[3] The Order of the Holy Trinity was founded primarily by St. John of Matha, a native of Provence who was ordained to the priesthood. On the occasion of his first mass, he determined to devote himself to the redemption of Christian captives from the Mahometans. Retiring for a season of prayer to the cell of the aged French hermit, St. Felix of Valois, the latter approved the plan, and in 1197, they both went to Rome where they obtained the approbation of Pope Innocent III for the erection of a new order. The pope ordered the bishop of Paris and the abbot of St. Victor to draw up the rules for the order, which received papal sanction in 1198. A white habit with a red and blue cross on the breast was assigned as a distinctive dress. It received a new confirmation and additional privileges by a papal bull of 1209. The French monarch Philippe Auguste authorized the existence of the order in his kingdoms, and Gauthier III, lord of Châtillon, granted them land for a convent. Later as the order increased, the latter, seconded by the king, granted them Cerfroid, near Grandlieu, on the borders of Valois, which became the chief house of the order. The two saints founded many houses in France. Many Christian slaves were ransomed in Morocco and Spain. It was a fundamental rule of the order that at least one-third of its revenues should be set aside for the redemption of captives. It was estimated in the seventeenth century that since its foundation the order had ransomed 30,720 Christian captives. At one time there were as many as two hundred and fifty houses. See Baring Gould’s Lives of the Saints, ii, pp. 226–230; and Addis and Arnold’s Catholic Dictionary, p. 810. [↑]
SURVEY OF THE FILIPINAS ISLANDS
[Part I]
[Title-page:] Relation in which, by order of his Catholic Majesty (may God keep him) are set forth the towns, castles, forts, and military posts of the provinces subject to his royal dominion in the Philipinas islands. With sketches of their plans and detailed accounts of the supplies, soldiers, wages, rations, and ammunition, required to maintain them; the annual amount of these, and the product of the incomes and amounts set aside for them from which they are obtained. All these provinces are described, with information not only of essential but of curious matters, with a summary of what they yield for the royal treasury; an account of it is given, with a general résumé of the fixed income and charges of the treasury, drawn up by the field marshal, Don Fernando Valdés Tamón, in whose charge is the government of these islands. In the year 1739.[1]
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE CITY OF MANILA
The island of Luzon (it is also called Nueva Castilla) is the largest of all those which submit to the Catholic crown in this Philippine archipelago. Its figure is that of an arm somewhat doubled, and the latest observations give it three hundred and fifty leguas of circumference, and two hundred leguas of length. Its width cannot be accurately stated, because the land is in some places broad and in others narrow, although it is known that it is longer from the elbow to the shoulder, and in that distance it is noticed that the greatest width is forty-three leguas; and it is about twenty-two leguas from the elbow to the hand of this imaginary arm. In this remotest part, then, of the Spanish domain, in 14° 48′ of northern latitude and 158° 38′ of eastern longitude, is situated Manila,[2] nearly in the middle of its mainland, in the region of the elbow of its [imaginary] figure; and there, as being the capital of all the Spanish possessions in the Philipinas Islands, resides permanently the royal Audiencia with its president the captain-general, the archiepiscopal see, and other tribunals. The number of citizens who distinguish the city is astonishingly small; these are the Spaniards who live within the walls, and in the wards of Binondoc and Santa Cruz, which adjoin it; and although in these places there is an astonishing number of people, I have the idea that they are a contemptible rabble, excepting the small number of the Spaniards. It was June 24, 1571, when Manila was founded, and it recognizes as its founder the adelantado Miguel Lopez de Legazpi—a hero in truth, worthy of the greatest praises for the bravery, judgment, and good fortune by which he was distinguished in these conquests.
The site which this town occupies[3] is a point of land on the shores of the sea, in a bay thirty leguas in circumference; into this falls a river of considerable size, which comes down from a lake distant five leguas from the city on the eastern side—by which it flows, surrounding the city, and in its progress washes its walls, until it pours its waters through the bar.
Up to this time the secular government has been in charge of forty governors, twenty-three of them proprietary, and seventeen ad interim. The ecclesiastical government likewise has had one bishop and thirteen archbishops. Both these numbers are carefully estimated from the list of [those who have held] both dignities.