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The Great Visitas of the Mexican Holy Office 1645-1669

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Richard E. Greenleaf
Richard E. Greenleaf*
Affiliation:
Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana
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Extract

Mexico's Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition founded by Philip II in January 1569 had developed its bureacratic structure by the first decade of the seventeenth century. Spectacular autos de fé between 1574 and 1601 allowed the Tribunal to establish its reputation in the colony and to augment its financial base beyond the yearly 10,000 peso subvention provided by the Spanish monarchy. Trials of crypto-Jews in the 1590s netted considerable income and caused the king to cease his payment of inquisitional salaries for a time. During the first decade of the seventeenth century the Tribunal petitioned the crown to assign the income from a series of cathedral canonries for support of the Inquisition bureaucracy. Between 1629 and 1636 “reserved” canonries were established for Holy Office income and by 1650 nine of these were generating the Inquisition's salary budget. It was always understood that royal subsidies were to decrease as canonry income paid salaries. All other expenses had to come from judicial fines.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 44 , Issue 4 , April 1988 , pp. 399 - 420
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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References

1 See the works of Greenleaf, Richard E. Zumárraga and the Mexican Inquisition 1536–1543 (Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1962)Google Scholar; The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969); Inquisición y Sociedad en el Mexico Colonial (Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, 1985).

2 The original salary structure of three Inquisitors and one Secretary of the Tribunal is discussed in Herrera Sotillo, Mariá Asunción, Ortodoxia y Control Social en México en El Siglo, XVII: El Tribunal del Santo Oficio (Madrid: Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1982), pp. 156–517.Google Scholar

3 A total of 83,463 pesos were confiscated between 1590-1609. Accounts of expenditures were inflated in order to justify continued royal subventions. See Herrera Sotillo, pp. 174–176 for the financial record.

4 Millán, José Martínez, “Las Canonjías Inquisitorials: Un Problema de Jurisdicción entre la Iglesia y la Monarquía (1480–1700), Hispania Sacra, Vol. 36 (1982), pp. 48–55.Google Scholar

5 Collection, distribution and reporting on canonjia income are described in detail in Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN), Inquisición, Libro 1060, pp. 128–129.

6 The definitive study on Inquisition finance is Millán, José Martínez La Hacienda de la Inquisición (1478–1700) (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Inquisitoriales, 1984).Google Scholar

7 See the statistical analysis based on records of Mexico’s Archivo General de la Nación (AGN) in Alberro, Solange, La Actividad Del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en Nueva España 1571–1700 (Mexico: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, 1981).Google Scholar

8 See Greenleaf, , The Mexican Inquisition of the Sixteenth Century, pp. 158–159,Google Scholar as well as his “Antonio de Espejo and the Mexican Inquisition 1571–1586,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, Vol. 27 (1971), pp. 271–292.

9 Lea, Henry C., The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922), p. 227.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.

11 See AGN, Inquisición, Vol. 45 for the Porrugal-Mexico-Cartagena route of fleeing Jews.

12 See the excellent analysis of the Carvacho, René Millar, “Las Confiscaciones de La Inquisición de Lima a Los Comerciantes de Origen Judio-Portugues de ‘La Gran Complicadad’ de 1635,” Revista de Indias, Vol. 171 (1983), pp. 27–58.Google Scholar Valuable for background is Cross, Harry, “Commerce and Orthodoxy: A Spanish Response to Portuguese Commercial Penetration in the Viceroyalty of Peru, 1580–1640,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, Vol. 35 (1978), pp. 151–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 See the soon-to-be published dissertation of Hordes, Stanley M., “The Crypto-Jewish Community of New-Spain, 1620–1649: A Collective Biography” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation; New Orleans: Tulane University, 1980),Google Scholar as well as his “The Inquisition as Economic and Political Agent: The Campaign of the Mexican Holy Office against the Crypto-Jews in the Mid-Seventeenth Century,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural Histoy, Vol. 39 (1982), pp. 23–38. Also informative is Liebman, Seymour B., “The Great Conspiracy in New Spain,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review on Inter-American Cultural History, Vol. 30 (1973), pp. 13–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 The most comprehensive archival study of the multi-faceted activities of Palafox and his political, administrative and religious controversies is Israel, Jonathan I., Race, Class and Politics in Colonial Mexico 1610–1670 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 190–252.Google Scholar See the fine historiogra-phical analysis of Simmons, Charles E.P., “Palafox and His Critics: Reappraising a Controversy,” Hispanic American Historical Review, Vol. 46 (1966), pp. 394–408.Google Scholar

