous groups whom the Spanish considered particularly fierce. Groups of these Pame-speaking people lived in the hamlet of Salineros. Huastec witnesses questioned by judge Cifuentes testified that Catalán’s predecessor as curate, Hernando de Valdés, had baptized groups of Chichimecs and that he had taught them Christian doctrine in their language. However, Catalán did not go there though he was called upon to attend to Chichimecos ladinos, those being Chichimecs who also knew the Huastec language, as he considered them to be “barbarous”. He refused to baptize even those who at their deathbed asked for the sacraments. The Huastec witnesses, however, considered them “tranquil and peaceful” (quietos y pacíficos). As a result of the curate’s negligence some of them had left the villages to return to “their lands” and many of the Huastecs had followed suit. The accusation also includes a number of sexual transgressions and crimes against indigenous women. Apart from having a more stable concubine, a mulatto woman called Juana, he had molested and raped various women in the villa and its environs. During his stay, Cifuentes questioned a dozen Huastec women who testified to having been raped or being sexually molested by the curate (forciblemente tubo copula carnal; por fuerza; se aprovechó della). It is recounted that he wanted to have an indigenous woman called Juana. He had sent for her and her husband, and then put the husband in jail. It was further asserted that the curate was lurking around in the streets and on the roads searching for women on the way to the river and the maize fields to forcefully

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bring them to the mountain, as he did with the Huasteca woman Ana Guacul from Tlacolula, and several others. Despite being a cleric, he was involved in the wine and pulque business, trading with Veracruz. He used foul language and wore dishonest clothing, not using the cassock. He generally usurped royal jurisdiction by sentencing Indians to jail, including the indigenous governor, named Martín, and meted out very high fines. Moreover, he took advantage of the natives for services and sent Indians away to bring him fish even on feast days. The fish was then transported to San Luis or even to Mexico City to be sold. The very voluminous document that includes these accusations and testimonies was drawn up by Joseph de Cifuentes who thereafter returned to Mexico City to report to the provisor of the archdiocese. The 560-folio bundle of documents housed in the Archivo General de la Nación, however, does not indicate any further processes against the sinful curate of Pánuco. San Antonio Otlaquiquistlan vs. Lic Pedro Porras Farfán, 1632 This is an example of a case that began in the diocese of Tlaxcala, but which was referred to the archbishop of Mexico who, as primus inter pares, had the right to overrule decisions taken by any of the suffragan diocesans. In their letter, representatives of the indigenous cabildo of Otlaquiquistla declared they had thrice appealed to the bishop of Tlaxcala against their curate, but that the bishop had not acted against him or investigated. With the help of a procurator, the cabildo, headed by the gobernador Don Esteban de Mendoza, therefore appealed to the archbishop of Mexico in a Spanish-language petition.55 The Nahuatlspeaking altepetl of San Antonio Otlaquiquistlan was situated in the present state of Veracruz. In his book on the historical geography of New Spain, Peter Gerhard described what he sees as a most confusing toponymy for a place variously known as Acatepec, Otlaquiquistlan, Xicayan, San Antonio, and eventually San Antonio Huatusco. Ecclesiastically, a secular cleric had been resident there since at least the late 1560s.56 The cabildo’s accusation against the curate Pedro de Porras Farfán was not detailed, although the petitioners refer to other memorials 55 56

AGN, I 10, fol. 299v-300r. Gerhard 1993, 83-85.

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with chapters against him which they had sent to the bishop. However, they do indicate that he treated them with great harshness using a rather standard phrase: “All the natives live in great disconsolation and many [indigenous men] have left their children and wives to live in the mountains because due to the roughness with which the vicario treats us.” They had asked the bishop to appoint another beneficiary who treated them with greater suavity, but he had not listened to them. The archbishop’s response was that the bishop of Tlaxcala should promptly deal with the matter.57 Atenango, Zacango and Acaquila vs. Lic. Juan Guerrero, 1635 The process against the curate of Atenango, Juan Guerrero, was inaugurated by the presentation of three petitions written in Spanish and one in Nahuatl addressed to Archbishop Manso y Zúñiga, who immediately remitted the case to his provisor. Three of these records are signed by three gobernadores: Don Juan Bautista from Atenango, Don Juan Baltazar from Zacango, and Don Bartolomé González from Acaquila, while the fourth is signed by Pedro de Mendoza, an alcalde from Atenango.58 All these altepetl belonged to the same parish of Atenango, which is situated in the archbishopric but very close to the border with the diocese of Tlaxcala in the eastern part of the present state of Guerrero.59 By 1635, Juan Guerrero had recently succeeded Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón as the curate of Atenango and in their petitions the governors accused him of a number of transgressions and omissions. He had recently been absent from the parish during 45 days without appointing a replacement, during which time two adult parishioners had died without confession and a child had died without being baptized. They also complained that the priest did not live in the cabecera of Atenango as his predecessor had done, but in Cuetlaxotitlan four leagues from Atenango, “a very stony and steep road through very hot lands”, as they put it. This being the case, he rarely came to the cabecera of Atenango 57

AGN, IV 2545, 5: “todos los natuarles biuan con muy gran desconsuelo y que se ayan ausentado muchos a sus hijos y mujeres y se an ydo biuir a los montes por la aspereza con que nos trata el dicho vicario”. 58 AGN, BN 326, 27. 59 Gerhard 1993, 111-114.

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and even less often to Comala and Zacango, situated six to eight leagues away from his homestead. Therefore, the locals rarely attended Mass nor did they have the possibility to call on the curate for confessions. According to the petitioners, Guerrero did not show them any respect and used to call the natives foul names. One time he had reprehended them for not bringing him well fed hens by calling them drunkards, cuckolds, and old horses (matalotes). On Sundays and feast days his predecessor had celebrated two masses in each of the cabeceras, while Guerrero only read one Mass and requested money for doing it. Guerrero’s brother and a Dominican friar, stayed with him in his home and their presence caused further vexation to the natives, because they demanded two hens and two chickens a day. The curate did not wear clerical habit and had threatened to kill the principales who went to Mexico City to make complaints against him and “to tear their faces into pieces” (hazer pedazos sus caras) with a sword which he always brought with him. As a conclusion, the petitioners stated that they as “vassals of the King” and “children of the archbishop” should not have to suffer such atrocities, and therefore asked the archbishop to send them another and more worthy curate.60 The case was complicated by the fact that the curate’s father and namesake was a notary in the archiepiscopal administration. In a letter in support of his son, Juan Guerrero senior claimed that the Indians of Atenango were induced by the curate Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón to present false accusations against his son. He was acting through his brother Gaspar Ruiz de Alarcón who lived in the pueblo. They were both brothers of the recently-deceased beneficiary of Atenango, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón, and according to the notary, Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón wanted to get rid of his son to be able to control the parish. In order to attain this he induced the natives not to give his son the food necessary for his sustenance. He stated that his son suffered a great deal in his parish, being almost devoured by the mosquitoes that thrived there, and was plagued with such wounds that he had to visit the baths of Atotonilco to be cured. He therefore asked the provisor to admonish Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón to stop inducing the Indians who, because “of their incapacity and inability”, did not litigate against “venerable cler60

AGN, BN 326, 27, fol. 1r-3r; the Nahuatl petition on fol. 13r-v.

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gymen” as his son by their own will, but only if they were induced.61 On November 10, 1635, the provisor declared that the curate of Atenango, Juan de Guerrero, should present himself before the archiepiscopal court and was ordered to appoint a person who could serve as interim priest in his absence from the parish.62 Nothing is known of the final outcome. Texcaliacac vs. Dr. Pedro Mexía de León, 1639-1642 The cabildo of San Mateo Texcalicac made charges against their curate Pedro Mexía de León on a number of instances and in different courts of law. San Mateo Texcaliacac is situated in a cool and dry highland region in the current state of Mexico, in the Tenango del Valle region. Apart from Nahuatl, Otomi and Matlatzinca were also spoken. The parish had probably been founded during the congregation around the year 1600.63 By the July 1639 the governor Don Juan Bautista, together with the regidores and alcaldes of the altepetl of Texcaliacac, presented a petition before the provisor of the archdiocese. In summary, they found their curate Dr Mexía de León most abusive. He was armed even inside the church building and on many occasion in the previous couple of years, they contended he had beaten cabildo members in public. Among his later atrocities, he hit both the present and the former governor. In some cases he had even struck them with a stick while they were in the church praying.64 The reason for most of these punishments were said to be disputes over the clerics’ exactions which were thought to be excessive. The case seems a clear example of the disputes over the aranceles, the fee schedules. According to the curate, the arancel for San Mateo Texcaliacac and the tlaxcalli of San Miguel Almoloya, Santa Cruz, and San Pedro de Techocholco stipulated that the inhabitants should pay for Masses on eleven feast days every year. Apart from Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost, these feast days were Corpus Christi, San Mateo, the Assumption, 61 62 63 64

AGN, BN 326, 27, fol. 3v-4r. AGN, BN 326, 27, fol. 24. Gerhard 1993, 270-273. AGN, BN 1285, 28, fols. 3r-4v.

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the Nativity of Our Lady, the two feast days of the Holy Cross, Saint Nicholas and All Saints. On every occasion, each village should pay six pesos and donate two gallinas de la tierra, two gallinas de Castilla, as well as two chickens and food for another gallina de Castilla, and two reales of bread, fruit, and wine. According to the curate, these were the only things he asked for.65 In a letter to the archiepiscopal judge, Mexía de León answered that almost all the natives of San Mateo Texcaliacac “had withdrawn themselves from my own and my vicar’s doctrination and obedience” (substraídos de mi doctrina y obediencia y la de mi vicario) without hearing Mass. The result was that they became involved in scandals, public sins, and bad examples. This not only affected the adult men, but also the women and children who undermined the authority of the curate. He also stated that for four years he has been persecuted by the Indians before the royal audiencia, the archbishop and his visitor general, and the provisor, but that none of these instances had found anything questionable in his behavior. The verdict of the provisor was that the natives’ accusations were not well-founded and he therefore freed the Mexía León.66 Having not reached the desired aim, the inhabitants of San Mateo Texcaliacac made an appeal to the provisor of the diocese of Puebla, represented by the procurator Joseph de Zeli in 1641 and 1642. However, nothing indicates that they were more successful on that occasion.67 Tizayuca vs. Br. Diego Nieto de Orozco, 1640 Tizayuca was one of the older secular parishes in the archdiocese of Mexico. There are sources that indicate that secular clerics administered the area from as early as the 1540s. It is situated in what is now the southern part of the state of Hidalgo, on the road from Mexico City to the mines of Pachuca. At the time of the Conquest the area was dominated by Otomis with small groups of Nahuas and Pames. But during the early colonial era, the Nahuatl-speaking portion increased.68 65 66 67 68

AGN, BN 1285, 28, fol. 19r. AGN, BN 1285, 28, fols. 9r-10r; 25r. AGN, IV 5205, 78 and AGN, IV 2086, 3. Gerhard 1993, 209-211.

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On January 14, 1640, the procurator Lucas de Medina presented two Spanish-language petitions in the name of five Otomi men from Tisayuca and its subject Xoloc. The litigants were the mayordomo Marcos Jiménez and the former fiscal Baltasar Andrés, both from Tizayuca, while the alguacil mayor Juan Martín, Sebastián Martín, and Martín de la Cruz were inhabitants of Xoloc. The five were also personally present in the archiepiscopal court of law.69 Diego Nieto de Orozco, who for the last four years had been the beneficiary of Tizayuca, was accused of being a deficient minister and an extremely greedy person. The cabecera was linguistically divided. About half of the population spoke Nahuatl while the other had Otomi as their mother tongue. While the priest spoke the former language, he had no knowledge of the latter. Moreover, the petitioners thought his poor pronunciation of Nahuatl made it difficult to understand him. However, most of the charges had to do with the greed and inappropriate behavior of the curate. He always made notice of those in attendance on Sundays and feast days before catechizing and forced each of them to pay him half a real. But he never taught them anything. He had told them that these contributions were destined for the reconstruction of the church and the petitioners (or rather their procurator speaking on their behalf) explained: “as the said Indians are so inclined to the divine cult it was easy enough to fool them” (como los dichos indios son tan ynclinado al culto divino fue facil engañarlos). The economic activities of the priest caused great problems to the parishioners. To keep his over 200 cows, Nieto de Orozco had recently decided to construct a great enclosure close to the church. To build the stone walls that encircled it, the priest had forced the parishioners to work without salary. At the same time he had installed a slaughterhouse in the village, selling the meat to the natives at excessive prices. He had also sold the services of the natives to the alcalde mayor of Zumpango without giving them any salary. Having to work outside the village, they could not attend to their own fields. Not only did he fail to respect the natives’ rights over the land that they cultivated “from time immemorial”, but actually sold a parcel of the lands that the inhabitants of Xaloc possessed to the Jesuit hacienda of Santa Lucía. In summary, the petitioners said that they lived a life of “perpetual slav69

AGN, IV 4930, 3.

