Copyright by Cornelius Burroughs Conover V 2008
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Copyright by Cornelius Burroughs Conover V 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Cornelius Burroughs Conover V certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: A SAINT IN THE EMPIRE: MEXICO CITY’S SAN FELIPE DE JESUS, 1597-1820. Committee: ___________________________________ Ann Twinam, Supervisor ___________________________________ Jorge Canizares-Esguerra ___________________________________ Virginia Garrard-Burnett ___________________________________ Alison Frazier ___________________________________ Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria ________________________________________________________________________ A SAINT IN THE EMPIRE: MEXICO CITY’S SAN FELIPE DE JESUS, 1597-1820. by Cornelius Burroughs Conover V, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin May 2008 Acknowledgments. The completion of this dissertation gives me the opportunity to recognize those who have helped make it possible. I owe thanks to the University of Texas at Austin for the financial wherewithal to support myself while finishing the project. However, the intellectual milieu that the university provided from 2001 to 2007 was, perhaps, more important to my development as a scholar. Without the academic community of professors and fellow students at Texas, this project would never have taken the form it did. I am indebted to Ann Twinam, my dissertation advisor, who read many drafts of the work and who deserves credit for improvements too numerous to elaborate. Special thanks go to Jorge Cañizares as a welcome source of energy, of inspiration and of bold ideas. I am grateful to Alison Frazier for her insistence on preciseness and for her gracious scholarship. For a generation of Latin-Americanist graduate students at Texas, me included, Virginia Burnett has proved that one can, in fact, be both a fine academic and a good person. My gratitude also goes to Enrique Rodriguez-Alegria who dedicated his time and his knowledge into making the final product better. The dissertation, like its author, benefited from the intellectual community and friendship of graduate students at the University of Texas. I have had the good fortune to work with many dedicated professionals in archives and libraries in the United States, Mexico, Spain and Italy. I would like to single out the staffs of the National Archives of Mexico, the Mexico City Cathedral, the Franciscan Ibero-Oriental Archive in Madrid and the Benson Library at the University of Texas for their expertise and for their good-natured assistance. iv It is a distinct pleasure of academic life to forge friendships in communities where we work. Marta Terán facilitated my academic pursuits in Mexico City and mulled over early ideas for the dissertation with me. At critical stages of my academic career, Carlos Marichal and Sandra Kuntz-Ficker have provided both intellectual advice and personal support. Thanks to the Colegio de México and to the Dirección de Estudios Históricos of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia for sponsoring me as a visiting scholar. For my family, these short lines cannot fully express my gratitude. My parents, Neal and Kitty Conover, merit special thanks for years of steadfast encouragement. I am grateful to my children, Claire and Erich, who kept my life in balance by forcing me to put work into its proper perspective. More than anyone else, my wife, Monica, deserves heartfelt thanks for her help, patience and constant cheerfulness through the rigors and uncertainties of the academic life. Without her, this project would never have seen the light of day. Finally, I extend a sincere thank you to the historical subjects in the dissertation, especially to San Felipe. I have tried to approach your lives with sensitivity and understanding. However, if you think that this is not the case, please do not tell me in person. v A SAINT IN THE EMPIRE: MEXICO CITY’S SAN FELIPE DE JESUS, 1597-1820 Publication No. __________________ Cornelius Burroughs Conover V, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2008 Supervisor: Ann Twinam Spanish monarchs ruled a global empire encompassing millions of colonial subjects for nearly three hundred years. One key factor in the longevity of the Spanish Empire was its skillful integration of elements from an even longer-lasting, centralized institution—the Catholic Church. Through a focus on San Felipe de Jesús, a Mexico City-born saint, this dissertation analyzes the pious imperialism of the Spanish Empire in the Catholic missions of Japan, the politics of beatification in Rome and local devotions in Mexico City. Funded by Philip II, Spanish missionaries spread across the Atlantic and then to the Pacific. The mission of Spanish