[1099] Quaritch, who in his Catalogue of 1870 (no. 259, sub 376) advertised for £105 the original manuscripts of three at least of these councils (1555, 1565, 1585), intimates that they never were returned into the Ecclesiastical Archives after Lorenzana had used them in preparing an edition of the Proceedings of these Councils which he published in 1769 and 1770,—Concilios provinciales de México,—though in the third, and perhaps in the first, he had translated apparently his text from the Latin published versions. Bancroft describes these manuscripts in his Mexico, ii. 685. The Acts of the First Council had been printed (1556) before Lorenzana; but the book was suppressed, and the Acts of the Third Council had been printed in 1622 in Mexico, and in 1725 at Paris. The Acts of the Third also appeared in 1859 at Mexico with other documents. The readiest source for the English reader of the history of the measures for the conversion of the Indians and for the relation of the Church to the civil authorities in New Spain are sundry chapters (viii., xix., etc.) in Bancroft’s Central America, and others (ix., xix., xxxi., xxxii.) in his Mexico. (Cf. references in Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., p. 209.) The leading Spanish authorities are Torobio Motolinia, Mendieta, and Torquemada, all characterized elsewhere. Alonso Fernandez’ Historia eclesiástica de nuestros tiempos (Toledo, 1611) is full in elucidation of the lives of the friars and of their study of the native tongues. (Cf. Rich, 1832, £2 2s.; Quaritch, 1870, £5; Bancroft, Mexico, ii. 190.) Gil Gonzales Davila’s Teatro eclesiástico de la primitiva Iglesia de las Indias (Madrid, 1649-1655) is more important and rarer (Quaritch, 1870, £8 8s.; Rosenthal, Munich, 1884, for 150 marks; Bancroft, Mexico, ii. 189). Of Las Casas and his efforts, see the preceding chapter in the present volume.
The Orders of friars are made the subject of special treatment in Bancroft’s Mexico. The Franciscans were the earliest to arrive, coming, in response to the wish of Cortés, in 1524. There are various histories of their labors,—Francisco Gonzaga’s De origine seraphicæ religionis Franciscanæ, Rome, 1587 (Carter-Brown, i. 372); sections of Torquemada and the fourth part of Vetancour’s Teatro Mexicano, Mexico, 1697-1698; Francisco Vasquez’ Chronica ... de Guatemala, 1714; Espinosa’s Chronica apostolica, 1746 (Sabin, vi. 239; Carter-Brown, iii. 827), etc. Of the Dominicans we have Antonio de Remesal’s Historia de la S. Vincent de Chyapa, Madrid, 1619 (Bancroft, Central America, ii. 339, 736), and Davilla Padilla’s Santiago de México, mentioned in the text. Of the Augustinian friars there is Juan de Grijalva’s Cronica, Mexico, 1624. Of the books on the Jesuits who came late (1571, etc.), there is a note in Bancroft’s Mexico, iii. 447, showing as of chief importance Francisco de Florencia’s Compañia de Jesus (Mexico, 1694), while the subject was taken up under the same title by Francisco Javier Alegre, who told the story of their missions from 1566 in Florida to 1765. The manuscript of this work was not printed till Bustamante edited it in 1841.
The legend or belief in our Lady of Guadalupe gives a picturesque and significant coloring to the history of missions in Mexico, since from the day of her apparition the native worship, it is said, steadily declined. It is briefly thus: In 1531 a native who had received a baptismal name of Juan Diego, passing a hill neighboring to the city of Mexico, was confronted by a radiant being who announced herself as the Virgin Mary, and who said that she wished a church to be built on the spot. The native’s story, as he told it to the Bishop, was discredited, until some persons sent to follow the Indian saw him disappear unaccountably from sight.
It was now thought that witchcraft more than a heavenly interposition was the cause, until, again confronting the apparition, Diego was bidden to take some roses which the Lady had handled and carry them in his mantle to the Bishop, who would recognize them as a sign. When the garment was unrolled, the figure of the Virgin was found painted in its folds, and the sign was accepted. A shrine was soon erected, as the Lady had wished; and here the holy effigy was sacredly guarded, until it found a resting-place in what is thought to be the richest church in Mexico, erected between 1695 and 1709; and there it still is. It has been at times subjected to some ecclesiastical scrutiny, and there have been some sceptics and cavillers. Cf. Bancroft, Mexico, ii. 407, and authorities there cited. Lorenzana in his Cartas pastorales (1770) has given a minute account of the painting (Carter-Brown, vol. iii. no. 1,749; Sabin, vol, xii. no. 56,199; and the Coleccion de obras pertenecientes a la milagrosa aparicion de Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe).