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ery and tyranny”, and therefore supplicated that the priest should be arrested.70 Having reviewed the case the provisor took the usual measure by appointing a judge of commission. In that capacity, the secular priest Juan Ruiz travelled to Tizayuca and Xoloc in order to take testimonies from the natives.71 During the investigation several of the natives from Xoloc presented a brief Nahuatl petition to him. In that document, they contended that the priest hated them and that he had put one of the petitioners, Marcos Jiménez, variously in jail, the stock, and shackles for his opposition.72 Having consulted the 130-folio preliminary investigation made by the judge of commission, the provisor ordered Nieto de Orozco to present himself to the archiepiscopal prison in Mexico City. In early March 1640 the priest was held in custody and during the interrogation denied all accusations made against him. After a period in prison he was transferred to house arrest in the provisor’s home.73 Even with the beneficiary in custody, the difficult situation in Tizayuca persisted. Melchior Gómez de Velasco had been made an interim curate and in letters addressed to the ecclesiastical court he complained that he was constantly undermined by Nieto’s sister and nephew, who still lived in the pueblo. They did not allow him to enter the curate’s house, and he even asserted that they had hindered attendance at his Masses and catechizing by threatening them. To make things even worse, one of their servants had defecated on his porch.74 In a letter the provisor ordered Nieto’s relatives not to impede the vicario’s work in any way.75 As a result of the process, Nieto de Orozco was removed from the benefice of Tizayuca, but given a new benefice of Amatepec and Tlaltlaya. However, the process in Tizayuca was not over and by July 1640 both the ex-curate and the indigenous representatives produced new petitions against each other. The contents of the indigenous ones were 70 71 72 73 74 75

AGN, IV 4930, 3, fols. 2r-4r. AGN, IV 4930, 3, fols. 6r-136r. AGN, IV 4930, 3, fols. 140r-142r. AGN, IV 4930, 3, fols. 160r-175r. AGN, IV 4930, 3, fols. 145r-147r, 179r, 199r. AGN, IV 4930, 6, fols. 179r-191r.

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basically the same as before. Attempting to re-establish and defend his honor, Diego Nieto presented a questionnaire and a number of testimonies. The witnesses he was able to present only included clerical colleagues and Spaniards; no indigenous parishioners appeared as witnesses. Through his testimonies, Nieto wanted to emphasize his personal piety and the great contributions he had made to the local church life from his arrival in 1636 until the time he was forced to leave the pueblo. Shortly after he had entered in office, the general visitor of the archdiocese, Dr Jacinto de la Serna, had visited the parish. During the visitation Serna ordered that the Holy Sacrament should be exposed, so that the inhabitants could venerate it. Nieto had himself provided the oil for the lamp which burnt at all times and every month he had celebrated the Mass in favor of the Holy Sacrament in all of the three cabeceras of the parish. On the instigation of Serna, a cofradía of the Holy Sacrament had also been founded. Further, he stated that he had ardently worked for the improvement of the church building in Tizayuca, which by the time he was arrived had deteriorated due to the climate and the recurrent earthquakes. Stones and lime were brought from Quipustla. The wooden details of the church were partly rotten and had therefore been replaced. For this necessary work he had asked the natives for contributions, but he also claimed to have taken substantial funds from his own pocket. Answering one of the questions, he explained his butchering activities. As Tizayuca was situated between the Mexico City and the real de Pachuca, it was a long way to the nearest butcher. Therefore, the curate and his family had sometimes bought cattle which he had butchered and thereafter sold the meat at a cheap price. As for the cattle enclosure, the one he had constructed replaced an earlier one and further claimed that he had paid all the workers well and given them food. With the help of the fruits of the land he owned, he asserted to have sustained twenty fatherless boys from his parish, whom he trained to sing and play instruments so that they could serve in the Church. Finally, he asserted that he had administered his parish well, been a good example, administered the sacraments with great punc-

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tuality and shown love for the parishioners who respected him.76 No final verdict is found in the file. San Luis Michmaloyan vs. Lic. Diego Sánchez de Aldava, 1643 The final example of a petition against a parish priest is the only one in the corpus that was filed by a woman. It was written in Spanish in the name of Doña Petronila Damiana, principal and cazica from San Luis Michmaloyan, which was subject to the pueblo of Chapa de Mota in the northwest corner of the present state of Mexico.77 The area was predominantly Otomi speaking, but with Nahuatl, Mazahua and even Pame-speaking minorities. Until the mid-seventeenth century it was an encomienda of members of the Mota family, of which the bishop of Puebla, Alonso de la Mota y Escobar, was a part.78 First presented before the viceroy, her petition included harsh criticism against the curate of Chapa, Diego Sánchez de Aldava. The letter was later remitted to the provisor of the archdiocese of Mexico. Doña Petronila accused him of having severely maltreated her husband Don Pedro de San Antonio y Soto, who was a principal of the pueblo. Don Pedro had appeared before the court in the city of Mexico to defend the local people against the mistreatments that they suffered at the hands of the cleric. She claimed that on Sunday March 22, 1643, after the Mass had ended, the curate seized Don Pedro and the regidor Melchior de Portillo. Undressing them to the waist, they were bound at a tree outside the church building. In front of all the churchgoers, “and with notable cruelty and inhumanity”, the curate ordered the church constable to whip her husband with more than a hundred lashes and Melchior de Portillo with 160 lashes. Trying to stop them, Doña Petronila Damiana and her daughter Doña Anastasia had kneeled before the curate asking for mercy, but instead the curate repeatedly hit her daughter. At the incident the two men were left lying on the ground “as if they were dead”. Severely injured and having lost a lot of blood, thereafter they were taken to the parish prison. The petition was followed up by a number of testimonies by people from San Luis Michmoloyan, which basically concurred with the 76 77 78

AGN, IV 4930, 6, fols. 234r-236r. AGN, IV 5689, 43: petition fol 1r-v, testimonies, fol. 3r-7v. Gerhard 1993, 383-386.

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narrative of Doña Petronila. However, they elaborated on the reason that Don Pedro was considered an enemy by the curate. The alcalde, Miguel de Peralta, and the majordomo, Mathias García, testified that the priest had ordered Don Pedro and Don Melchior not to attend Mass in either San Luis Michmoloyan or in Chapa de Mota. As they still wanted to go to Mass, they had gone to Tepexi, four leagues away, which was administered by the Franciscans. After which the sentence was meted out, the two men were first brought to the house of Don Gabriel de los Angeles, a former fiscal. There they were incarcerated and some time later they were brought to the public prison in Chapa de Mota.79 The final outcome of the process is unknown, but the curate Diego Sánchez de Aldava died in 1643 while in the city of Mexico, a fact that might imply he was there defending himself before the ecclesiastical court of law.80 S  P P Though charges against clerics are much more common, my corpus of indigenous petitions also include some containing more favorable opinions of local clerics, normally supporting clerics who were to be transferred to another benefice. Alahuistlán in Favor of Gerónimo Frías Quixada, 1632-1633 In this chapter the curate of Ixcateopan, Gerónimo Frías Quixada, has been presented as a most controversial person. A group of indigenous inhabitants from another part of the parish, however, gave their support to Frías Quixada on one occasion with the intention of maintaining him as their curate. On November 27, 1632, Don Rafael Damián, Don Miguel Juárez, Don Esteban Angel, and Don Melchior Gaspar, alcaldes and regidores of San Juan Alahuistlan, presented a brief Nahuatl petition to the provisor de indios of the archdiocese. They stated that at present their altepetl was ecclesiastically subject to the curate of Ixcateopan, but they had recently been informed that 79

AGN, IV 5689, 43; 7 folios: petition fol. 1r-v, testimonies, fol. 3r-7v. AGN, IV 4872, 15, which is a testimony that he had died in the Veracruz parish in Mexico City. 80

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the curate of Tlatlaya, Luis de Cifuentes, wanted to include Alahuistlan in his parish and to move the inhabitants from their village to Tlatlaya. The petitioners, however, did not want any changes and asserted that their curate, Gerónimo de Frías, carefully attended to their needs, administered the sacraments diligently and taught Christian doctrine very well. They had known him for many years, he had always treated them with love and they looked upon him as their father and as a good cleric who served God. They knew what they had, but they did not know whether Luis de Cifuentes was, as they put it, as “fierce as others are”. In light of this possible change, they avowed that the locals were hiding and other were “dying from fear” of the changes that were threatening them.81 The petition forms part of a very voluminous dossier on the border dispute between the curates of Tlatlaya and Ixcateopan over who should administer the sacraments to the inhabitants of Alahuistlan. Due to a conflict between the people of Alahuistlan and the former beneficiary of Ixcateopan, Alonso Rodríguez de Esquivel, a separate parish had been founded in Alahuistlan almost twenty years before. But as it had become vacant in 1627, the benefice had not subsequently been filled. Since no more than fifty people lived there, the inhabitants became the responsibility of the curate of Ixcateopan. However, the curate of Tlatlaya, Luis de Cifuentes, wanted Alahuistlan to become a part of his parish and the archbishop had suggested as much to the viceroy. In his argumentation for his case, Cifuentes did not question that Frías de Quixada was a good curate, but since the roads were harsh and it took three days to travel from Ixcateopan to Alahuistlan his administration of the parish was difficult and parishioners risked dying without confession. However, Tlatlaya was situated only two leagues from Alahuistlan and could easily be administered from there. Counteracting these assertions, Frías Quixada argued that this was not true. He could go there in less than six hours and administer the sacraments without major problems. After a lengthy process in which the roads and river crossings were measured and investigated, a final decision was made: the parish division remained the same, implying that Alahuist81 AGN, CRS 129, 3, fols. 164r-401r. Pettion on fol. 189r-v. Cf. AGN, Ind. 10, 337r-v.

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lan would continue to be a part of Ixcateopan and thus administered by Frías Quixada.82 Chiautempan in Favor of Rodrigo Pérez de Gálvez, 1646 Chiautempan was situated just outside Tlaxcala, within the confines of the diocese of Puebla. It had been a Franciscan doctrina until the year 1641, when it was transferred to the secular clergy as a part of Bishop Palafox’s secularization program.83 A Nahuatl petition, found in a bulky bundle of documents gathered by the Palafox administration in favor of his secularization, contains the signatures of the alcalde of Chiautempan, Don Juan Cortés, and eleven other people. It was originally addressed to Bishop Palafox, but was later remitted to his provisor Juan de Merlo. The people of Chiautempan were very upset by the prospect of losing their curate and being transferred back to the care of the Order of St. Francis. According to the petitioners the curate Rodrigo Pérez de Galvez had, for five years, punctually administered the sacraments, read Mass, preached to them every Sunday, and charged less for the administration than was stipulated in the fee schedule. When called upon, he had always promptly come to their houses to confess the sick. The petitioners also pointed out that he spoke for them in judicial processes against abusive Spaniards. In testimonies that were appended to the petition, the witnesses said that it would be very harmful to be administered by the Franciscans again, as they had had to work much harder for them and been treated like slaves.84 Jiquipilco in Favor of Lic. Francisco Hernández Rubio, 1647 In 1647, the gobernador, alcaldes and regidores of Jiquipilco submitted a petition in Spanish.85 The pueblo was subject to Istlaguaca and situated in what, during the colonial era, was known as the Valley of Matalcingo within the confines of the archbishopric of Mexico, though not very far from the border with the diocese of Michoacan. Shortly 82

AGN, CRS 129, 3, fols. 398r-399r. Gerhard 1993, 324-326. 84 AGN, IV 1685, 1. This volume includes 683 folios on Palafox’s secularization of Franciscan doctrinas in 1641, cf. AGN, RC, D35, fol. 205v: July 27, 1641. 85 AGN, IV 5199, 4. 83

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after the Spanish Conquest, the area was administered by Franciscan friars, but by the year 1569 secular clerics were present in Santiago or San Juan Xiquipilco.86 The petitioners mentioned that Francisco Hernández Rubio had been their curate for six years, during which time he had administered the sacraments with much care and punctuality. Though their homes were spread over a mountainous area, the curate had travelled out to its different parts whenever called upon to administer the last rites to sick and dying inhabitants. Moreover, they pointed out that he had a very good knowledge of both Otomi and Nahuatl, the languages that were spoken locally which he used in preaching and confession. In order to be able to confess all people at Easter time, he paid for clerics to come there from the city of Mexico. Further, he had defended them from the “many, and continuous vexations” that some of the Spaniards, mestizos and blacks were causing them. When the priest arrived to the parish, the local church building had been found in bad shape and the petitioners testified that Hernández Rubio had worked in order to reconstruct it, particularly to improve the main altar. Despite the building projects, it had not caused the parishioners any vexations as the curate had paid for most of the work from his own pockets. Now Hernández Rubio was one three men proposed as curate and the parishioners prayed that he should be able to stay with them.87 T P G  B Through an analysis of the corpus of indigenous petitioners it is possible to construct facets of what comprised a good or a bad parish priest in the eyes of the indigenous people. Though the accents and emphases are different, some themes are recurrent in the petitions. A number of these themes were closely related to the ministry. Others had to do with moral flaws and various kinds of abusive behavior. When pointing to a priest’s deficient ministry, the sacrament of confession is at the center of attention. As we have seen from the study 86 87

Gerhard 1993, 175-178. AGN, IV 5199,4.

