Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "De Propaganda Fide" in Rome, 1622.1799
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Guide to Documents Relating to French and British North America in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" in Rome, 1622.1799 Luca Codignola National Archives Archives nationales 1+1 of Canada du Canada Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Codigno1a, Luca, 1947- Guide to documents relating to French and British North America in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" in Rome, 1622-1799 Issued also in French under title: Guide des documents re1atifs a l' Amerique du Nord fran~aise et ang1aise dans les archives de 1a Sacree Congregation de 1a Propagande a Rome, 1622-1799. Includes index. Includes bibliographical references: p. 83 DSS cat. no. SA2-214/1991E ISBN 0-660-13758-5 1. Catholic Church--Canada--History--Archiva1 resources. 2. Canada--Church history--Archival resources. 3. Canada--History--Archiva1 rsources. 4. Catholic Church. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide--Archives. I. Catholic Church. Congregatio de Propaganda Fide. II. National Archives of Canada. III. Title. BX1421.2.C62 1991 282'.71 C91-099200-2 This publication is printed on alkaline paper. National Archives of Canada 395 Wellington Street Ottawa, Ontario KiA ON3 (613) 995-5138 @Minister of Supply and Services Canada 1991 Cat. No.: SA2.214/1991E ISBN: 0-660-13758-5 Printed in Canada TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE v FOREWORD vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ix ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS xi I. ROME AND NORTH AMERICA, 1622.1799: THE INTERPRETIVE FRAMEWORK 1 1. A Newfoundland Example 1 2. The Seventeenth Century 2 3. The Structures of the New World 5 4. The Eighteenth Century 8 5. An Age of Revolutions 12 6. Conclusions 15 ll. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PROPAGANDA AND ITS JURISDICTION 25 ill. THE ARCHIVES OF PROPAGANDA 29 1. Acta 29 2. SOCG 31 3. Fondo Vienna 33 4. Infornaazioni 33 5. Istruzioni 34 6. Miscellanee Diverse, Miscellanee Generali, Miscellanee Varie 34 7. Udienze 34 8. Decreti 35 9. Brevi e Bolle 35 10. Congregazioni Particolari 35 11. Lettere 36 12. Congressi 37 IV. ARCHIVISTS, mSTORIANS, AND THE ARCHIVES OF PROPAGANDA 41 1. Guides and Finding Aids 41 2. Calendars and Inventories 42 3. Studies 46 V. OTHER ROMAN ARCHIVES AND LffiRARIES 63 1. Archivio Segreto Vaticano 63 2. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana 64 3. Biblioteca Casanatense 65 4. Biblioteca Vallicelliana 65 5. Biblioteca Dell'Accademia dei Lincei e Corsini ana 65 6. Archivio di Stato di Roma 65 iii 7. Biblioteca Nazionale Vittorio Emanuele II 65 8. Archives of the Religious Orders 66 VI. METHODS EMPLOYED IN THE PREPARATION OF THE CALENDAR 69 VII. HOW TO USE A STANDARD ENTRY OF THE CALENDAR 75 APPENDIX A - TRANSLATIONS 79 BIBLIOGRAPHY 83 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES IN THE CALENDAR 113 * The Calendar of Documents Relating to French and British North A.merica in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" in Rome, 1622-1799 is available on microfiche. iv PREFACE The National Archives of Canada has always been concerned with protecting religious, or ecclesiastical, archives. Since the late nineteenth century, this institution has been copying documents of this type in various archives across the country and even abroad. In 1977, the Archives decided to conduct, in conjunction with the Research Centre in Religious History of Canada at Saint Paul University, a systematic Calendar of Documents Relating to French and British North America in the Archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" in Rome, 1622-1799. This finding aid is the result of the first phase of the project and provides us with a description of all the items related to the history of French and English North America prior to 1800. Researchers will find it worthwhile to consult this Calendar, which acquaints us with many previously unknown documents. Unfortunately, we were unable to publish the entire Calendar on paper. This guide, which serves as its introduction, provides a history of the Congregation, the organization of its archives, a study of projects carried out by the archivists and historians using documents conserved by this institution, and a description of the methodology used to prepare the Calendar. In addition, the guide provides a bibliography of publications related to the religious history of the period covered and an index to all the proper names mentioned in the Calendar. The Calendar itself is available on microfiche and must be acquired separately from this publication. We would like to express our appreciation to those in charge of the archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide," now called the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, and particularly to Father Joseph Metzler, aMI, fonnerly responsible for these archives and now in charge of the Secret Archives of the Vatican, for