[1100] Carter-Brown, i. 496; Bancroft, Mexico, iii. 723. There is a copy in Harvard College Library. There were later editions at Brussels in 1625 (Carter-Brown, ii. 300; Stevens, Historical Collection, i. 177), and again at Valladolid in 1634 as Varia historia de la Nueva España y Florida, segunda impresion (Carter-Brown, ii. 412).
[1101] We read in the 1596 edition (p. 670) that one Juan Pablos was the first printer in Mexico, who printed, as early as 1535, a religious manual of Saint John Climachus. The book, however, is not now known (Sabin, vi. 229), and there is no indisputable evidence of its former existence; though a similar story is told by Alonzo Fernandez in his Historia eclesiástica (Toledo, 1611), and by Gil Gonzales Davila in his Teatro eclesiástico (Madrid, 1649),—who gives, however, the date as 1532. The Teatro is of further interest for the map of the diocese of Michoacan and for the arms of the different dioceses. It is in two volumes, and is worth from thirty to forty dollars.
The subject of early printing in Mexico has been investigated by Icazbalceta in the Diccionario universal de historia y de geografia, v. 961 (published in Mexico in 1854), where he gives a list of Mexican imprints prior to 1600 (Carter-Brown, i. 129, 130). A similar list is given in connection with an examination of the subject by Harrisse in his Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 232. Mr. John Russell Bartlett gives another list (1540 to 1600) in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, i. 131, and offers other essays on the subject in the Historical Magazine, November, 1858, and February, 1865, and again in the new edition of Thomas’s History of Printing (Worcester, 1875), i. 365, appendix.
The earliest remaining example of the first Mexican press which we have is a fragmentary copy of the Manual de adultos of Cristóbal Cabrera, which was originally discovered in the Library of Toledo, whence it disappeared, to be again discovered by Gayangos on a London bookstall in 1870. It is supposed to have consisted of thirty-eight leaves, and the printed date of Dec. 13, 1540, is given on one of the leaves which remain (Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 232; Additions, no. 123, with fac-similes, of which a part is given in the Carter-Brown Catalogue, i. 131). Harrisse, perhaps, is in error, as Quaritch affirms (Ramirez Collection, 1880, no. 339), in assigning the same date, 1540, to an edition of the Doctrina Christiana found by him at Toledo; and there seem to have been one or two other books issued by Cromberger (Catalogue Andrade, nos. 2,366, 2,367, 2,369, 2,477) before we come to an acknowledged edition of the Doctrina Cristiana—which for a long time was held to be the earliest Mexican imprint—with the date of 1544. It is a small volume of sixty pages, “impressa en México, en casa de Juan Cromberger” (Rich, 1832, no. 14; Sabin, vol. iv, no. 16,777; Carter-Brown, i. 134, with fac-similes of title; Bookworm, 1867, p. 114; Quaritch, no. 321, sub 12,551). Of the same date is Dionisio Richel’s Compendio breve que tracta a’ la manera de como se hā de hazer las processiones, also printed, as the earlier one was, by command of Bishop Zumarraga, this time with a distinct date,—“Año de M. D. xliiij.” A copy which belonged to the Emperor Maximilian was sold in the Andrade sale (no. 2,667), and again in the Brinley sale (no. 5,317). Quaritch priced Ramirez’ copy in 1880 at £52.
The lists above referred to show eight separate issues of the Mexican press before 1545. Icazbalceta puts, under 1548, the Doctrina en Mexicano as the earliest instance known of a book printed in the native tongue. Up to 1563, with the exception of a few vocabularies and grammars of the languages of the country, of the less than forty books which are known to us, nearly all are of a theological or devotional character. In that year (1663) Vasco de Puga’s Collection of Laws—Provisiones, cédulas, instrucciones de su Majestad—was printed (Quaritch, Ramirez Collection, 1880, no. 236, £30). Falkenstein in his Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst (Leipsic, 1840) has alleged, following Pinelo and others, that a Collection of Laws—Ordinationes legumque collectiones—was printed in 1649; but the existence of such a book is denied. Cf. Thomas, History of Printing, i. 372; Harrisse, Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 288.
[1102] Quaritch, Ramirez Collection (1880), no. 28, £15; Sabin, vol. 1. no. 3,349; Carter-Brown, iii. 893; Rich, Bibl. Nova Amer. (1835), p. 95; Stevens, Bibliotheca historica, no. 126; Leclerc, no. 50,—400 francs; Field, Indian Bibliography, no. 79.