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of the sacramental manuals, much focus was put on the necessity of both annual confession and death bed confession. Much of catechesis centered on sins and the necessity of confession to be able to escape the eternal punishment of hell. Thus many of the petitions mention and number people who had died without confession because of the priest’s absence or because of his unwillingness to go to the outlying villages when called upon. It is clear that the petitioners presented spiritual care for the sick and dying as a most important part of being a good minister. Though the deficient teaching of the Christian doctrine or celebration of the Mass is underlined in some petitions, it is the deathbed confession that is stressed the most. To die without confessing one’s sins was seen as very grave and the priest held the keys for the remission of sin. Consequently, non-compliance was looked upon as a great sin if the priest did not travel to the different parts of the partido to attend to parishioners. Defending themselves, priests said that it was customary for inhabitants in the subject pueblos to bring their sick to the church in the cabecera, while the indigenous petitioners argued that such demands constituted negligence on the part of the minister. In the letters of support for clerics, the willingness to go out to confess is clearly and constantly emphasized. To be able to confess, but also to preach and teach Christian doctrine, the minister needed to know the local language or languages. Though it is mentioned in some of the petitions, there are few accusations against priests for not knowing Nahuatl, even though they sometimes claimed that the minister appointed substitutes who did not know the language. One odd priest had a deficient way of pronouncing the language, which made understanding him difficult. However, there are ample testimonies of priests who lacked even the most basic understanding of other native languages such as Huastec, Otomi, Chontal, and Totonac. In some cases, it is mentioned that the curates confessed with the help of an interpreter, a practice considered most harmful, particularly as it threatened the secrecy of the confessional. However, complaints against a priest’s deficient ministry never appear on their own. They were always seconded by other kinds of accusations, of which physical and verbal abuse as well as greed were almost omnipresent. Accusations against a priest for showing lack of respect towards the natives and, in particular the local indigenous officials and principales, are common, including: verbal mistreatment, such calling

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them “dogs”, “drunkards” and the like, or not respecting the honor of the cabildo members and their offices in public gatherings. There were also threats to break the varas, the sticks that were the symbols of official’s authority. Accusations of physical abuse and excessive castigation also appeared in many of the petitions. Several of the petitioners mention cases in which curates had parishioners severely whipped by fiscales for mild transgressions or for no transgression at all. Sometimes it is stated that the curate himself hit people or that members of his household or family did so. With few exceptions, the petitioners in the corpus were principales and/or cabildo members and the victims explicitly mentioned were also cabildo members. A common seed of discord were accusations that curates asked for too much for their services. Arancel conflicts were common, i.e., that the priests asked for too much payment either in kind or in money to celebrate Mass or administer the sacraments. Priests’ purported greed could also include their involvement in business activities, such as the production of candles. The business activities mentioned in particular were those implied to impede him from attending to his ministry or which exploited his parishioners, such as using Indians as workers without paying them any or at least to an adequate salary. In particular, the use of tlamenes is a constant accusation in these cases. Another common point of accusation were what was known as public sins, in particular that clerics lived together with women or had sexual relations with one or many local women. Sometimes it is explicitly stated that the cleric went around raping women or held women against their will in his home until he reached his goal. In the corpus studied, there are no concrete accusations of solicitation in the strict sense, i.e., sexual advances made by the priest towards a parishioner during confession, a crime that would fall under the jurisdiction of the Holy Office. T P G  B The petitioners generally presented themselves and the other indigenous inhabitants as peaceful people, who had to suffer from the mistreatment and excesses of a bad priest. Sometimes they explicitly stated that they ought not to suffer as they were free vassals of the King and children of the archbishop. The parishioners present themselves as being afraid of the priests and their abusive behavior.

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One of the constant solutions to escape the terror of an abusive priest was to flee. Often it is stated that portions of the native of population fled to the “mountain”. Of course, it could very well imply that they indeed had gone to mountainous areas in which they were not easily encountered. But to escape to the mountains was also a rhetorical device, underlining that they had taken recourse to “the mountains”, which implied a life outside the Spanish order, without access to the sacraments and without paying the tributes to the King. In the cases where we have access to the parish priest’s defense, they often try to minimize the accusations made by the parishioners. A quite common way was to state that the parishioners were bad people, drunkards, idolaters, and pettifoggers who tried to escape his catechizing and authority, and were therefore punished for their transgressions.

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P  S  P: N  M  S

Hà mas de seis años que es Beneficiado propietario por el Real Patronazgo del Partido de Icpatepec, que lleuó por oposición en concurso de otros opositores de letras y gran capacidad, en el qual hà servido con puntualidad y cuidado: y por su buena vida, costumbres, y modo de proceder es querido y estimado de sus Feligreses.1

O

n July 1, 1638, the viceroy and the royal audiencia of Mexico considered a petition from Juan Martínez acting as the procurator of Rodrigo Martínez de Olea. The latter was the beneficiary of Icpatepec in the Mixteca part of the diocese of Puebla. Through his representative the curate asked the audiencia for permission to form a relación de méritos y servicios, a narrative of merits and services. In Martínez de Olea’s case, the final relación was a two-page printed document, but in most cases such documents were manuscripts. In the document, the priest in the third person told the brief story of his life and his family background. From Martínez de Olea’s record the reader is made aware that he had begun his studies with the Jesuits and the Dominicans in Puebla and thereafter attended the University of Mexico. After being ordained a priest in 1627 he served for short periods as a vicario in the parishes of Acatlan de la Costa, Piaxtla, and Tlapancingo before obtaining the permanent position in Icpatepec. In all these places his work was favorably evaluated by visiting bishops and visitors generals. Having made a brief description of his formation and his ecclesiastical career, the text turned to his parents. His father, who was member of a Biscayan noble family, had been a miner in Silacayoapan and there served the King by payment of the quinto real, the twenty percent mining tax on everything exhumed. As a conclusion to the résumé Rodrigo Martínez de Olea asked that,

1 AGI, M 240, 3: Información de méritos y servicios of Rodrígo Martínez de Olea, 1638.

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given his family’s accumulated merits and his own services as a priest, the King should consider giving him a benefice in one of the Novohispanian cathedral chapters. The claims made in such short a narrative of just a few pages were substantiated by records and formal testimonies: a probanza de méritos y servicios which was forwarded to the Council of the Indies. That was the purpose of formally appealing before the audiencia. In Rodrigo Martínez de Olea’s case, the complete file sent to the Council of the Indies contained more than 130 folios. Presenting such a document was a common way for secular or ecclesiastic people in the Spanish Indies to prove their family background and services to the King in the hope of receiving something in return: a promotion, a privilege, etc. Though such relaciones sometimes could be formed by indigenous nobles, or Hispanic women, in the first half of seventeenth century the majority of them were made up by Hispanic males. The colonial archives, and in particular the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, are filled with such records. Given their abundance, historians have quite frequently made use of them, in particular for prosopographical studies, but there are also a couple of works that focus on the genre’s form, purpose, and place in the colonial administrative system. In a 1998 article, Murdo J. MacLeod gives a brief ideological background to the genre and makes a review of its basic form and contents. He argues that its raison d’être can be traced in the “Iberian courtly and medieval understanding of mutual obligation”. As the conquerors were not directly paid for their services to the King in the expansion of Christendom, they could expect future rewards and favors. Therefore, they needed to record and certify their deeds. Another aspect of this line of thought was that such merits could be inherited. Thus in early seventeenth-century New Spain, grandsons or even great grandsons of the conquerors and first Spanish inhabitants of Mexico made reference to their forefathers’ services to the King, hoping to strengthen their own case. In the Early Modern Spanish world, honor and merit were thus complex phenomena, including elements that could partly be inherited and partly be obtained through one’s own deeds.2 In a 2002 article, John F. Chuchiak IV uses relaciones formed by ecclesiastics in the diocese of Yucatan as sources for a study of the colo2

MacLeod 1998, 25-42.

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nial regional understanding of Mayan “idolatry”. As a prelude to his study, Chuchiak also makes some careful observations on the genre and the process of forming such an account. Chuchiak points to the important distinction the colonial administration made between the probanza de parte (the applicant’s own account) and the probanza de oficio (the witnesses heard by the audiencia in order to check the data in the account). Given this intricate process of checks and counterchecks, Chuchiak argues that the relaciones have an unusually high value as historical sources.3 B  B Before turning to the corpus of relaciones on which the present chapter is constructed it might be the place to briefly recapitulate the discussion on the process of becoming a beneficiary, which I alluded to in the introductory chapter, and to develop somewhat further on it. The seventeenth-century Mexican parish benefices that clerics wanted to apply for had become vacant through the death, resignation or promotion of its former holder and candidates were subject to competitive exams (oposiciones or concursos) before a tribunal, who would test their Latinity and their familiarity with indigenous languages and moral theology (casos de conciencia). Following the examination, the bishop shortlisted the most apt candidates and referred them to the patron. After 1609 the viceroys were entrusted with the right to provide perpetual parish benefices in the monarch’s name, whereas this had earlier been the prerogative of the King. Having received the royal appointment, the diocesan bishop made the collation and canonical institution. At the competitive exams, some of the candidates were able to present formal relaciones de méritos y servicios, but most of them only submitted notarized documents proving academic degrees, ecclesiastical provisions, and other relevant data. However, for Novohispanian priests actively searching for promotion to a cathedral chapter, a formal relación sent to the Council of the Indies seems to have been an almost indispensable means. Depending on the attractiveness of the parish benefice that had been vacated, a greater or lesser number of candidates would appear 3

Chuchiak 2002, 140-167, in particular 142-144.

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before the committee to be tested. For his study of the late colonial era, William B. Taylor observes that factors such as climate, income, road quality, number of visitas and their geographical dispersion, and distance to the episcopal sees and other centers of Spanish presence all played an important role for the clerical valuation of a given benefice.4 Such factors were equally important in the seventeenth century. Thus an excessively hot, poorly paid benefice with many dispersed villages was situated far from Mexico or Puebla was less attractive to priests in search of promotion and therefore usually had a quick turnover. The colonial ecclesiastical archives include many documents on concursos, but two cases should suffice as illustrations of the process. In the 1637 oposiciones to the benefice of Pilcaya in the archdiocese of Mexico, twelve men appeared before the examination committee. All but one held at least a Bachelor of Arts degree. Three of them held double bachelor’s degrees and one candidate even had three (arts, theology, and canon law). Another had been awarded a doctorate in canon law. To assess the applicants’ knowledge of Latin, moral theology and indigenous languages, the examiners used a three-grade scale wherein three represented the highest score. As three indigenous languages were spoken within the confines of the parish of Pilcaya, the candidates’ knowledge of Nahuatl, Otomi, and Chontal were scrutinized. While none of the candidates knew all three tongues, almost all were said to have good or excellent knowledge of Nahuatl (graded either as two or three). Three of the priests also knew Otomi, though not in any expert way, while three others had some basic knowledge of Chontal. The committee tested their knowledge in Nahuatl and Otomi, but in the case of Chontal they referred to earlier examinations made by the archdiocesan examiner Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón assisted by a group of native Chontal speakers. Five of the applicants already held permanent benefices in the archdiocese. Most of the others were either assistant clerics or interim beneficiaries. One of them had just been ordained a priest and had no ministerial experience.5 4

Taylor 1996, 106-118. AGN, BN 822, fol. 56r-57v. The twelve men who took part in the competitive exam were Juan Ruiz, Agustín de Mendiola, Don Diego de Nava y Mota, Alonso de Santiago, Manuel Rodríguez Ugarte, Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, Francisco 5

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In July 1646 eight vacant benefices were to be filled in the diocese of Puebla. To the concursos a total of 56 men appeared before the committee, who in their report noted the top three candidates for each benefice. In the case of Nopalucan, the top candidate Nicolás Donis Mantaño had a degree in theology and knew both Nahuatl and Otomi well. For Izúcar, Diego Bautista Rodríguez had a Bachelor of Arts degree, and was a very capable Nahuatl speaker. For Tepeojuma, Don Diego de Palacios had double degrees in arts and theology, good knowledge of Nahuatl, and boasted an illustrious conqueror’s family background. One of the benefices of Tlaxcala had become vacant because Andrés Sáenz de la Peña had been promoted to a canonry in Michoacan. The top candidate for this benefice was Antonio González Lasso, an interim curate in Tlaxcala with degrees in both the arts and theology, who was known as a “lucid preacher” and a very capable Nahuatl linguist. The Nahuatl speaking benefice of Amozoc was given to the Nahuatl and Popoluca-speaking beneficiary of Tlacotepec, Pedro Medina. One of the benefices of the urban parish of San José in Puebla was given to Nicolás Gómez Brizeño, who apart from a bachelor’s degree in the arts also had been awarded a doctorate in canon law and was an ecclesiastical judge, as well as an interim curate of the cathedral. Cuzcatlan was a multi-language parish and the successful candidate, Juan de la Peña, was reported to have known all four languages spoken there: Nahuatl, Popoluca, Chocho, and Mazateca. The final benefice of San Francisco Topoyanco was awarded to Nicolás Ramos, who was the interim beneficiary there and knew Nahuatl in an expert way.6 Benefices could thus be won in competition with a number of candidates, but they could also be gained through exchange (por vía de permuta). Given episcopal approval two beneficiaries could change places with each other if they reached agreement and if the benefices had relatively equal status. In 1638 Lic. Antonio de Castañeda, one of the beneficiaries of the Taxco mines in the archdiocese, wanted to change benefices with Don Diego de Nava y de la Mota, the beneficiary of Cuetzala. The latter had health problems and wanted to move to Taxco

de Avendaño Zamora, Simon García de Figueroa, Nicolás Zepeda, Juan González Guerra, Juan Hidalgo Barrios, and Luis de Cifuentes. 6 AGN, IV 6524, 56.

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to have access to a pharmacy and medical doctors. He asserted that he had lived for a long time in warmer climes and had agreed with Castañeda. The approval of the governor of the archdiocese was given in 1639.7 If that case meant an unproblematic and tranquil change, another permuta case was reverted because of false reports from one of the parties. In 1614 Hernando García de Bolaños had changed benefices with Br. Blas Ruiz de Arziniega and become the holder of the benefice of Apango and Chila in the diocese of Tlaxcala in the present state of Guerrero. However, coming to the partido to take possession, García de Bolaños realized that the other priest not had been truthful. He had given a rosy picture of life there, claiming that the climate was fresh and that there were hardly any mosquitoes. In response to a direct question Arziniega had told him “laughingly that in no way were there any [mosquitoes], neither during day nor at night, and if some came in the evening, they were few” (respondió con risa que ninguna manera auia ni en día, ni noche y que si algunos benian por la tarde eran pocos). Arziniega had also told him that all the inhabitants spoke “Mexican”, that it was situated close to the main road, that there was a river nearby which was filled with fish, and that the area was most fertile. Another attraction of the place was that the indigenous inhabitants for their dances (mitotes) used “much feather work, in the style of Tlaxcala, and much adorned cloaks” (mucha plumeria como la de Tlaxcala y tilmas muy bisarras). When García de Bolaños arrived in Apango and Chila, he realized that no more than 200 Indians lived there and that they were dispersed over a great area, many of them difficult to reach. He also found the place to be both very hot and mosquito infested. In Chila there were no more than a dozen Indians and both the church building and the priest’s house were in ruins. Having received false reports on the parish’s standing, García de Bolaños complained before the provisor of the diocese. The result of the process was that he could return to his old parish again.8 7 8

AGN, IV 4971, 13. AGN, IV 5286, 5.

