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UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Converting a Sacred City: Franciscan Re-Imagining of Sixteenth-Century San Pedro Cholula Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/56h8453h Author Gutierrez, Veronica A. Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Converting a Sacred City: Franciscan Re-Imagining of Sixteenth-Century San Pedro Cholula A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Verónica Anne Gutiérrez 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Converting a Sacred City: Franciscan Re-Imagining of Sixteenth-Century San Pedro Cholula by Verónica Anne Gutiérrez Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Kevin Terraciano, Chair This dissertation examines the political and spiritual implications of the Franciscan presence in sixteenth-century Cholollan, renamed San Pedro Cholula by the Spaniards, reading the friars’ evangelizing project in light of the Order’s foundational missionary mandate, its millenarian tendencies, its 1517 Reform, and its desire to replenish the numbers of faithful leaving the Church with the advent of Protestantism. Based on printed Franciscan chronicles and materials from municipal, judicial, notarial, state, and national archives in Mexico and Spain, this project provides the first detailed study of the Franciscan appropriation of this Mesoamerican sacred site. Because the Sons of St. Francis were the only Order in colonial Cholula, their efforts resulted in a very particular Franciscan charism more than a general early modern Mediterranean Catholicism. The Franciscan establishment in Cholollan officially began in late 1528 or early 1529 with the arrival of guardian fray Alonso Xuárez. Given its centuries-old sacred legacy, its ii identity as a site of spiritual and thus political legitimation, and its numerous teocalli, or indigenous temples, the polity would prove irresistible to the Franciscans. Because of the elaborate daily and seasonal rituals performed by the native Cholulteca, as well as the similarities between certain Nahua rites and Catholic sacraments, the friars believed they had discovered a people perfectly poised to receive and internalize Christianity. Re-naming the altepetl San Pedro Cholula after St. Peter, the first Pope, the mendicants harkened back to Rome and the days of the Primitive Church, when Christianity existed in its purest form. Indeed, the friars believed that Cholula would become a “new Rome” in New Spain, a spiritual center across the Atlantic from which they would launch their evangelization of central Mexico. Ironically, Franciscan efforts to re-imagine Cholula’s past into a Catholic present ensured the continuity of its centuries-old spiritual and political dominance in the region – rivaling even the recently-founded Spanish city of Puebla – albeit as a Nahua-Christian city. iii The dissertation of Verónica Anne Gutiérrez is approved. Teo Ruiz Robin Derby Charlene Villaseñor Black Kevin Terraciano, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Signature Page iv Acknowledgments viii Vita xi Introduction: (Un)Godly Geography: The Old World Meets the New 1 The Sacred Landscape of a Medieval Fool: Francis and the Re-Claiming of Outdoors 3 Sacred Landscape in Mesoamerica: The Pyramid-Mountain 6 This Study 12 Related Studies and Sources 16 Archives and Abbreviations 27 Chapter One: Constructing the Sacred Landscape of the Plumed Serpent: From Great Pyramid to Great Temple 28 Ancient Cholollan 29 Classic Cholollan (~200AD-900AD): The Tlachihualtepetl 31 Cholollan in the Archeological Record 33 Cholollan as Sacred Landscape 35 First Spiritual Re-Mapping: Tolteca-Chichimeca Conquest in Postclassic Cholollan 41 The Arrival of the Spaniards: The 1519 Cholula Massacre 49 Cholollan’s Introduction to a New Spirituality: The Franciscans Arrive in New Spain 58 v Chapter Two: Re-Mapping a Holy City: The Sons of St. Francis Meet the Sons of Quetzalcoatl 64 After the Massacre: Cholula in the 1520s 67 Becoming San Pedro Cholula: The Sons of St. Francis Move Into Town 73 Building the City of Angels: Cholulteca Labor in the New Spanish City 79 “We Will Build our Homes in the Spanish Style:” The Hispanization of Cholula 85 “Because there are friars among us:” Capitalizing on Franciscan Presence in Cholula 92 Concluding Thoughts 101 Chapter Three: A Complex for Evangelization: Cholula’s Franciscan Convento as the “New Rome” of New Spain 103 Christendom in the 1520s: The Sack of Old Rome and the Founding of a “New Rome” 104 “The World is Growing Old:” The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans 108 From the Pope San Pedro to the Archangel San Gabriel: Renaming Cholula’s Convento 112 Recycling Quetzalcoatl’s Sacred Stones: Cholula’s Convento Takes Shape 115 Fortified Faith, Turrets of Truth: The Convento as Eschatological Landscape 122 “They Form a Path Like Ants:” Religious Fervor