15 Many scholars have studied the autos de fé of the 1640s: Liebman, Seymour B.: The Jews in New Spain. Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition (Coral Gables: University of Miami Press, 1970), pp. 217–266 Google Scholar; Toro, Alfonso, ed., Los Judíos en la Nueva España (Mexico: Archivo General de la Nación, 1932)Google Scholar; Garciá, Genaro G, ed., Autos de Fé de la Inquisición de México con Extractos de sus Causas 1646–1648 (México: Bouret, 1910)Google Scholar; Wiznitzer, Arnold, “Crypto-Jews in Mexico in the Seventeenth Century, Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, Vol. 51 (1962).Google Scholar Medina’s, José Torbio classic Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de La Inquisición en México, (México: Editorial Navarro, 1954), pp. 189–267,Google Scholar has offered scholars the most complete picture of the Autos of the 1640s until the works of Stanley M. Hordes cited above. A florid account of the Great Auto de Fé of 1649 by eyewitness Mathias de Bocanegra, S.J. was translated by Liebman, Seymour B. as Jews and The Inquisition of Mexico 1649 (Lawrence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1974).Google Scholar

16 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 4809, exp. 5.

17 Herrera Sotillo gives important data on the increasing wealth of the Tribunal arising from the confiscations as well as from investments, pp. 157–162; 177–183. Lea, , The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, pp. 219–224,Google Scholar deals with the Inquisition’s attempt to conceal its income and assets.

18 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1737, exp. 1.

19 Medina, , Historia del Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición en México, pp. 216–224,Google Scholar reproduces Inquisitor Juan Saenz de Mañozca’s November 30, 1646, letter to the Inquisitor General. For Mañozca’s career in Lima see Medina, José Torbio, Historia del Tribunal de la Inquisición de Lima (2 vols.; Santiago de Chile: Editorial Nascimiento, 1956), Vol. 2, pp. 16,Google Scholar et passim.

20 Medina, , Tribunal del Santo Oficio en México, p. 220.Google Scholar

21 See Israel’s treatment, pp. 217–227, as well as Simmons, Charles E.P., “Juan de Palafox y Mendoza: Reforming Bishop, 1640–1649” (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation; Pullman: Washington State University, 1966)Google Scholar; and Carreño, Alberto Mariá, Cedulario de Los Siglos XVI y XVII. El Obispo Don Juan Palafox y Mendoza e El Conflicto con La Companiá de Jesus (Mexico, Ediciones Victoria, 1947).Google Scholar

22 Particularly valuable are manuscripts in AGN Inquisición, Vols. 86, 412, 416, 424, 429, 489, 497; and AHN, Inquisición, Libros 1054, 1059, 1070, 1071; AHN Inquisición, Legs. 1730, 1731, 1736, 1431 and Archivo General del Simancas (AGS), Patronato Real, Leg. 2928.

23 AGS, Patronato Real, Leg 2928; AHN, Inquisición. Leg. 4431, exp. 32.

24 Lea, , The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 258.Google Scholar

25 AHN, Inquisición, Libros 1070, 1071.

26 Lea, , Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 259.Google Scholar See AHN, Inquisición, Libro 534, pp. 290, 305 for the intervention of Bartolomé de Benavente, Bishop of Yucatan and Interim Governor of New Spain in the Palafox quarrels with the Holy Office.