Franciscans in Japan including San Felipe exemplified the orthodox and expansionistic tendencies of this movement. The friars’ uncompromising zeal caused them to reject Japanese society and authority, something which led to their executions in 1597. Spanish subjects thrilled to the martyrs’ inspiring vi story and supported their beatification cause. The Spanish king, too, actively promoted new holy figures in Rome for political and pious reasons. During the seventeenth century, more than half of the new beatified or canonized holy figures came from the Spanish Empire, including the Nagasaki martyrs. As each new saint earned a feast in liturgy, worship in Spanish territories began to disseminate not only Catholic values, but also divine favor toward the Spanish Empire and its monarch. The liturgical schedule of colonial Mexico City shows that Spanish Catholicism projected both Church and Empire across the Atlantic. As the Catholic Church had found, cults to saints formed effective imperial ties because they could also attract and adapt. Civic and religious leaders in Mexico City molded the cult to San Felipe to express municipal pride, to assert the city’s place in the Spanish Empire and to commemorate its contributions to Catholicism. Devotions to saints, then, captured the potentially-divisive power of identity to reinforce Empire and Church. Pious imperialism worked well until Bourbon-era reforms distanced the Spanish monarch from the devotional culture in Mexico City and interrupted the mediating power of saints’ cults. The Spanish Empire was less able to withstand shocks like the political instability of the early nineteenth century. vii Table of Contents. Abbreviations…………………………………………………………………………...ix Prologue: the life of San Felipe………………………………………………………….1 Chapter 1. Introduction…………………………………………………………………11 Chapter 2. Spain’s Discalced Franciscan mission in Japan, 1593-1596……………….32 Chapter 3. Dying in a Japanese Jerusalem……………………………………………..73 Chapter 4. Beatification and the politics of piety……………………………………..111 Chapter 5. San Felipe de Jesús, a saint in the Catholic Empire………………………163 Chapter 6. Mid-colonial doldrums: the mature cult of San Felipe, 1680-1740………202 Chapter 7. Bourbons and Breviaries: Spanish regalism versus San Felipe…………..244 Chapter 8. San Felipe and the end of colonialism……………………………………283 Chapter 9. Conclusion………………………………………………………………..324 Appendix 1. Nagasaki martyrs of 1597……………………………………………... 332 Appendix 2. Beatification testimony, 1595-98……………………………………….333 Appendix 3. Apostolic trial, 1620-25………………………………………………...342 Appendix 4. Publications dealing with the Nagasaki martyrs, 1599-1617…………..345 Appendix 5. Beatifications, canonizations and confirmation of cults, 1480-1820…..348 Appendix 6. Mexico City Council expenditures on patron saints……………………354 Appendix 7. Reform of the liturgy: Fourth Mexican Provincial Council, 1771……..356 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………..358 Vita……………………………………………………………………………………378 viii Abbreviations. ACCM Archivo Histórico de la Catedral de México, Mexico City AFH Archivo Franciscanum Historicum AFSE Archivo de la Curia Provincial Franciscana Santo Evangelio, Mexico City AHAM Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de México, Mexico City AHBNAH Archivo Histórico de la Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia, Mexico City AHCM Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México AGI Archivo General de Indias, Seville AGN Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico AIA Archivo Ibero-Americano ASV Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Rome BLAC Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas at Austin BR Blair, Emma H. and James A. Robertson, eds. The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803. 55 vols. Cleveland: The A. H. Clark Company, 1903-1909. EESS Archivo de la Embajada de España, frente a la Santa Sede en el Archivo Cancillería de España, Madrid HAHR Hispanic American Historical Review RAHM Real Academia de Historia de Madrid ix Prologue: the life of San Felipe. Early in 2002, I stumbled upon the story of San Felipe de Jesus in the Nettie Lee Benson library at the University of Texas. What drew me first into this project of years were not the academic ramifications or analytical possibilities, but rather the charming story of a ne’er-do-well saint. Despite the best intentions of his biographers, it was apparent that Felipe was a fine young lad from Mexico City with few religious credentials before he was martyred by mistake in Japan. As with traditional studies of saints, I resolved to substantiate these hagiographic elements with archival sources and to analyze changes over time. Some of those results appear below. Very quickly though, I began to realize the main attraction was not San Felipe, but the institution