Among the Cholulteca 131 “Not fit to govern, but to be governed:” The Silvery Winter of the Franciscans 137 Concluding Thoughts 140 Chapter Four: “Que me entierren con el hábito del bienaventurado San Francisco:” Franciscan Spiritual Economy in late Sixteenth-Century Spanish- Indigenous Cholula 142 The Cholula Corpus 143 The Art of Dying in Sixteenth-Century Spain 144 Spanish Burial Dress 147 vi Spanish Burial Location 149 Case Study: A Nahua Woman Negotiates a Medieval Spanish Death Ritual 151 Doña María’s Death Bed Narrative 153 The Art of Dying in Sixteenth-Century San Pedro Cholula, New Spain 156 Nahuatl Testaments 157 Nahua Funeral Ritual 160 Concluding Thoughts 162 Conclusion: Nahua-Christianity in the Land of the Plumed Serpent: La Procesión de los Faroles in San Pedro Cholula, August 31, 2007 165 Notes 178 Appendix A: Franciscan Friaries in the Bishopric of Tlaxcala, c. 1585 231 Bibliography 233 vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I begin this list of thanks with the members of my dissertation committee: Professors Kevin Terraciano, Teo Ruiz, and Robin Derby of the History Department, and Professor Charlene Villaseñor Black of the Department of Art History. I especially thank Kevin for taking a chance and accepting into the Latin American history program a creative writer from Penn State who displayed an enthusiastic, albeit amateur, interest in colonial Mexico; from the moment we met at the American Historical Association in Washington DC in 2004 I knew we would have a good working relationship, and indeed he has ushered me through the program with not only his insight, but also, and more importantly, with his friendship. Under Kevin’s guidance I transitioned into a Latin American historian, or more to the point, I have become a creative writer-historian. I am especially grateful that he completed final edits on my dissertation during a research trip to Oaxaca with his wife and children. Teo has proven a mentor more dedicated than I could have imagined: unraveling the mysteries of medieval history, writing countless letters of recommendation, rejoicing in my successes, counseling me as I navigated the job market, and – a trait of which I am most in awe – responding to emails almost before I write them. Robin proved a warm and welcoming neighbor when I first moved to Los Angeles; whether babysitting her boys, meeting in her office, or attending parties she hosted for the Latin American cohort in her home, in our interactions she has always been a gracious mentor to me, and indeed to all the female graduate students in the program. It was Charlene who introduced me to the discipline of art history and to the rich contributions in her field relating to my project; I have benefited from her meticulous scholarship as well as her shared interest in religion in New Spain. I would also like to thank Professor John Frederick Schwaller, who despite his time-consuming administrative duties as university chancellor and then university president, always had a free moment to respond to my queries, attend my conference presentations, and provide generous feedback; he also put me in touch with Franciscan historian Jack Clark Robinson, OFM, who, in serving as commentator on an AHA panel helped me re-think my research project. I am grateful as well to fray Francisco Morales, OFM, for hosting me in Cholula during my Fulbright year and for overseeing my first forays into the Mexican archives; his perpetual cheerfulness more closely resembled the warmth of a beloved tio than that of an academic mentor. As a renowned scholar and current Provincial of the Holy Gospel Province founded in 1524, he is the Motolinía of his day and it is an honor to know him and to be known by him. My friends at the various archives in Puebla facilitated the completion of my work and made bearable the tedious hours of transcribing, especially Toni at the Archivo de Notarías and Rubén Goque Barreda at the Archivo Ayuntamiento Municipal de Puebla. My experience in Mexico was also greatly enhanced by the generosity of fray Miguel Ángel Berrocali, OFM, who allowed me to reside in a Franciscan guest house in Cholula free of charge for two summers, and then at a reasonable rate during my Fulbright year. The friendships I forged with my Mexican student- roommates are ones that I continue to cherish. viii I must thank Professor Matthew Restall, since without his encouragement at Penn State I may never have ventured into the field of history, since I had, after all, spent seven years training to be a writer. For perceiving a budding historian hidden beneath the veneer of a Creative Nonfiction graduate student I will be forever grateful. Long ago as an undergraduate creative writing student at the University of San Francisco I took a U.S. History course with Professor Jeffrey Burns; little did I know that we would re-connect years later over our shared interest in Franciscans.