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 to the Spanish ambassador at Roma

The King. To the illustrious Marqués de Castel Rodrigo, my cousin, member of my Council, and ambassador in Roma: the bearer, Fray Mateo de Villa, of the Order of Preachers, procurator of the province of Santo Rosario of the Filipinas Islands in my Western Yndias, has informed me that his province has a college called Santo Tomas in the city of Manila, of which I am the patron, where there are thirty secular collegiates; that for some years past that college has been a university through royal permission; that bulls have been conceded twice for its conservation; and that grammar, rhetoric, the arts, and moral and scholastic theology are studied there, with especial profit to the children of that community. He petitions me to issue a royal decree authorizing the said college to become a university, with the same qualifications and [right of] perpetuity as the others of his order in the convents of Santo Tomas in Avila and Santiago at Pamplona, in these same kingdoms. The matter having been examined by the members of my royal Council of the Yndias, in consideration that the city of Manila of the Filipinas Islands is more than three thousand leguas from the nearest universities—namely, those of Lima and Megico—and that the said university suffers some restriction, I have considered it fitting to lend my royal consent for this case; and this concession shall continue, for the present. Consequently, if in the future there should be a disposition to found a separate university, it may be done, as in the cities of Lima and Megico, so that it may be a general university, in order that students may be graduated from it in all branches, and that its degrees may be recognized everywhere. Accordingly, I charge and order you in my name, and in virtue of the letter of credit that I am writing, to supplicate his Holiness to be pleased to concede a bull, so that the said college may be a university with the same qualifications and [right of] perpetuity as those of Avila, Santiago, Lima, and Megico; for there is not a university of that rank in those islands and provinces, and this is therefore expedient for my service and the general welfare of those regions. You shall give the matter the care that I expect from you, so that the said bull may be immediately drawn up; and therein you will render me a service. Madrid, November nine, 1639.

I the King

By order of the king our sovereign:

Don Graviel de Ocaña y Alarcon

Signed by the members of the Council.

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