UNIFICATION and CONFLICT the Church Politics Of
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STUDIA MISSIONALIA SVECANA LXXXVI UNIFICATION AND CONFLICT The Church Politics of Alonso de Montúfar OP, Archbishop of Mexico, 1554-1572. Magnus Lundberg COPYRIGHT © Magnus Lundberg 2002 Lund University Department of Theology and Religious Studies Allhelgona kyrkogata 8, SE-223 62 Lund, Sweden PRINTED IN SWEDEN BY KFS i Lund AB, Lund 2002 ISSN 1404-9503 ISBN 91-85424-69-2 PUBLISHED AND DISTRIBUTED BY Swedish Institute of Missionary Research P.O. Box 1526 SE-751 45 Uppsala, Sweden 2 Alonso de Montúfar OP The Metropolitan Cathedral, Mexico City. Photo: Magnus Lundberg. 3 Alonso de Montúfar OP Santa Cruz la Real, Granada. Photo: Roberto Travesí. (Huerga 1995:81). 4 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writing of a doctoral dissertation implies many hours of solitary work. This is not least the case if you spend most of your days in the company of a man who died over four hundred years ago, as I have done in the last couple of years. Therefore, I here want to take the opportunity to acknowledge some of the many people who have made my work less lonely and who have helped me in various ways. My first sincere words of acknowledgement are due to my supervisor Dr. Aasulv Lande, Professor of Missiology with Ecumenical Theology at Lund University, who has been an unfailing source of encouragement during my years of undergraduate and graduate studies. In particular I want to thank him for believing in my dissertation project even in the dark periods when I did not do so myself. Likewise, I am especially indebted to Professor emeritus Magnus Mörner, who kindly accepted to become my assistant supervisor. Over the years, he has shared his deep knowledge of colonial Latin America and read earlier versions of my texts. In this context, I also want to express my thankfulness to current and former members of the Graduate Seminar in Missiology, where earlier drafts of this dissertation have been presented. I also would like to thank Dr. Jørgen Nybo Rasmussen for reading and commenting on my licentiate’s dissertation. A special word of acknowledgement is due to Professor Eva Österberg who read the entire final draft of the thesis and made many important suggestions. Likewise, I want to thank my Mexicanist colleague, Dr. Bodil Liljefors-Persson, for her support and advice during my dissertation project. Among my Mexican friends, I want to thank Rev. Dr. Francisco Miranda Godínez of the Colegio de Michoacán in Zamora. Since we met for the first time in Seville in 1999, Dr. Miranda has constantly encouraged me to see Archbishop Montúfar as being one of the key figures in early Mexican church history. He has also read and commented on parts of the thesis. Likewise, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my dear friend Dr. Caterina Pizzigoni of King’s College London, who has read and commented on parts of this thesis and has 5 been an unfailing source of support. While in Mexico I also enjoyed the company of my Mexicanist colleagues, Christoph Rosenmüller and Julia Krause, and my compatriots Helmer Broberg and Josefin Lygner. Dr. Anna Reid (Mexico City) has corrected my English and I owe her particular gratitude for her thorough work. It goes without saying that the responsibility for remaining mistakes and errors are entirely my own. For linguistic services, I also want to acknowledge my old friend Hans-Olof Svensson. At the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Lund, I wish to thank Leif Lindin, librarian and polymath, for conversations on Einar Elg, Titanic, Noël Coward, and many other subjects. I am also indebted to Prof. Gösta Hallonsten, who now has left Lund for the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., for discussions on common interests such as Winnie-the-Pooh, angels, and independent bishops. When I was still living in Lund, I enjoyed many cups of coffee and quite a few cigars, and not least uncountable hours of more or less memorable discussions at the Café at the University Library. Among the faithful guests around the table during this time were PhD Candidate David Dunér, PhD Candidate Måns J. Molin (now in Copenhagen), Litterateur Pierre Nilsson (now in Eksjö), and Professor emeritus Sven- Anders Söderpalm. These men have enriched my life with their insights on such diverse themes as German and Swedish naturism; Romanian literature and language; spirals in the thinking of Emanuel Swedenborg; Rorty, Gadamer and the hermeneutics of economy; as well as Crusenstolpe and Schartauanism. Ever since I moved from Lund to Stockholm in 1999, I have had the privilege of being invited to stay in the homes of a number of friends in Lund, Malmö, and Copenhagen during my many visits to the Southern Provinces. I sincerely thank them all for their hospitality and for many excellent dinners. Here in Stockholm, I have very much enjoyed the friendship