enabling us to carry out this project We wish to sincerely thank Mr. Luca Codignola, who carefully went through the series of documents and drew up the Calendar. We are also grateful to Father Pierre Hurtubise, aMI, Director of the Research Centre in Religious History of Canada and Rector of Saint Paul University, and Mr. Victorin Chabot, Chief of the Canadian Society Archives Service, Manuscript Division, at the National Archives of Canada, for coordinating this project We thank the Public Programs Branch for its assistance in producing this guide. And finally, we extend our sincere thanks to Father avila Gadouas, aMI, who translated the Calendar into French. Jean-Pierre Wallot, National Archivist v FOREWORD In June 1977 I read a paper at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Fredericton, New Brunswick. I stressed the importance of the archives of the Sacred Congregation "de Propaganda Fide" for the early history of Canada. When the session was over, its chairman, Robert S. Gordon, who was Director of the Manuscript Division of the (then) Public Archives of Canada, asked me whether I would be willing to prepare a calendar of documents of interest to the history of North America preserved in the archives of Propaganda. It was not that he was suddenly persuaded by what I had said. In fact, for a number of years the Public Archives of Canada had been looking for an opportunity to systematically investigate the Roman archives. I subsequently met with Victorin Chabot, then Chief of the French Archives Section, and on 1 October 1977 started to work on the Calendar. It took seven years to complete this project. I must admit that this is somewhat longer than I had expected. There are two main reasons for this. The first is that. luckily enough, the documents of Propaganda touching upon North America in the years 1622-1799 were many more than I had foreseen. Secondly, the real work began after a document was located. Reading the documents was usually not much of a problem. What I found difficult, and certainly time-consuming, was checking the documents against all known printed sources and the available historical literature, cross-referencing it with other documents preserved in other archival series, and fmding supporting data (facts, individuals and dates) that were often implied in the text but very rarely explicitly stated. During these years, curiosity led me to a number of archives in Europe and in North America where I consulted other documents, learned the origins and outcomes of some stories I had discovered in Propaganda, and came to know better some of the personalities mentioned in the documents. What I found gratifying in this work was not only the thrill of using sources that very few people in the world had ever touched, let alone used, but also the realization that this was not "just religious history." There was much more -- so many events, stories and people. As a historian, though, this abundance created a theoretical problem. Henry James said "The historian, essentially, wants more documents than he can really use." It is all too easy to use this new documentation to shed light on a particular topic. But what if one wants to use them all in comprehensive fashion? Notwithstanding James's epigram, I have tried to introduce readers to the documents that I have calendared not only by giving them "technical" information about Propaganda, its archives and its history, but also by including an interpretive guide dealing with the various aspects of the relationship between the Holy See and North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a rather difficult task to acknowledge the help received from all the friends, colleagues, scholars and institutions who supported me throughout the production of the Calendar. For their continuous support during these several years, I wish to thank first of all my friends and teachers William J. Eccles (University of Toronto), Raimondo Luraghi (Universita di Genova), Tiziano Bonazzi (Universita di Bologna), Piero Del Negro (Universita di Padova), Cornelius J. Jaenen (University of Ottawa), Pierre Savard (Universite d'Ottawa) and Giorgio Spini (Universita di Firenze). It was thanks to the joint effort of the National Archives of Canada and Saint Paul University (Ottawa) that this project was initiated. Having these friends and colleagues in Ottawa lent a sense of teamwork to the project. In particular I wish to thank Robert S. Gordon and Victorin Chabot of the National Archives of Canada, and Pierre Hurtubise of Saint Paul University. Ovila Gadouas translated the preliminary version into French, as it appeared in microfiche in October 1983. He was much more than a simple translator. We discussed and examined each entry together, and he was able to make several improvements. His untimely death on 17 July 1984 prevented him from seeing this project through to its completion. Josef Metzler was recently appointed Archivist of the Vatican Secret Archives. While I was preparing the Calendar, however, he was the archivist of Propaganda.