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T C For this chapter I initially assembled a corpus of some 800 relaciones de méritos y servicios filed between 1585 and 1650 by both newly ordained clerics and very experienced colleagues. To find these documents I perused some forty voluminous manuscript bundles—legajos—in the Archivo General de Indias in Seville that solely or partly contains such documents, generally mixing documents made up by ecclesiastical and secular people from all over New Spain.9 Of the 800 relaciones, about one fourth or just over 200 are the subject of more detailed analysis, as they deal with priests who for longer or shorter periods of time had been active in indigenous-dominated rural parishes and thus fall into the category of priests which I focus on in this book. Other relaciones deal with newly ordained clerics, curates in city parishes, chaplains, cathedral chapter members, or ordained university teachers. The individual dossiers vary considerably in length. Some include just about ten folios, while others included hundreds of folios. Though there certainly are individual differences, each probanza de méritos y servicios usually contains a number of basic components.10 (1) The file is sometimes introduced by a summary of merits

and services in the form of a letter. This résumé includes all the things that the individual wanted to present to the King and the Council of the Indies. This résumé was most often a manuscript, but could also be printed. (2) The probanza in the proper sense begins with a note of the royal audiencia indicating that they had received a petition from the priest or his procurator asking the audiencia for permission to form a probanza de oficio, followed by a transcript of the petition and the permission granted by the court.

9

Above all I have gone through volumes marked informaciones de oficio y parte (1585-1650): AGI, México, legajos 218-241. I have also used bundles marked cartas y expedientes de personas eclesiásticas from the same time period: AGI, México, legajos 286-305. Apart from this more systematic perusal, I have also encountered relaciones in other parts of the AGI, as well as in the AGN. 10 Cf. Chuchiak 2002, 143 though the relaciones from my central Mexican corpus presents some differences.

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  (3) Appended to, or as a part of the petition, the cleric presented

a questionnaire which could be expanded upon by the audiencia and should be used to check the claims made by the priest. These detailed questions related to the merits of his family, his purity of blood, as well as his own formation and clerical services. The latter could include appointments to different parishes, knowledge of indigenous languages, virtues, good works, and outcomes of visitations. The questionnaire usually ended with the question of whether all the information was common knowledge. (4) A number of testimonies—between four and twelve—that con-

tained answers to the questionnaires presented. The witnesses were nearly always Hispanic men, either clerics or laymen. These testimonies were taken before a judge of the royal audiencia in charge of the case. Apart from answering to the questions, the witnesses often had to indicate how long they had known the priest. (5) The file could include certified copies (treslados) of academic

degrees, ordinations, licenses, parish appointments, commissions from bishops or provisores or reports from visitors generals or visiting bishops. Sometimes multiple originals of such documentation could be included. (6) Sometimes certified copies of older probanzas were also in-

cluded. These records could have been gathered by the cleric himself or by family members. (7) Appended to the probanza were often one or several original

letters of recommendation and support for the petitioner. Such letters were most commonly signed by the royal audiencia, but there are also cases in which a cathedral chapter or the bishop wrote letters in support of the priest. In the following I will first relate in some detail the narratives of merits and services of eleven priests. These examples have been chosen to describe a variety of ecclesiastical career patterns, including both quite recently-ordained priests and priests who had been beneficiaries for a long period of time, sometimes in many places. The cases are chosen to represent different parts of the two dioceses. After this part, I will make a systematic analysis that is built on the whole corpus of

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some 200 relaciones that were filed by clerics working in indigenous parishes, searching for common patterns. T P Boecio Gutiérrez, Tlacolula, Puebla 1602 Reiterating an earlier relación from the 1590s, in 1602 Boecio Gutiérrez, a priest from the diocese of Puebla, asked for permission to present his relación to the Council of the Indies. Born in Spain, Gutiérrez had come from Valladolid to Puebla in the late 1570s as a part of the entourage of Bishop Romano. In the bishop’s home, he had studied Latin and moral theology, but had no formal academic degree, a fact that of course is not pointed out in the documentation. Boecio Gutiérrez was ordained a priest in 1588, and for most of the time he had been a vicario of Tlacolula. The parish was populous and the parishioners lived dispersed over a great geographic area. According to Gutiérrez it was made up by no less than 13 cabeceras and ten visitas. He testified to have been a vicar in the province of Jalapa. Apart from Nahuatl, he knew Totonac, which he described as being “a very difficult and obscure language, very different from the others”. As a proof of the curate’s knowledge of Totonac, one of his witnesses, a cleric in a nearby area, referred to a conversation he had had with a native Totonac speaker, Don Juan de Mendoza, who served as a fiscal. In the conversation the witness had asked Mendoza whether it was true that Gutiérrez knew the language well, to which he answered “that he knew and pronounced [it] very well and that he was diligent in the said language and that he dedicated much work to learn the language, as it is strange and known to few”.11 Br. Tomás de Velasco, Huehuetoca, 1604 Tomás de Velasco’s relación de méritos y servicios is unusually voluminous; almost 150 pages. He had grown up in Mexico City, as the son 11

AGI, M 293: Relación de méritos y servicios of Boecio Gutiérrez, 1603, cf. AGI, M 289: Relación de méritos y servicios of Boecio Gutiérrez, 1594 and 1602, Citation from AGI, M 289: “que la sabía e pronunciaba muy bien y que hera muy curioso en la dicha lengua y que había tenido mucho trabajo en auer deprendido la dicha lengua por ser como es lengua muy pelegrina que pocos saben”.

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of “old settlers” (pobladores antiguos). From a young age—from the age of reason as he put it—he had been dedicated to studies. Finally he graduated in canon law from the University of Mexico in 1597, shortly before being ordained a priest. His first appointment was as a curate of Tzontecomatlan (1596). Thereafter he served as a vicario in the mines of Sichú (1599) and a curate of Chapa de Mota (1600) before obtaining a newly instituted benefice in Huehuetoca (1602), a most attractive parish. In all of the places in which he served he had been a formally appointed preacher of the Bull of Holy Crusade. In fact, his file includes many documents about its preaching, and the exact amounts that the royal treasury had received from his work. The witnesses called by the court testified to his good command of both Nahuatl and Otomi. Summarizing his parish works thus far he claimed—using a rather standard expression—that he had: served for a long time administering the sacraments to the Spaniards and the native Indians in them, doctrinating them and preaching to them with great punctuality, diligence and care and with permanent presence [in the partidos] much in the service of God and Your Majesty, with great approval and virtuous example, working with all the other things that he was in charge of with such continuous and excessive work load that he for this reason has a bad health.12

Velasco also argued that he had not received any higher academic degrees as he had been constantly occupied by the parish work, and argued that taking into account his service he should be considered for an office in one of the Novohispanian cathedral chapter. A letter from the audiencia recommending him was appended to the file.13 Dr. Gaspar Moreno, Villa de Carrión, 1606 Gaspar Moreno, as all other priests who wanted to present their résumés, included testimonies that he was of legitimate birth and had 12

AGI, M 225, 17: “siruio mucho tiempo administrando los sacramentos a los españoles y indios naturales dellos dotrinandoles y pedricandoles con mucha puntualidad, diligencia y cuidado y continua asistencia muy en servicio de Dios y de V Md con grande aprouacion y exemplo de virtud acudiendo a todas las demas cossas que fueren a su cargo con tan continuio y excesuiuo trauajo que a esta causa está muy falto de salud.” 13 AGI, M 225, 17.

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a “purity of blood”, that is no ancestors who were “Moors, Jews, and people who had been sentenced by the Holy Office of the Inquisition”. He was a native of Mexico and from the ages of ten to sixteen had been a choir boy in the metropolitan cathedral. As a young man he studied with the Jesuits and was a graduate in both philosophy and theology from the University of Mexico. Later he also received the degrees of licentiate and doctor in Theology. Having been ordained a priest he moved to the diocese of Puebla where he won the benefice of Tlatenamique. He was thereafter transferred to Jojupango where he learnt Totonac and “reduced many of the natives of the parish of the idolatries they had” (reduciendo a muchos de los naturales del dicho partido de sus idolatrías que tenían). After three years in Jujupango he was awarded a benefice in the Spanish dominated Villa de Carrión. Bishop Romano also made him visitor general of the diocese.14 Br. Francisco Rodríguez Tejada, Teoluyuca, 1608-1615 Francisco Rodríguez Tejada had received double degrees in philosophy and theology from the University of Mexico, after which he was ordained a priest for the archdiocese. Without giving any details it is mentioned that he was a vicario in several places, before being given the benefice of Tlalchichilco in the present state of Mexico. There he stayed for twelve years. In 1605 he moved to the nearby benefice of Teoluyuca, an office he won in competition with no less than fourteen other clerics. Both parishes had Nahuatl and Otomi speaking inhabitants, languages that he knew well. The documents also record that his parents, who lived with him, were old and poor. On account of his service in the indigenous ministry he asked the King to be awarded an office in one of the cathedral chapters in New Spain. Another copy of the document was sent to the Council of the Indies in 1615.15 Cristóbal Baez, Acatlan de la Costa, 1608-1610 Cristóbal Baez was the beneficiary of the parish of Acatlan de la Costa in the diocese of Tlaxcala when in October 1608 he asked the 14 15

AGI, M 227, 8. AGI, M 228, 9.

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viceroy and the audiencia for permission to form an información de su qualidades, méritos y servicios in search of a benefice in one of the Novohispanian cathedral chapters. Granting the permission, the oidor Diego Nuñez Morquecho interviewed five witnesses to check the contents of the questionnaire. They testified that Baez had studied Latin, philosophy, and theology with the Jesuits in Puebla from the age of twelve until the age of twenty-four when he was ordained as a priest. After ordination, he served as a chaplain and confessor to the nuns of the Dominican convent of Santa Catalina de Siena in Puebla before moving into rural parish service. By 1608 he had been the beneficiary of Acatlan de la Costa for ten years and he testified to have won the benefice in competition with three or four other knowledgeable candidates. At the examination he had been found to have good knowledge of both Nahuatl and Tlapaneca, and during the decade in Acatlan he claimed to have served with “much care and punctuality”. In the words of one of the witnesses he had “postponed his own health and risked his life by passing through the rivers and the bad mountain passages to console the souls”. As a result, nobody had died without sacraments due to his negligence according to the witnesses. Apart from ordinary parish work, the witnesses also stated that he received a commission from the bishop to investigate cases of “idolatries of the Indians and other superstitions”. He preached in Spanish and Nahuatl, and also administered the sacraments in the Tlapaneca language. Moreover, he always preached the Bull of Holy Crusade both to Spaniards and to natives. Appended to the información there is a letter of recommendation for the audiencia, dated in 1609.16 Br. Nuño Vázquez Calderón, Olinala, 1613 Nuño Vázquez Calderón was one of the priests who could present substantial family merits to strengthen his case. As a young man his father, Pedro Calderón, had gone to Tunis to “fight against the Moors”. Upon arriving in Mexico he took part in the war against the rebellious Indians in Jalisco, and he had also gone to Peru to take part in the fight against Gonzalo Pizarro. Nuño Vázquez Calderón’s mater16

AGI, M 228, 15.

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nal grandfather, Diego de Soria, was a conquistador and thereafter an encomendero in the province of Pánuco. After studies at the university, Vázquez Calderón received a bachelor’s degree in canon law. After becoming a priest he was made a chaplain to the Conceptionist nuns in Puebla, rector of the hospital of Our Lady, and thereafter a chaplain (capellán mayor) of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit in Mexico City. He had gained the benefice of Olinala por oposición, and during the visitations of Bishop Mota y Escobar he had been evaluated positively. In 1610 or 1611 Bishop Mota commissioned him to go to the province of Tlapa to investigate “many abuses, idolatries and superstitions”. During this period he made “many great inquiries and proceeded against those found guilty and punished them according to law”.17 Lic. Don Benito Bocarro, Tamasunchale, 1621 The archdiocesan priest Don Benito Bocarro presented several informaciones to the Council of the Indies. He was among the decreasing number of secular clerics not born in New Spain. In fact, he was a native of Portugal, arriving in Mexico in the early 1590s. After receiving licentiate degrees in both philosophy and theology from the University of Mexico, he was ordained a priest in 1601. Due to the still vacant metropolitan see, he was ordained by the bishop of Oaxaca, Bartolomé de Ledesma, for the archdiocese. Bocarro claimed to be an eminent speaker of Nahuatl. In 1606 he was made the beneficiary of Almoloya, in the early 1610s the beneficiary of Iguala and afterwards he went to Tzontecomatlán. In the document he wanted to prove that he had contributed substantially to the material improvement of the local church in the places where he had worked. He had built churches in Cocula and Tzolotla, and repaired the ones in Almoloya and Malacatepec. He also claimed to have “pacified” the Indians of San Juan Soconusco, who did not want to congregate: “he brought them from the ravines in which they had gone to hide”. Likewise, he asserted that he had “pacified Chichimecs 17

AGI, M 231, 15: A 1588 relación which was sent to Spain again in 1601: “muchos abusos ydolatrias, supersticiones”, “hizo muchas y grandes informaciones y prosedió contra los culpados y los castigó conforme al derecho”.

