The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 29 of 55, 1638–40 / Explorations by Early Navigators, Descriptions of the Islands and Their Peoples, Their History and Records of the Catholic Missions, as Related in Contemporaneous Books and Manuscripts, Showing the Political, Economic, Commercial and Religious Conditions of Those Islands from Their Earliest Relations with European Nations to the Close of the Nineteenth Century

by Unknown

Letter from Felipe IV to Urban VIII

Most Holy Father:

I am writing to my ambassador, in that court, the marqués de Castel Rodrigo, to petition your Holiness in my name to concede a bull, so that a college of the Order of Preachers in the city of Manila of the Philipinas Islands, in my Western Yndias, may become a university, with the qualifications and [right of] perpetuity of the others which that order possesses in Avila and Pamplona in these my kingdoms, as well as those of Lima and Megico; and so that, if there be a disposition to found a separate university in the city of Manila, it may be done, because there is a distance of three thousand leguas to the other nearest universities, which are Lima and Megico. I petition your Holiness to grant him audience, and to give entire credit to what he shall say about this matter and propose in my name; and that you order his affair to be despatched with all promptness and with entire fulfilment [of the petition]. Thereby I shall receive a special favor from your Holiness, whose very holy person may our Lord preserve, and may He increase your life for the good and prosperous government of His universal Church. Madrid, November nine, 1639.

[Endorsed: “College of Santo Tomas of Manila. To his Holiness, petitioning him to concede a brief so that the college of Santo Tomas of Manila of the Order of Preachers may become a university. Duplicate.”]