27 Lea, , Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 259.Google Scholar

28 See AHN, Inquisición, Libro 1268, pp. 410–416.

29 Lea, , The Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 258,Google Scholar citing Medina, , Historia del Tribunal de México, p. 241.Google Scholar

30 AHN, Inquisición, Libro 355, p. 36.

31 The forthcoming Greenleaf study “The Mexican Inquisition in the Seventeenth Century” will show that the Council of the Indies monitored the second visita. Archivo General de Indias, Seville (AGI), Audiencia de México, Leg. 278, exps. 1926; AGI, Indiferente General, Leg. 3016, exps. 29–32.

32 See Medina, José Torbio, La Inquisición en Cartagena de Indias (Bogotá: Carlos Valencia Editores, 1978), pp. 127–134.Google Scholar

33 AGN, Reales Cédulas Originales, Vol. 4, exp. 22.

34 AGN, Reales Cédulas Originales, Vol. 5, exp. 79.

35 See Phipps, Helen, “Notes on Medina Rico’s Visita de Hacienda to the Inquisition of Mexico,” Todd Memorial Volumes (2 Vols.; New York: Columbia University Press, 1930), Vol. 2, pp. 79–89.Google Scholar The body of Visita documents is contained in AHN, Inquisición, Legs 1737, 1738, 1739, 1740, most of which have two separate parts; and Libros 1054, 1058, 1061. The civil suits are contained in AHN, Legs 1727 A-B-C, 4815 A-B, and in the records of AGN, Real Fisco del la Inquisición.

36 AHN, Inquisición, Libro 1072, “Itinerario de las provincias, obispados, ciudades, villas, lugares del distrito de la Inquisición de México, 1654,” p. 19r; 244r–270v.

37 Medina, , Historia de Tribunal de México, pp. 225–226 Google Scholar; AGN, Inquisición, Vol. 446, fs 433–460.

38 AGN, Reales Cédulas Duplicados, Vol. 36, exps. 129–132.

39 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1737, exps. 11, 12.

40 The procedures which Medina Rico expected the Mexican Tribunal to observe, e.g., the Instructions of Sevilla, Ávila and Toledo are dealt with in Lea, Henry C., A History of the Inquisition of Spain (4 vols; New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906–1907), Vol. 1., pp. 181–182, 576–580.Google Scholar The revised instructions of 1561, “Las Instruciones Nuevas” issued by Inquisitor Fernando Valdés were Medina Rico’s and Huydobro’s primary guide for measuring the Mexican Tribunal’s performance between 1640 and 1657.

41 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1737, exp. 11. A succinct resume of the Cargos is found in AHN, Leg. 1737, exp. 12, ramo 1. Most researchers have relied upon the “Sumaria” rather than the more lengthy documentation.

42 AHN, Inquisición, Libro 1057, Carta de 4 de junio 1658.

43 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 1737, Part 2, exp. 1.

44 Phipps, p. 84.

45 Estrada y Escobedo filed lengthy defenses of his conduct. AHN, Inquisición, Leg, 1738, exps. 2, 3, 4, 5.

46 Phipps, p. 84.

47 AHN, Inquisición, Leg 1789, f. 416; Leg. 4813.

48 Phipps, p. 89.

49 The records are primarily in AHN, Inquisición, Legs. 1738, exp. 20 (776 pages); 4812, 4813, 4815.

50 See Greenleaf, , Inquisición y Sociedad en El Mexico Colonial, pp. 7–8 Google Scholar; 277–299.

51 Phipps, p. 89.

52 A study of the Cofradía based on Mexican and Spanish archival documentation is Greenleaf, Richard E., “The Inquisition Brotherhood: Cofradía de San Pedro Mártir of Colonial Mexico,” The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Inter-American Cultural History, Vol. 40 (1983), pp. 171–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53 Lea, , Inquisition in the Spanish Dependencies, p. 263.Google Scholar

54 The new Visitor of the Audiencia and the Tribunal of the Holy Office Juan de Ortega y Montañés in 1670 inherited the backlog of cases left by Medina Rico. See AGN, Real Fisco de la Inquisición, Vols. 16, exp. 6 and Vol. 21, exp. 10; See also AHN, Inquisición, Libro 1061, f. 276.

55 AHN, Inquisición, Leg. 2270, Letter of notification of Medina Rico’s death on May 31, 1659.