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in the province of Pánuco”.18 Finally in 1621, the year he presented his relación to the Council of the Indies, he received the benefice of Tamasunchale in the Huasteca in competition with eight other priests. In his relación he was able to prove that during a very recent visitation Archbishop Pérez de la Serna had concluded that there was no benefice in the archdiocese that was better administered than his.19 Br. Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, Zimapan, 1636 In 1636 the curate of Zimapan Bernabé Ruiz Venegas wanted to file a relación de méritos y servicios before the royal audiencia, aspiring for a cathedral chapter office. In the record of more than 100-folios Ruiz Vargas included a wide array of documents proving his family background, his academic credentials, and his services as a curate.20 At the time he was around 35 years old. He had grown up as one of sixteen children of Francisco Venegas and Ana Ruiz de Guzmán. In an older relación that his brother Damián filed in 1620 (and which was integrated in the priest’s own document), it is revealed that his father had been a soldier, a caudillo and a captain of the forts of Fresnillo and Charcas, north of Zacatecas, where he had “pacified” the Guachachile Indians. Bernabé Ruiz Venegas also wanted to stress the services rendered by his maternal grandfather during sixty years in the same area. The death of the father had left the family poor, something that is particularly emphasized in the document. Nevertheless, in 1620 Ruiz Venegas had become one of twelve colegiales of the Jesuit College of San Idelfonso in Mexico City who received scholarships to continue their studies at the university. In 1628 he became a bachelor of canon law, but argued that he had been too poor to advance to higher academic degrees. Nevertheless, he served as a substitute professor in canon law for a short period of time and, in 1631, 18

AGI, M 302: “los sacó de unas barrancas a las que se avian ydo a ellas a esconde y pacificó los yndios chichimecas salineros de la provincia de Pánuco”. 19 AGI, M 302, cf. AGI, M 235, 26 and AGI, M 73, ro. 7, no. 58. AGN, IV 5727, 100 mentions that Bocarro was in Iguala at least in the years 1610 to 1611. He was still in Iguala in 1613 when he was denounced by a fellow cleric for saying that the pope and the cardinals had “sus bardages” (their whores), cf. AGN, Inq 301, 39. However, no formal process was initiated against him. 20 AGI, M 239, 4: Relación de méritos y servicios of Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, 1636.

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he also published a brief book on sacraments, sins, and ecclesiastical censures—Institutione Sacramentorum, de peccatis, ac censuris ecclesiasticis—intended to be used by parish priests, later to be translated into Spanish.21 Having been licensed to preach and confess in 1629, Ruiz Venegas was appointed curate of Santa María Tarasquillo, close to Lerma in the central parts of the current state of Mexico, but declined the appointment “as the climate was detrimental to his health”. Instead, in 1631 he was appointed curate of Zimapan in the Sierra Gorda, where he was stationed in the silver mining camp that had been established there around 1575. Somewhat later, during a visitation to Zimapan, Archbishop Manso made him ecclesiastical judge for Cerro Gordo, Xiliapan, and Alfaxayuca. Zimapan is situated in the present state of Hidalgo, in the north-eastern parts of the colonial archdiocese of Mexico. Apart from a sizeable Spanish population, it was inhabited by Otomis. Ruiz Venegas knew both this language and Nahuatl, having been examined in both languages before the archiepiscopal examiners. Upon arriving in Zimapan he began to study a third indigenous language, Pame. In the testimonies collected in both Zimapan and in Mexico City, which were presented by Ruiz Venegas the language is referred to as “Chichimeca” or “Pame Chichimeca”. To learn the language he had housed a Pame speaking man in his house and, with the help of this man, Ruiz Venegas testified to composing a vocabulary, a confessional aid and prayer book. As a result of his newly-acquired language skills in Pame he began a ministry to the speakers of the language, in his words: the “barbarous Chichimec Indians in the Cerro Gordo”. They were characterized as “war Indians without any knowledge of Christian Doctrine” that lived “as animals without law” because earlier ministers in the area had not known the language. In the file which was presented to the Council of the Indies Ruiz Venegas had a certified copy of entries in the baptismal records of the parish. According to these notes, he had baptized 21

Ruiz Venegas 1631. The Spanish version, which I have not been able to consult is called: “De institución de sacramentos, pecados y censuras ecclesiástica y otras materias dignas de que las sepan, y entienden, assí ecclesiásticos como seculares”. See Medina 1909, 144-145, 243. According to its catalogue, the Mexican national library possesses a copy of this work, but it is currently not to be found.

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a 24-year-old Pame man and on the second Sunday after Easter in 1634 had christened three young children aged between one and three. The children were: Ana and Marco, children of Don Andrés Baau and his wife Ana, and Gabriel, the son of Don Diego Maldonado and his wife Juliana. Both couples were seen as among the “most prominent of the Chichimec Indians living in Cerro Gordo”. At the occasion a Te Deum was chanted in the Church of Zimapan to celebrate the event. Ruiz Venegas filed his relación in 1636. Later he was appointed racionero of the cathedral chapter of Michoacan and by 1656 he was a canon in the metropolitan cathedral.22 Dr. Cristóbal de Medina, Acaxocuixco, 1636 On October 8, 1636, Cristóbal de Medina appeared personally in the Council of the Indies to hand over his printed relación de méritos y servicio together with supporting documentation. By then he had been in Spain for less than a year, during which time he had been awarded both a licentiate degree and a doctorate from the University of Avila. He was, however, born in the diocese of Puebla where he also had lived for most of his life. While still a young man he graduated in philosophy and theology at the University of Mexico. He was ordained a priest by Bishop Mota y Escobar who also appointed him as vicario in Misantla in 1622. Two years later he became a curate of Orizaba. Latterly, in 1632, he became the interim beneficiary in Acaxocuixco. It seems that all these appointments were temporary, as he did not mention having won them in competition. His newly-acquired academic titles would certainly contribute to his chances of advancement. Turning to his family’s merits, Medina claimed that his paternal grandfather, Alonso de Arribas, was one of the “first settlers” of Puebla and had given a piece of land to the Jesuits when they established themselves in the city. His maternal grandfather, Alonso Pérez de Zamora, was “one of the first conquerors who came together with Hernán Cortés.23 Cristobal de Medina’s attempts to get promoted were rather successful and he became a canon in the cathedral chapter of Oaxaca.24 22

AGI, IG 456, fol. 71v-73; AGN, RC D 17, 154v; and AGN, IV 2302, 1. AGI, M 238, 22. 24 AGI, M 35, 43: Letter from Dr. Cristóbal de Medina to the King, February 23, 1645. 23

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Br. Roque de Gomara, Zumpango, 1637 Roque de Gomara had quite an impressive academic record, but was only beginning a career of parish ministry in 1637. A native of Mexico City, he had bachelor’s degrees in arts (1623), theology (1627), and canon law (1636). For a brief period he had been a substitute professor of Holy Scripture at the university. He had been ordained a priest in 1628 by Archbishop Manso and when filing his relación de méritos y servicios in 1637 he was an assistant to the beneficiary in Zumpango, Damián de Aranda, preaching and confessing in Spanish and Nahuatl. He had also been a notary of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. All these degrees and appointments are substantiated by transcripts in the file.25 Br. Juan de Landa, Acaxochitlan, 1648 In February 1648 Juan de Landa wrote a petition to the royal audiencia to ask for permission to file a relación. His father was from Bizcay and his mother’s family from Seville, but they had moved to New Spain and had been living in Tulancingo. Due to his eminent knowledge of both Nahuatl and Otomi he had been ordained a priest a titulo de lengua by Archbishop Manso y Zuñiga. After ordination he had first served as a parish priest in Ilamatlan in the diocese of Puebla and then in Hueypoxtla in the archdiocese. Finally, in 1640, he was made parish priest of Acaxochitlan in the diocese of Puebla and the present state of Hidalgo, where he also learned Totonac which, together with Otomi and Nahuatl, was spoken there.26 P W  P As regards to education, many of priests in my corpus of some 200 records emphasized that they had been wholeheartedly dedicated to studies from their early youth. Sometimes they mention that they had received liturgical training as choir boys in the cathedral. The normal thing during the first half of the centuries was to study at the colleges of the Society of Jesus in Mexico City or Puebla. The first Tridentine 25 26

AGI, M 239, 10, cf. AGI, IG 192, 245. AGI, M 241, 17.

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seminary in New Spain was founded by Bishop Palafox in Puebla in the 1640s, named the Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo, and candidates for the priesthood began to be trained there. A Tridentine seminary was not founded in Mexico City until the end of the seventeenth century. Having received their college education, most of the future priests continued with their studies at the University of Mexico where they would be awarded the Bachelor of Arts degree. Some continued their studies and received degrees in theology and canon law as well, usually in that order. As for the higher degrees of licentiate and doctor, some received them from the Mexican university, but it was also fairly common to travel to Spain in order to gain such degrees from some less prestigious university. A number of the priest in my corpus thus received doctorates from the universities of Ávila or Sigüenza, the latter known to be prone to award degrees easily. Degrees from Sigüenza were even ridiculed in Cervantes’s Don Quixote. Having been awarded their degree these individuals usually took the opportunity to personally hand over their titles to the Council of the Indies. Many priests only mentioned that they had been ordained for the archdiocese or the diocese of Puebla, while others appended certified records of their ordination. Sometimes episcopal licenses to preach and confess are also appended. For the priests working in indigenous parishes, the knowledge of native languages was, of course, of utmost importance and is therefore pointed out. Knowledge of Nahuatl was considered commonplace among the seventeenth-century priests, so if mentioned it was often pointed out that the priest knew the language very well or that he was eminent, excellent (aventajada), or a great preacher in the language. As to strengthen the importance of knowing good Nahuatl, priests sometimes indicated that the knowledge of the language was very important since it was spoken in large areas of the dioceses or that they knew it from childhood. For example, Juan de la Cueva stated that he: “preached to the Indians in the Mexican language that extends all over this New Spain ... As a man born in this land, he understands and speaks very well the language of the Indians”.27 If the priest knew other languages than Nahuatl it was nearly always pointed out sep27 E.g., AGI, M 296: Br. Juan de la Cueva, vicario in Cuitlatenamic, Puebla, 1607: “Predica a los indios en la lengua mexicana que corre en toda esta Nueva España.

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arately. In such cases they were also keen to argue for how difficult these languages were to learn; emphasizing how much time and effort they had invested in order to learn or master them. In the case of Totonac, it was always pointed out that the language was very difficult or strange (peregrina). One unusually polyglot priest stated that through great work he had managed to learn “Otomi and mazahua and that these two languages are the most difficult that are known and which are spoken in this country”, though he also stated that he knew Nahuatl, Mazatec, and Chontal.28 Hernán Sánchez Camacho was said to be “the best Mixtec [speaker] that there is in this diocese [of Puebla], with which he has born much fruit among the natives, teaching our holy Catholic faith” “29 With the obvious exception of newly-ordained priests, the documents summarize their ecclesiastical career and appointments. In the case of beneficiaries, current and, if applicable, earlier benefices are mentioned; as are un-beneficed positions such as curate and vicario, though not in such great detail. In all cases the claims are substantiated by testimonies. In some cases they also append transcriptions of their appointment, collation, and canonical institution. Apart from the appointment to a benefice, there might be a special document containing their appointment as ecclesiastical judge within a parish or province. Having won a benefice through competitive examination it was common to point out that the opponents were “learned” or “worthy”, sometimes pointing out the number of competitors. As for the content of the ministry, the relaciones are often quite meager. Again and again versions of the same type of descriptions were forwarded, indicating that they: preached, catechized, and administered the sacraments to the parishioners; lived a good life; and, served as a good example to the faithful. In fact, punctuality (puntualidad), dili-

…. Como hombre nacido en esta tierra entiende y habla muy bien la lengua de los indios”. 28 AGI, M 301: Dr Baltazar Muñez de Chavez, beneficariary of Jiquipilco 1623: “otomi y mazague y que estas dos lenguas son las mas dificultossas que se an conocido y hablan en este reino”. 29 AGI, M 294: Hernán Sánchez Camacho, beneficiary of Acatlán, Puebla, 1605: “la mejor misteca que ay en este obispado mediante la qual a hecho mucho fruto entre los naturales ynstruyendoles en nuestra sancta fee catholica”.

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gence (diligencia), and care (cuidado) were the most common nouns used to characterize the good work of a parish priest, together with permanent assistance in the parish. In some of the relaciones mention is made of visitations by (arch)bishops or their visitors general. Either it is pointed out that no visitor had found anything worthy of complaint or that they have been declared “good ministers”. To emphasize that a parish was comprised by a significant number of outlying visitas was another common way to argue that the priest did a good job and that they were worthy of promotion. Manuel de la Peña, beneficiary of San Salvador Huejotzingo, mentioned that he had to attend people in no less than 22 visitas.30 To go out whenever called upon to attend to the dying people was another important part of being a worthy curate. Thus it could be mentioned that a priest “works in this [ministry] as Christian pastor and father of souls paying particular attention so that none of his parishioners died without confession and baptism”.31 Others pointed to the difficulties and hardships they had to suffer to attend to the needs of the parishioners, whether in the form of rivers or steep mountain roads.32 A witness in the case of the beneficiary of Tenango, Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón, stated that he: exposed himself to the harshness of the climate and the manifest dangers when he went out to administer the holy sacraments of penitence and extreme unction, without being hindered by those or other incommodities.33

Preaching was an ordinary part of parish work was always pointed out. In many cases the preaching of the Bull of Holy Crusade was also 30 AGI, M 294: Br Manuel de la Peña, San Salvador de Huejotzingo, 1605. “trabaxando en esto como christiano pastor y padre de almas poniendo particular cuydado en que ninguno de sus pheligreses muriesen sin confiscion y baptismo”. 31 AGI, M 228,15: Cristóbal Baez, Acatlan de la Costa, 1608: “trabaxando en esto como christiano pastor y padre de almas poniendo particular cuydado en que ninguno de sus pheligreses muriesen sin confiscion y baptismo”. 32 AGI, M 302: Br Juan Lorenzo Paez, Tetela, Mexico, 1626. 33 AGI, M 231, 11: Lic. Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón, Tenango, Mexico, 1613: “exponiendose a rigor de tiempo y peligros manifiestos ha oydo a todas horas del dia y de noche quando se a ofresido ocasion de administrar los sacramentos santos de la penitencia y exstrema uncion sin detenerse por las dichas yncomonidades ni otras que le pudieran suseder.”