and companionship of the members of Sällskapet Emil Hildebrands Vänner, a society for archivists in the Stockholm region, which has been an unfailing source of joy. The work for this dissertation has meant that I have spent long periods in archives and libraries abroad, in particular in Spain (1998, 1999, 2001) and Mexico (2000-2001). In Spain, I would like to thank the staff at the Archivo General de Indias, the Library of the Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos and the Dominican fathers of Santo Tomás de Aquino in Seville. In Madrid, I want to thank the staff at the Archivo 6 Histórico Nacional, the Biblioteca Nacional, and the library of the Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas (CSIC). In Granada, I wish to acknowledge the staff at the Archivo Histórico Universitario and the Dominican fathers at Santa Cruz la Real. In Mexico, I want to thank the helpful staff at the Archivo General de la Nación, the Archivo Historico del Arzobispado de México, the Archivo del Cabildo Metropolitano de México, the Biblioteca Nacional, the Instituto de Investigaciones Historicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, and the Biblioteca Lorenzo Boturini of the Basilica of Guadalupe, all in Mexico City. Apart from these institutions in Spain and Mexico, I also want to acknowledge the staff at the Bancroft Library of the University of California at Berkeley, the Benson Latin American collection of the University of Texas at Austin, the Bibliotèque Nationale in Paris, and the Archivio Segreto Vaticano. At home, in Sweden, I want to thank the staff at Lund University Library, the Royal Library in Stockholm, the Library of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies in Lund, the Library of the Dominican Fathers in Lund, and the Library of the Institute of Latin American Studies in Stockholm. It is a well-known fact that research work cannot be done without money. I have been privileged to receive full-time economical support from the Faculty of Theology at Lund University during part of this project, from September 2000 to May 2002, for which I am very grateful. Apart from this full-time employment, various foundations have supported my research and travels: Andreas Rydeliusfonden, Stiftelsen Dagny och Eilert Ekvalls premie- och stipendiefond, and Änkedrottning Josefinas Minnesfond av år 1876. To bring these acknowledgements to an end, I would like to express my profound and sincere gratitude to my parents Björn and Mona Lundberg, and my grandparents Olle and Sonja Osbäck and Greta Lundberg for their unfailing support during my many years of study. Tack för ert helhjärtade stöd under alla studieår! At the same time, I would like to recognise the memory of the late Åke Lundberg, my paternal grandfather, who passed away before the completion of this dissertation. As an only child, I have had the privilege of becoming part of a very large family on the other side of the Atlantic, as I have been informally adopted among more than thirty children and grandchildren, by Don 7 Pastor García of Estelí (Nicaragua). In Estelí, I learnt the grounds of Spanish (or at least Nicaraguan Spanish) in the early 1990s. Since then, I have spent much time together with him, his daughters Zunilda and Carmen, and his grandchildren Edmir Antonio and Eva Karelia. I consider it a privilege to have been able to share their joys and troubles. ¡Que Dios les bendiga siempre! Yet my warmest word of gratitude is due to my beloved wife and dearest friend Annika Berg, whose life and knowledge I have the privilege to share. I sincerely thank her for her support and encouragement during the years. With all my love, I dedicate this study to her. Stockholm and Lund, April 2002. Magnus Lundberg 8 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 11 Montúfar, Mission, and Conflicts 11 The Writing of a Life 19 Questions and Contexts 24 Remarks on Sources 32 The Structure of the Dissertation 37 I. A FRIAR BECOMES ARCHBISHOP 41 Andalusian Background 41 The Making of an Archbishop 48 II. THE SCENE: CHURCH AND MISSION IN NEW SPAIN 55 Conquest and Society 55 The Churchmen 60 Christianisation and Its Limits 67 III. UNIFICATION OF THE MINISTRY: MONTÚFAR, THE PROVINCIAL COUNCILS, AND BEYOND 81 The First Council 1555 81 The Second Council 1565 94 Combating Divergence in the Archdiocese 96 IV. CLASHING JURISDICTIONS: THE ARCHBISHOP, THE FRIARS, AND THE INDIAN MINISTRY 111 Friars, Bishops, and Privileges 111 Montúfar and the Mendicants: Waves of Controversy 115 Privileges at Stake: Argumentation 137 V. INDIAN TITHES: A HARD APPLE OF DISCORD 149 Indian and Tithes: Beginnings 149 A Flurry of Letters: Waves of Controversy 153 God and Caesar: Argumentation 162 VI. A CATHEDRAL DIVIDED: MONTÚFAR AND THE METROPOLITAN CHAPTER 173 Transplantation of an Ecclesiastical Institution 173 Honour, Order, and Divine Cult: Controversies and Arguments 175 Excursus: The Construction of a New Cathedral 194 VII.