[1] The title-pages of La Concepción’s fourteen volumes show more or less difference in their wording. Following is a translation of the title of vol. iv, a facsimile of which is here presented: “General history of Philipinas: temporal and spiritual conquests of these Spanish dominions, their establishment, progress, and decadence; comprehending the empires, kingdoms, and provinces of islands and continents with which there has been communication and commerce by immediate coincidences, with general notices regarding geography, hydrography, natural history, politics, customs, and religions, in which so universal a title should be interested. By father Fray Juan de la Concepcion, discalced Augustinian Recollect, pensioned lecturer, ex-provincial, synodal examiner of the archbishopric of Manila, and chronicler of his province of San Nicolas of the Philipinas islands. Volume IV. With permission of the superiors. At Manila, in the printing office of the royal and conciliar seminary of San Carlos; printed by Agustin de la Rosa y Balagtas. Year of 1788.”
[2] A term applied to the gun-room on a ship, which was considered as under the protection of St. Barbara.
[3] The Armenian church was founded by St. Gregory, who was consecrated bishop of Armenia in the year 302 A.D. Owing to a misunderstanding, this church refused to accept the decisions of the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.) regarding certain questions of heresies, which led to its gradual separation from the Greek church. In the middle of the fifteenth century arose dissensions, which resulted in a schism; these were mainly occasioned by Roman Catholic missionaries who endeavored to proselytize the Armenians to the doctrine, liturgy, and ceremonies of the Roman church, to which they gained many adherents. This led to dissensions and persecutions, which continued until, in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Armenian patriarch secured the intervention of Peter the Great, and the protection of the Russian church, under which that of Armenia has since remained.
[4] The Order of the Carmelites was founded by a crusader named Berthold, in the middle of the twelfth century. Some time after becoming a monk in Calabria he went to Mount Carmel, where he was joined by various other hermits living there in solitude. They adopted the rule of life framed for them by Albert, patriarch of Jerusalem, which consisted of sixteen articles. These forbade the possession of property; ordered that each hermit should live in a cell by himself; interdicted meat; recommended manual labor and silence; and imposed a strict fast from the exaltation of the cross to Easter, Sundays being excepted. The hermits were compelled to abandon Mount Carmel by the advance of the Mahomedan power, and established themselves in Cyprus, and other places. In Europe they were compelled to live in common and mitigate their rule, and they became known as one of the mendicant orders. In England, where they became very numerous, they were called the “White Friars.” To St. Simon Stock, the first general, the Virgin is said to have shown the scapular in a vision. The order became divided into two branches, according to whether they observed the strict or the mitigated rule, being designated as Observatines and Conventuals. The Carmelite nuns were first instituted by John Soreth, general of the order in the fifteenth century. See Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary, pp. 120–122.
[5] Gregorio de Santa Catalina, who had gone to Rome with twelve religious to urge the support of the pope for the Recollects.
[6] “Fray Miguel de Santa Maria, with his seven companions, arrived at Tandág in the year 1622” (Provincia de S. Nicolás de Tolentino, p. 276).
[7] A letter dated May 22, 1904, from father Fray Eduardo Navarro, O.S.A., Valladolid, Spain, who spent many years in the Philippines, thus defines several terms as used in the islands. Pueblo [“town” or “village”] is to be understood in its usual significance. But beside the pueblo proper, where are established the church, parochial house, and city hall, all the pueblos have, at a greater or less distance, groups of a greater or less number of houses. If they belong to Christians, they are called barrios [“suburbs”], and have a distinctive name; if of infidels, they are called rancherías [“a collection of huts”] of such and such a chief.
[8] i.e., “at the entrance to the church;” said of marriages duly performed with church rites.
[9] “Strictly speaking, then, the work of the redemption of those islanders [in Mindanao] belongs to the Jesuits and the Recollects. The latter commenced their labors by virtue of an arrangement made in the year 1622, by the bishop of Cebú, Very Reverend Father Fray Pedro de Arce—agreed upon with the captain-general of the archipelago, who was then the famous Don Alonso Fajardo de Tenza. Their first enterprises were on the northern and eastern coasts of Mindanao, as well as in the adjacent islets of Dinagat, Camiguin, and Siargao. In the year 1631, the ninth of their evangelizing work, the Recollect fathers suffered painful but glorious losses; for six of those missionaries were martyred by the inhabitants of the island.” (Retana and Pastells, in their edition of Combés’s Historia de Mindanao, col. 788.)
[10] River and pueblo of same name in the province of Misamis, in northern Mindanao; the river falls into the bay of Macajalar.