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singled out. An important part of the regal incomes, diligent preaching of the bull was presented as a service to the King, to whom the relación was ultimately addressed through his Council of the Indies. Though not very common, some priests referred to their efforts to extirpate idolatry in their parish or otherwise. However, the testimonies are seldom very concrete or detailed. The relaciones presented by priests from the two central Mexican dioceses are thus not as enlightening to knowledge of native beliefs and their extirpation as the documents regarding priests in Yucatan that John Chuchiak has studied in depth.34 Still, a couple of documents relate to the subject, as already been referred to in this chapter. Moreover, in a 1608 relación for Br. Juan de Barrientos, beneficiary of Hueytlalpa, one on the witnesses, the former alcalde mayor of Hueytlalpa Juan de Pavellón, states that Barrientos had done much work during his 28 years there by: Extirpating their rites and idolatries, destroying the cues [“temples”] and idols that they had, having them burned and reduced [the inhabitant] to the true knowledge of God, Our Lord, as he had done it to many of them through his preaching and doctrination in their Totonac language.35

If serving close to the “border” with the so-called Chichimecs, priests could mention that they had baptized “pagan Indians”. Such was the case of Benito Bocarro and Bernabé Ruiz Venegas, who has already been discussed, but also of the beneficiary of the mines of Escanela, Br Diego de Alarcón de Cespedes, who had previously been a vicario in Zimapan. In his relación from 1636 it is mentioned that he had baptized at least “1000 Chichimecs” who he had “reduced” to sedentary life in the two pueblos San Juan and San Pedro. He also stated that on many occasions he had gone out to bring them to Mass and “pacified those who were rebellious”. His story was substantiated by testimonies from a number of Otomi principales.36 34

Chuchiak 2002. AGI, M 296: Br. Juan de Barrientos, Hueytlalpa, 1608: “estirpando sus ritos e ydolatrias derribandoles los cues e ydolos que tenian haziendoleos quemar y que reduxesen al verdadero conocimiento de Dios nuestro señor y lo hauian hecho mucho número dellos mendiante su predicación y doctrina en su lengua totonaca”. 36 AGI, M 304: Br. Diego de Alarcón de Cespedes, beneficiary in Minas de Escanela, 1636. 35

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Priests could also mention that they had been commissioned to investigate cases for the diocesan court of law, without mentioning that it had to do with the investigation of indigenous idolatry. In 1623, the beneficiary of San Mateo Atengo, Don Álvaro de Abauza y Frías, mentioned that on the commission of Archbishop Pérez de la Serna he had gone to “the most distant parts of this archdiocese with severe threat to his health and life due to the bad climate and the proximity of the ‘war Indians’ to carry out the work”.37 In the relaciones of the priests who were active in the indigenous ministry, which makes up my corpus, the servicios, their own formation and achievements, play a major part. However, the méritos, or achievements and honor of their ancestors, also play a role. The relaciones included names of parents and often grandparents; in some cases, even great grandparents. The basic function was had to prove that they were “Old Christians” (cristianos viejos) not “tainted” with “Moorish or Jewish blood” without ancestors who had been sentenced by the Inquisition. They also wanted to prove that they were of legitimate birth. Among relaciones from the first decades of the seventeenth century there are still a number of people born in Spain, but as time passed the “creoles” came dominate almost completely. They could also claim to be grandsons or great grandsons of conquerors or “first inhabitants” of Mexico or Puebla.

37

AGI, M 301: Don Álvaro de Abauza y Frías, San Mateo Atengo, 1623: “las partes más remotas de aquel arçobispado con mucho peligro de su salud y vida por los malos temples y cercanía de los indios de guerra”.

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E: L C L  E C M

I

n this book I have considered a number of genres in order to contribute to the study of rural parish life in the archdiocese of Mexico and the diocese of Puebla during the first half of the seventeenth century. The two dioceses constituted some 180,000 square kilometers in the central parts of New Spain. The area constituted great linguistic pluralism, although Nahuatl was spoken in large areas. The period was characterized by a dwindling indigenous population and a demographic nadir seems to have been reached by the end of the period. At the same time, the proportion of people of Hispanic and African descent continued to increase. The focus has been on the work of the secular parish priests and their relations with the indigenous parishioners making up the iglesia chica, the little world of the parish church; or put in another way, the local church life. Towards the end of the period the vast majority of the rural parishes in the diocese of Puebla were administered by secular clerics, while in the archdiocese they were divided between the three Mendicant orders and the secular priests. These genres may be seen as facets or points of view on parish life. Some of them, such as the council decrees and sacramental manuals, include written norms for parish work. They should not be looked upon as descriptions of actual parish life, but as depictions of both an ideal and of the problems encountered that, according to the bishops, needed remedy. The Third Provincial Council, gathered in 1585, had a long gestation period as its decrees were not printed until 1622 under the archiepiscopal administration of Juan Pérez de la Serna. After that time, their use was obligatory for the Mexican parish clergy. In the decrees much space is devoted to norms of correct behavior and appearance for the clergy who are in turn to be the guides, teachers, and doctors for the parishioners and coadjutors of the bishop on the local church scene. They should principally devote themselves to “the art of arts, the science of sciences”: the cure of alms, preaching and administering 237

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the sacraments to the parishioners. In the council’s decrees, the indigenous population is consistently described as perpetual children and pusillanimous. As such, constant supervision and teaching was needed. Their main religious duties were to attend Mass on Sundays and obligatory feast days, make a sacramental confession once a year, and take communion at Easter. Not much is said in the Council’s decrees about the extirpation of “idolatrous” beliefs and practices, though the parish priests are admonished to keep a vigilant eye. The chapter on sacramental manuals has shown the continued diversity of manuals used in the two dioceses, together with the detailed analysis of three manuals that were prepared by secular clerics in the 1630s and 1640s to be used in the ministry to Nahuatl and Mazahuaspeaking parishioners. Particularly from the early seventeenth century onwards, there is ample evidence of an increasing number of secular clerics who composed works in and/or on indigenous languages, however, most of them remained in manuscript form. The manuals, sometimes quite eclectic imprints, were descriptions of an ideal parish priest’s work. Though there is no reason to believe that priests did not use the manuals when baptizing or contracting marriages, it is hard to believe that they could use anything other than a minor portion of the questions included in the confessional aids given the constraints of time during Lent when they had to confess large numbers of parishioners. The visitation records include the (arch)bishops’ evaluation of the parishes, the parish clergy and, to some extent, also the parishioners as they appeared to them during the brief period of time which they stayed in the village. However, the views of the prelates were also influenced by the witnesses they heard during the visitation and what they thought should be remedied. Of all the visitations made by the archbishops of Mexico and the bishops of Puebla, only three moredetailed records are known to be extant. None of them are nearly as detailed as the visitation books from the late seventeenth century onwards. Yet, not being as standardized as later accounts, they include a number of interesting observations on local church life, although the scattered nature of these observations makes comparisons difficult. The documents on the extirpation of idolatry that was the subject of the sixth chapter fall into the supervising group of documents. They include both descriptions of the concrete methods used by clerics involved in this process, and descriptions of the objects and practices considered idolatrous by the priests commissioned to investigate them.

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The role played by judges of commission in this extirpation was most important. The cases that I considered were confined to a rather limited area in the archbishopric of Mexico, south of the see, in the present states of Mexico, Guerrero, and Morelos. On a more local level I have considered the petitions written by representatives of the indigenous altepetl to complain over the behavior of the cleric, and on some occasions to laud a cleric. When pointing out the deficiency of a parish priest, the petitioners particularly pointed to the lack of care when administering the sacrament of penance. Typically it is pointed out that due to the curate’s absence or unwillingness to travel to a sick parishioners home when called upon, people had died without confessing their sins. However, the main points of accusation were that priests abused the parishioners physically and/or verbally and that they were greedy in asking for too much for the administration of sacraments. Due to the behavior of the priests, many of the parishioners threatened to flee from the parish and take recourse to the mountains. Finally I have also made use of a major corpus of clerical narratives of merits and services presented before the Council of the Indies during the first half of the seventeenth century. Some themes are recurrent in many of these texts. Although there are copious references to the merits of parents and forefathers, the services of the individual clerics are particularly stressed in the cases that I have studied in more detail. Priests emphasized their language abilities. They underline that they have administered their parish with punctuality, diligence and care, though rarely is the parish work described with any high degree of detail. They also stress that they travelled to each of the outlying visitas in order to administer the sacraments to the parishioners, asserting that no one in their jurisdiction had died without access to the sacrament of penance due to the priest’s laziness In a few of the narratives, individual priest’s work for the extirpation of indigenous “idolatry” is pointed out, either as a judge of commission or as part of their ordinary parish ministry.

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S P   A  M, - Parish name

Current State Guerrero México México Guerrero Hidalgo México Hidalogo

pre-1569 pre-1569 c. 1600 pre-1600 pre-1563 pre-1569 c. 1608

México

pre-1569 1575 pre-1570

Escanela (minas de) Huehuetoca Hueypoxtla Huisquilucan Huitzitzilapan

Guerrero San Luis Potosí Querétaro México México D.F. México

Huitzuco Iguala Ixcateopan

Guerrero Guerrero Guerrero

pre-1570 pre-1570 pre-1541

Ixtapalapa Ixtlahuacan

D.F. México

pre-1570 pre-169

Jalatlaco

México

pre-1570

Jaltocan Jiquipilco

México México

17th c. pre-1569

Acapulco Almoloya Amatepec/Tlatlaya Atenango del Río Atitalaquia Atlacomulco Atotonilco (el chico) Chapa (de Mota) Cuetzala Cuzcatlan

Year

c.1600 pre-1569 pre-1560s 1575 pre-1569

Indigenous Languages Mazahua Nahuatl Nahuatl Otomi, Nahuatl Otomi, Mazahua Otomi, Nahuatl Otomi, Mazahua, Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl, Huastec, Otomi Spanish, Pame Otomi, Nahuatl Otomi, Nahuatl (Nahuatl), Otomi Nahuatl, Matlatzinca, Otomi Nahuatl Nahuatl, Chontal? Nahuatl, Chontal, Tuxteca Nahuatl, Otomi Otomi, Nahuatl, Mazahua Nahuatl, Otomi, Matlatzinca Nahuatl Nahuatl, Otomi, Mazahua

241

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S P   A  M, - (continued) Parish name

Current State México D.F.

pre-1575 1528

D.F.

1568

D.F. Hidalgo Guerrero Guerrero México

1568 1568 pre-1569 c. 1605 c. 1600 pre-1569 c. 1560 1538 1570 pre-1575 1530s

Tarasquillo

México Hidalgo Veracruz Veracruz Querétaro San Luis Potosí México San Luis Potosí San Luis Potosí México

Tasmalaca Taxco Tecicapan

Guerrero Guerrero México

pre-1570 pre-1569 17th c.

Tejupilco

México

c. 1600

Teloloapan

Guerrero

1575

Temascalcingo

México

pre-1600

Jocotitlán Mexico: N.S. de los Remedios Mexico: Santa Catalina Mártir Mexico: Vera Cruz Mixquiahuala Nochtepec Oapan Ocoyocac Otzolotepec Pachuca Pánuco San Esteban San Juan del Río Santiago de Valles Sultepec Tamasunchale Tampamolon

Year

Indigenous Languages Mazahua

Otomi, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Chontal Nahuatl (cuixca) Nahuatl, (Matlatzinca), Otomi Otomi, Mazahua Otomi, Nahuatl Huastecan Huastecan Otomi, Pame

1530s 17th c.

Nahuatl Nahuatl

early 17th c. pre-1619

Nahuatl, Huastec, Otomi (Nahuatl), Otomi, (Mazahua) Nahuatl (cuixca) Nahuatl, Chontal Mazahua, Matlatzinca, Chontal Matlatzinca, Nahuatl, Mazahua Nahuatl, Chontal, tuxtecan Mazahua

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243

S P   A  M, - (continued) Parish name Temascaltepec

Current State México

Year c. 1600

Tempoal Tenancingo Tenango del Valle Teoluyuca Tepecuacuilco Tepotzotlán Tequixquiac Tetela del Río

Veracruz México México México Guerrero México México Guerrero

1570 pre-1569 pre-1569 c. 1603 pre-1570 pre-1569 pre-1569 1540s

Teticpac Texcaliacac Texcaltitlán

Guerrero México México

1575 c. 1600 pre-1569

Tizayucan Tlalchichilpa

Hidalgo México

1553 pre-1569

Tolcayuca Yahualica Zacualpan

Hidalgo Hidalgo México

1575 pre-1569 pre-1569

Zimapán Zumpahuacan Zumpango

Hidalgo México México

pre-1579 pre-1569 1530s

Indigenous Languages Matlatzinca, Nahuatl, Mazahua Huastec, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Matlatzinca Matlatzinca, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Otomi Chontal Nahuatl, Otomi Otomi, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Cuitlatec, Chontal, Tepuztec Chontal, Nahuatl Otomi, Nahuatl Matlatzinca, Nahuatl, Otomi Otomi, Nahuatl Otomi, Mazahua, Nahuatl Otomi, Nahuatl Nahuatl Mazahua, Matlatzinca, Chontal Otomi, pame Nahuatl Nahuatl

Sources: Gerhard 1993, Lundberg 2008

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S P   D  P, - Parish name

Current State Puebla Puebla Guerrero

1640 pre-1569 1530s

Hidalgo

pre-1570

Aguacatlan Agucuaucingo Ahuilizapan Alvarado Amozoc Apango Apizaco Atlangantepec Atlihuician Atlixco Atzalan Ayutla Calpan Chalchicomula Chiautempan Chicontepec

Puebla Guerrero Veracruz Veracruz Puebla Guerrero Tlaxcala Tlaxcala Tlaxcala Puebla Veracruz Guerrero Puebla Puebla Tlaxcala Veracruz

1640 c. 1600 ? pre-1609 1640 c. 1605 1640s 1640 1640 pre-1570 1560s pre-1611 1640 c. 1600 1640s pre-1570

Chietla Cholula Chumatlan Cordoba Cosamaloapan Cuautinchan Cuetzalan Cuezcomatepec Cuitlatenamic

Puebla Puebla Veracruz Veracruz Veracruz Puebla Puebla Veracruz Puebla

1640 1640 pre-1582 1618 pre-1570 1640 c. 1609 pre-1610 1567

Acatzingo Acatlán (de Osorio) Acatlán (de la Costa) Acaxochitlán

Year

Indigenous Languages Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl, Mixtec Nahuatl, Totonac, Otomi Totonac Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Spanish, Nahuatl Totonac, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Mixtec Nahuatl Popoluca Nahuatl Nahuatl, Totonac, Otomi Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac Spanish, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Popoluca Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl

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S P   D  P, - (continued) Parish name

Current State Tlaxcala

Year 1640s

Indigenous Languages Nahuatl

CuixtlanTequemecan Cuzcatlan (Coxcatlan) Epatlan Huamantla Huamuxtitlan Huaquechula Huatusco Huejotzingo Hueyotlipan Hueytlalpan Icpatepec Ilamatlán Ingenio del Conde Ixhuacan Ixtacamaxtitlan Izúcar Jalacingo Jalapa Jalpan(tepec)

Puebla

pre-1570

Nahuatl, Chocho

Puebla Tlaxcala Guerrero Puebla Veracruz Puebla Tlaxcala Puebla Oaxaca Veracruz Veracruz Veracruz Puebla Puebla Veracruz Veracruz Veracruz

pre-1580 1640 c. 1570 1640 pre-1569 1640 1640s 1567 1565? 1640 1643 1640 pre-1582 1640 1567 1640s

Nahuatl Nahuatl, Otomi Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac, Nahuatl Mixteca Nahuatl

Jolalpan Jonotla Jojupango Matlactlan Mecatlan Misantla Mixtepec Naolinco Nopalucan

Puebla Puebla Puebla Puebla Veracruz Veracruz Guerrero Veracruz Puebla

1590s 1567 1567 ? pre-1610 1560s pre-1563 1646 pre-1570

Nahuatl Nahuatl Spanish, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Totonac Nahuatl Totonac, Tepehua, Otomi Nahuatl Nahuatl, Totonac Totonac Totonac Totonac Totonac Mixtec, Nahuatl Totonac, Nahuatl Otomi, Nahuatl

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S P   D  P, - (continued) Parish name Olinala Olintla Orizaba Pantepec

Current State Guerrero Puebla Veracruz Veracruz

Year

Indigenous Languages Nahuatl Totonac Nahuatl Totonac, Tepehuan, Otomi Totonac, Nahuatl, Spanish Mixtec, Nahuatl Mixtec, Nahuatl

c. 1605 c. 1600 1550s c. 1600

Papantla

Veracruz

pre-1610

Petlalcingo Piaxtla Puebla de los Ángeles Quecholac

Puebla Puebla Puebla

c. 1603 1603 1531

Puebla

1640

Quimixtlan San Felipe (Ixtacuixtlan) San Juan de los Llanos San Juan de Ulúa San Miguel del Monte San Salvador el Seco Santa María Nativitas Santo Tomás del Monte Silacayoapan Tamiahua

Puebla Tlaxcala

pre-1569 1640

Otomi, Popoluca, Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl

Puebla

1567

Nahuatl

Veracruz Tlaxcala

pre-1549 1640s

Nahuatl

Puebla Tlaxcala

pre-1570 1640s

Otomi, Nahuatl Nahuatl

Tlaxcala

1640

Nahuatl

Oaxaca Veracruz

pre-1610 c. 1600

Tecali

Puebla

1641

Tecamachalco Tehuacán Temapache Teopantlan

Puebla Puebla Veracruz Puebla

1640 1641 c. 1610 c. 1600

Mixtec Huastec, Nahuatl, Spanish Nahuatl, Popoluca, Chocho Nahuatl, Chocho Nahuatl, Popoluca Huastec, Nahuatl Nahuatl

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S P   D  P, - (continued) Parish name

Year

Tepapayeca Tepeaca

Current State Puebla Puebla

Tepeojuma Tequila Tetela Teutlalco Texcalac Texmelucan Teziutlán Tixtla Tlacolula Tlacotepec Tlacotlalpan Tlalcozotitlán Tlalixcoyan Tlalxocoapan Tlapa

Puebla Veracruz Puebla Puebla Tlaxcala Puebla Puebla Guerrero Veracruz Puebla Veracruz Guerrero Veracruz Puebla Guerrero

pre-1569 pre-1610 1567 1562 1640s 1568 c. 1567 pre-1570 pre-1569 pre-1570 c. 1600 1560s pre-1590 c. 1570 1530s

Tlapacoya Tlapancingo Tlatauhquitepec Tlaxcala

Veracruz Oaxaca Puebla Tlaxcala

1567 pre-1610 1567 1640

Tlaxco Topoyanco Totimehuacán Totolan Veracruz (Nueva) Veracruz (Vieja) Xicotepec

Tlaxcala Tlaxcala Puebla Tlaxcala Veracruz Veracruz Puebla

1640s 1640s 1640 1640 pre-1600 1520s pre-1570

Xonacatlan Xopala

Puebla Puebla

pre-1582 c. 1600

1640 1640

Indigenous Languages Spanish, Nahuatl Nahuatl, Otomi, Popoluca Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl, Totonac Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac Chocho, Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl, Tlapaneca, Mixtec, Mataltzinga Totonac, Nahuatl Mixtec, Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl, Otomi, Chocho Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac Nahuatl, Totonac, Otomi Nahuatl Totonac

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S P   D  P, - (continued) Parish name Yauquemecan Yohualtlacualoyan Zacapoaxtla Zacatelco Zacatlan Zapotitlan Zautla Zongolica Zozocolco

Current State Tlaxcala Veracruz Puebla Tlaxcala Puebla Puebla Puebla Veracruz Veracruz

Year 1640s ? 1567 1640s 1640 pre-1570 1609 1561 1646

Indigenous Languages Nahuatl Totonac Nahuatl, Totonac Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac, Nahuatl Nahuatl Nahuatl Totonac

Sources: Alegaciones 164?, Gerhard 1993, Mota y Escobar 1987, Palafox y Mendoza 1997, Viforcos Marinas 1999 and 2000.

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R A S AGI: Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Seville IG: Indiferente General M: Audiencia de México P: Patronato AGN: Archivo General de la Nación (AGN), Mexico City AHH: Archivo Historico de la Hacienda BN: Bienes Nacionales CR: Cédulas Reales Originales CRS: Clero Regular y Secular H: Historia Ind: Indios Inq: Inquisición IV: Indiferente Virreinal J: Jesuitas T: Tierras U: Universidad AHAM: Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México, Mexico City Cajas Cajas de Libros BL: British Library (BL), London Ms. Add. BNE: Biblioteca Nacional de España, Madrid Ms. FRHL: Family Research History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah Parroquía de San Miguel Arcángel, Chapa de Mota, Mexico Libros de bautismos 249

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P S Alegaciones en favor del clero, estado eclesiastico, i secular, españoles, è Indios del Obispado de la Puebla de los Angeles sobre las Doctrinas, que en execucion del S. Concilio de Trento, Cedulas, i Prouisiones Reales, remouiò en èl su Ilustrisimo Obispo Don Iuan de Palafox i Mendoza, del Consejo de su Magestad, i del Real de las Indias, el año de 1640. En el pleito con las sagradas Religiones de S. Domingo, S. Francisco, i San Agustin. Puebla: 1648?. [BL 4071.f.19] A, Balthasar. Tractatus de Visitatione, circa tex. in capit. 3. Concilii Tridentini Sess. 24 de Reformatione. Seville: Apud Aream Pescioni, 1581. [BUS]. A, Bartolomé de. Confessionario mayor, y menor en lengua mexicana. Mexico City, 1634. [BL 4402.n.30]. —, A Guide to Confession Large and Small in the Mexican Language, 1634 by Don Bartolomé de Alva. Edited by Barry D. Sell and John Frederick Schwaller with Lu Ann Homza. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. A, Arthur, Frances Berdan and James Lockhart. Beyond the Codices. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. A , Arte de la lengua totonaca. Edited by Norman A. McQuown. Mexico: UNAM, 1990. C, Alberto María (ed.). Un desconocido cedulario del siglo XVI perteniciente a la catedral metropolitana de México. México, D.F.: Ediciones Victoria, 1944. —, Cedulario de los siglo XVI y XVII — El obispo don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza y el conflicto con la Compañía de Jesús. México, D.F.: Ediciones Victoria, 1947. Ceremonial, rubricas generales, con la orden de celebrar las missas, y auisos para los defectos que acerca de ellas pueden acontecer. Sacados del nueuo Missal Tridentino. Y traduzido por el muy R. P. Fray Juan Ozcaiz. México, D.F.: Pedro Balli, 1579. [BL b.52.a.15] Concilio III provincial mexicano, celebrado en México el año de 1585, confirmado en Roma por el Papa Sixto V, y mandado observer por el gobierno español, en diversas reales órdenes. Edited by Mariano Galván Ribera with notes by Basilio Arrillaga SJ. México, D.F.: Eugenio Maillefort y Cia, 1859.

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N Chevalier, François, 15 Chiesa, Giovan Battista, 35 Chocano Mena, Magdalena, 118 Christian, William A., 27 Chuchiak IV, John F., 216–217, 235 Cifuentes, Joseph, 197 Cifuentes, Luis de, 197–199, 209, 219 Clara (from Xalpantepec), 183 Coe, Michael D., 158, 168 Contreras Gallardo, Pedro de, 124 Cook, Sherburne F., 47 Cordova, Gómez de, 61 Curiel, Juan de, 182–183 Díaz, Diego, 156–157 Díaz de Anaya, Cristobal, 120 Diego de la Cruz, 192 Diego Matheo, 152–153 Diego Matias, 190 Diego Osorio, 193–194 Domingo de los Ángeles, 97 Domínguez, (Father), 102 Don Francisco, 105 Doña Catalina, 105 Durán, (Doctor), 99 Escobar, Miguel de, 164 Esteban Angel, 208 Feria, Pedro de, 61 Fernández de Hierro, Diego, 103, 119 Fernández de Hipenza, Andrés, 126 Fischer, Agustín, 63 Francisca (from Tenantzingo), 169

Aguiar y Seijas, Francisco, 116 Aguilar, Catalina, 132 Aguirre, Juan de, 114 Alberro, Solange, 17 Alva, Bartolomé, 114 Alzola, Domingo de, 61 Ana Guacul, 199 Ana Sotelo, 194 Ángela (from Tlatlaya), 190 Aguidano, Pedro de, 114 Arenas, Pedro de, 134 Aubin, J M A, 167 Augustina (from Tenantzingo), 169 Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 63 Bayle, Constantino, 20 Benavides, Luis de, 101 Bennet, Herman L., 17 Beristáin y Souza, José Mariano, 40, 120, 126, 159 Beteta, Francisco de, 64–65 Borah, Woodrow, 26, 47, 175 Borromeo, Charles, 68, 72 Boturini, Lorenzo, 167–168 Boyer, Richard, 15 Brescia, Michael, 34 Burkhart, Louise, 17 Burrus, Ernest J., 64 Cabrera, (Father), 102 Cantú, (Licenciado), 125 Carlos de San Miguel, 192 Castilla, Juan de, 105 Castroverde, (Father), 102 Ceballos Villavicencio, Cosme, 114 271

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Francisco de Santiago, 165 Frías Quixada, Gerónimo, 192–197, 208–210 Gabriel (from Quahuapan), 182 Garcés, Julián, 46 Garcés de Portillo. Pedro, 170, 195 García Martínez, Bernardo, 17, 94, 120 Gaspar Diego, 184 Gaspar Juan, 192 Gerhard, Peter, 21, 199 Gibson, Charles, 15 Ginzburg, Carlo, 34–35 Gómez Brizeño, Nicolás, 219 Gómez de Velasco, Melchior, 205 González, Bartolomé, 200 Grajeda, Alonso de, 102 Greenleaf, Richard E., 149 Gregory of Nazianzus, 73 Gruzinski, Serge, 17, 149 Gudiño, Francisco de, 156, 183–186 Guerra, García, 65, 87–89, 153 Guerrero, Juan (junior), 156, 200–202 Guerrero, Juan (senior), 201 Guevara, Juan de, 181–182 Gutiérrez Bocanegra, Diego, 154 Guzmán, Hernando, 182 Haskett, Robert, 175 Hernández, Antonio, 182 Hernández Rubio, Francisco, 210211 Hervias, Antonio de, 182 Hidalgo, Francisco, 186 Hoekstra, Rik, 57 Isabel (from Tlatlaya), 190–191 Israel, Jonathan I., 15 Jiménez, Alonso, 192 Jiménez, Marcos, 204–205 Juan (from Tlatlaya), 190 Juan Baltazar, 200

Juan Bautista (from Atenango), 200 Juan Bautista (from Texcaliacac), 202 Juan Chichiton, 169–170 Juan Cortés, 210 Juan de San Pablo, 187 Juan Evangelista, 184–185 Juan Grande, 153 Juan Martín, 204 Juan Mateo, 193–194 Juana (from Pánuco), 198 Juana (from Tlatlaya), 190 Juárez, Benito, 63 Juárez, Miguel, 208 Larkin, Brian, 28 Lázaro, Diego, 106 Le Roy Ladurie, Emmanuel, 34 Ledesma, Bartolomé, 61, 227 Ledesma, Juan de, 126 León, Martín de, 124, 126–127, 131, 168 León, Nicolás, 168 Leonor María, 169–170 Levi, Giovanni, 34–35 Lockhart, James, 12, 37, 51–52, 177 López , Gregorio, 169 López de Castañeda, Juan, 173 López Rico, Alonso, 101 Lorenzo Gaspar, 195 Lorra, Christobal de, 173 Lorra Baquio, Francisco, 117, 121, 125–131, 134, 136–137, 142–143 Lorra Baquio, Gaspar, 125 Lorra Baquio, María Magdalena, 125 Lucas Damián, 185 Lucas Martín, 152–153 Luna, Andrés de, 98 MacLeod, Murdo J., 216 Magdalena, 190 Maldonado, (Father), 100

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 Mañozca y Zúñiga, Juan, 13, 89–91, 94, 113, 115–116, 159 Manso y Zúñiga, Francisco, 88–89, 158, 166–167, 200, 229, 231 Manuel de Santo Tomás, 148 Marcos Juan, 185 María (from Tlatlaya), 190 María de los Ángeles, 148 María Magdalena, 156 María Martínez, 156 Martín de la Cruz, 204 Martínez, Juan, 215 Martínez de Olea, Rodrigo, 215–216 Maximilian, Emperor, 41, 63 McAlister, Lyle N., 33 Medina, Cristóbal de, 230 Medina, Lucas de, 204 Medina, Pedro de, 108, 219 Medina Rincón, Juan, 61 Melchior Gaspar, 208 Melchiora (from Tlatlaya), 190 Mendoza, Esteban de, 199 Mendoza y Zúñiga, García de Santa María, 86–87 Merlo, Juan de, 210 Mexía de León, Pedro, 114, 202–203 Miguel (of Atenango), 165 Miguel Damián, 185 Miguel Fabián, 193 Miguel Sebastián, 195 Miranda, José, 49 Moctezuma, 121 Molina Monterrey, Bernabé, 114 Montalvo, Gregorio de, 61 Montero, Alonso de, 148 Montúfar, Alonso de, 65, 123 Mota y Escobar, Alonso de la, 29, 79, 91–107, 113, 115–116, 187, 207, 227, 230 Moya de Contreras, Pedro, 61, 64, 86–87

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Múñez de Chávez, Baltazar, 120 Mörner, Magnus, 51 Nágera, Pedro de, 132 Nágera Yanguas, Diego de, 121, 132–138, 143 Nájera, Rafael Lucio, 159 Nieto de Orozco, Diego, 203–206 Olmo, Hernando, 114 Ortiz de Hinojosa, Hernando, 62 Ottman, Jennifer, 23 Owensby, Brian P., 37, 175 Páez de Mendoza, Juan, 114 Palaez Catalán, Hernando, 197–198 Palafox y Mendoza, Juan, 11, 13, 18, 27, 34, 55–57, 83–84, 93–94, 103113, 115–118, 122–124, 138–139, 143, 210, 232 Pantaja Basurto, Juan de, 114 Paso y Trancoso, Francisco, 158, 167 Paul III, 75 Paul V, 122–123 Pedro (from Ixcapulzalco), 193 Pérez, Bartolomé, 110 Pérez de Galvez, Rodrigo, 210 Pérez de la Camara, Andrés, 114 Pérez de la Serna, Juan, 43, 55, 59, 65, 67, 77, 88 Pérez Gallardo, Basilio, 63 Pescador, Juan Javier, 21 Petronila (from Ixcapulzalco), 194 Petronila Damiana, 207 Petrucci, Armando, 38 Philip IV, 65 Pinelo, Bernardino, 99, 119, 125, 187 Plaza, Juan de, 62, 66 Ponce de León, Pedro, 150–155, 170, 172 Poole, Stafford, 62, 64, 70 Porras Farfán, Pedro de, 199 Porras Múñoz, Guillermo, 20 Portillo, Melchior, 207

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Prado, Juan de, 188 Pravia, Pedro, 62 Quirós, Gutierre Bernardo de, 93 Rafael Damián, 208 Ragon, Pierre, 17 Ramírez, Francisco, 198 Ramírez de Escobar, Juan, 108 Ramito de Morales, Juan, 103 Resa Braojos, Andrés de, 114, 132 Reyes, Melchor de los, 62 Riley, James D., 20 Rivera, Alonso de, 114 Rodriguez, Francisca, 148 Rodríguez Balderas, Rubén, 20 Rodríguez de Castro, Pedro, 188, 194 Rodríguez de Esquivel, Alonso, 188–192, 209 Rojas, Bernardino de, 156–157 Romano, Diego, 54–55, 61, 91, 180183, 225 Romero, Eugenio, 120 Ruiz, Juan, 186, 205, 218 Ruiz de Agüero, Juan, 194–195 Ruiz de Alarcón, Gaspar, 201 Ruiz de Alarcón, Hernando, 150151, 155–169, 171–172, 185, 200 Ruiz de Alarcón, Juan, 155 Ruiz de Alarcón, Pedro, 201, 218, 234 Ruiz de la Peña, Leonardo, 119 Ruiz Venegas, Bernabé, 120, 218, 228–230, 235 Sáenz de la Peña, Andrés, 119, 138143, 219 Sagade Bugueiro, Mateo, 167 Salazar, Ambrosio, 97 Salazar, Domingo de, 61 Salguero, (Father), 99 Salinas, Gerónimo de, 114

Salmerón, Juan, 62 Salmerón, Pedro de, 106, 122 San Antonio y Soto, Pedro, 207 Sánchez de Aldava, Diego, 207–208 Santiago, Diego de, 173 Santoyo, Antonio, 120 Sarmiento de Hojacastro, Martín, 46 Schwaller, John Frederick, 19–20, 29 Schwartz, Stuart B., 12, 180 Sebastián Martín, 204 Sell, Barry D., 23 Serna, Jacinto de la, 145–146, 150–153, 159–160, 166–172, 206 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos, 167 Simón (from Tlatlaya), 191 Simpson, Lesley Byrd, 15 Sixtus V, 64 Strandanus, Samuel, 65 Sullivan, John, 175–176 Tamayo de Quesada, Alonso, 114 Tapia y Sosa, Andrés, 183 Taylor, William B., 20, 36, 218 Tobar, Domingo de, 97 Toribio de la Cruz, 156 Torquemada, Juan de, 168 Tovar Cano, Antonio de, 121 Vaca, Diego, 119 Valdés, Hernando, 198 Van Young, Eric, 21, 36–37 Whittaker, Gordon, 158, 168 Villamanrique, (the Marquis of), 63 Villegas, Baltasar de, 102 Villegas, Juan Bautista de, 99 Zárate, Miguel de, 123, 126 Závala Zamudio, Juan de, 114, 197 Zeli, Joseph de, 203 Zemon Davies, Natalie, 34–35 Zerón Zapata, Miguel, 55 Zumárraga, Juan de, 44 Zurita, Gabriel, 148

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P Acapulco, 46 Acatepec, 199 Acatlan de la Costa, 97, 119, 215, 225–226 Acatzingo, 21, Acaxochitlan, 213 Aguacatlan, 120 Alahuistlan, 208–209 Alfaxayuca, 229 Almoloya, 114,202, 227 Alvarado, 47 Amatepec, 188–189, 191–192, 205 Amilpas, 90, 157, 161 Amozoc, 219 Apango, 220 Atarasquillo, 114 Atenango, 155–157, 159, 161, 163, 165, 185, 200–202 Atlacomulco, 114, 125 Atlixco, 46, 57 Atzalan, 186–187 Ávila, 230, 232 Ayacaxocuichco, 102 Ayutla, 97 Biscay, 125 Calimaya, 153 Catalonia, 26 Cerro Gordo, 88, 229–230 Chapa de Mota, 121, 207–208, 224 Charcas, 228 Chiapas, 46, 61–62 Chiautempan, 210 Chicontepec, 103 Chila, 99, 220 Coapa, 89 Coatlan, 153 Comala, 161, 201 Córdoba, 104 Cosamaloapan, 106

Costa Chica, 47 Coyoacan, 90 Cuahuitlan, 105 Cuauhchimalla, 161 Cuautinchan, 104 Cuenca, 26 Cuernavaca, 115, 161, 175 Cuetlaxochitlan, 161, 163, 165, 200 Cuezcomatepec, 103, 105 Cuzcatlan, 219 Distrito Federal, 45 Escanela, 235 Fresnillo, 228 Galicia, 26 Guachinango, 46 Guadalajara, 20, 45, 61, 88, 132, 175 Guanajuato, 45 Guatemala, 20, 61 Guaxaca, 47 Guerrero, 17, 45, 47, 156, 172, 183, 193, 197, 200, 220, 239 Hidalgo, 45, 47, 203, 229, 231 Huasteca, 125, 197, 228 Huasteca Potosina, 45 Huatusco, 199 Huehuetoca, 120, 223–224 Huejotzingo, 234 Hueyahualco, 188–190 Hueychiapa, 88, 148 Hueypoxtla, 231 Hueytlalpan, 101, 181–182 Huitzilan, 100 Huitzuco, 161 Huizquiluacan, 114 Icpatepac, 98, 101, 215 Iguala, 155, 158, 161, 165, 227–228 Ilamatlan, 105, 231 Ixcapulzalco, 192–196 Ixcateopan, 9, 189, 192–197, 208-210

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Ixtacamaxtitlan, 101 Ixtlahuaca, 114, 132 Izúcar, 148, 219 Jalacingo, 99, 119, 125, 186–187 Jalapa, 96, 223 Jalatlaco, 114, 153–154, 167 Jalisco, 226 Jalostotitlan, 175 Jalpan, 104–105 Jalpantepec, 104–105, 109, 182–183 Jilotepec, 79, Jiquipilco, 114, 120, 210 Jocotitlan, 114, 132–133 Jojupango, 225 Jonotla, 119 Mamatlac, 192 Manila, 61–62 Matalcingo, 45, 210 Mexico (archdiocese), 13, 17, 20, 41–42–45, 49, 53–55, 85–86, 90, 94, 120, 145–151, 172–173, 183, 188,199, 203, 207, 210, 218, 229, 237–239 Mexico (state), 45, 125, 133, 151, 172, 188, 192, 197, 202, 207, 225, 229, 239 Mexico City, 15, 18, 21, 24, 40–41, 45, 49–50, 61, 87–88, 91, 113, 122, 125–126, 159, 161, 167, 170, 175, 184, 186, 188–189, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 203, 205–208, 211, 223, 227–228, 231–232 Michmoloyan, 207–208 Michoacan, 19–20, 45–46, 61, 88, 93, 118, 133, 138, 188, 210, 219, 230 Misantla, 99, 230 Mixteca Baja, 47 Morelos, 45, 172, 239 Moyutla, 100 New Galicia, 45, 115 Nopalucan, 219

Nuevo Santander, 197 Oapan, 156, 161, 183–186 Oaxaca, 16, 19, 46–47, 57, 61, 106, 227, 230 Ocelotepec, 114 Ocoyoacac, 114 Olintla, 97, 120 Orizaba, 230 Osomatlan, 184 Otlaquiquistlan, 199 Pachuca, 203, 206 Pantepec, 182 Pánuco, 197–199, 227–228 Papantla, 99, 101, 104–105, 109, 120 Philippines, 46, 61, 146 Piaxtla, 215 Pilcaya, 218 Ponotlan, 98 Portugal, 227 Puebla (city), 24, 39–40, 46, 50, 55, 97, 103, 107, 109, 119–120, 125, 138, 147, 174, 215, 218–219, 223, 226–227, 230–232, 236 Puebla (diocese), 11, 13, 18, 27, 29, 45–47, 49, 55–58, 79, 83, 85, 91, 94, 103, 119–120, 122, 125, 138–139, 148, 161, 180, 203, 207, 210, 215, 219, 223, 225, 230–233, 237–238 Puebla (state), 46, 182 Quahuapan, 182 Quecholac, 98, 104 Querétaro, 45, 148 Quimixtlan, 101 Quipustla, 206 Rio Verde, 88 River Paita, 197 Rome, 24, 60, 64, 70 Salineros, 198 San Antonio, 199 San Juan de los Lagos, 115 San Lucas, 153

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 San Luis Potosí, 45, 125 San Miguel el Milagro, 106 Santa Cruz, 202 Santa Lucia, 204 Santa María Nativitas, 106 Santiago de Valles, 45 Sichu, 224 Sierra de Puebla, 17, 52, 181 Sierra Gorda, 45, 88, 229 Sigüenza, 232 Silacayoapan, 101, 215 Soconusco, 227 Tamiahua, 46 Tampamolon, 125 Tampico, 45 Tarasquillo, 229 Tasmalaca, 161, 164 Tausalicho, 198 Taxco, 155, 161, 175, 185–186, 194–195, 219 Tecamachalco, 104 Techocholco, 202 Tecicapan, 192 Tecuisiapan, 184–186 Tehuacan, 47 Teloloapan, 173 Temimilcingo, 161 Tempoal, 197 Tenancingo, 90, 114, 169 Tenango, 114, 169, 234 Tenango del Valle, 153, 155, 202 Tepeaca, 96 Tepecuacuilco, 161 Tepeojuma, 219 Tequacuilco, 161 Tescalyacac, 114 Tetecala, 153 Tetelcingo, 184–185 Tetelpa, 161 Texcaliacac, 153, 202–203 Texcoco, 121 Tixtla, 102

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Tizayuca, 203–206 Tlacolula, 79, 119, 199, 223 Tlacotepec, 108, 219 Tlalapan, 161, 163 Tlapancingo, 215 Tlaltizapan, 161 Tlapa, 47, 96–97, 227 Tlapacoya, 187 Tlatlaya, 188–189, 191, 209 Tlaxcala, 13, 20, 41–42, 45–46, 49–50, 53–54, 61, 64, 95–96, 119, 138, 154, 165, 181, 184, 186, 199–200, 210, 219–220 Tlayacapan, 161 Tolcayuca, 197 Toluca, 53, 90, 115, 151 Topoyanco, 219 Totoltepec, 152–153, 173–174 Tututepec, 107 Tzontecomatlan, 224, 227 Valladolid, 223 Veracruz, 119, 199 Veracruz (state), 45, 47, 100, 186, 199 Verapaz, 61 Villa de Carrión, 224–225 Xicayan, 199 Xicotlan, 165 Xiliapan, 229 Xiutepec, 161 Xochiapa, 148 Xochitonala, 97 Xoloc, 204–205 Xoxutla, 161 Yautepec, 161 Yohualtlacualoyan, 102 Zacango, 157, 200–201 Zacapoaxtlan, 102 Zacatecas, 63, 228 Zacualpan, 194 Zapotitlan, 108, 119 Zautla, 101 Zimapan, 120, 228–230, 235

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