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Saintly Biography and the Cult of San Felipe de Jesús in Mexico City, 1597-1697

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2015

Cornelius Conover*
Affiliation:
Augustana College, Sioux Fall, South Dakota

Extract

By the late seventeenth century, the cult of San Felipe de Jesús (ca. 1572-97), native of Mexico City and martyr in Japan, had taken a stable form in Mexico City, where he was born. Each year on February 5, the dignitaries of the viceregal capital gathered for a procession through the city center and a liturgical ceremony in the cathedral to praise the saint and his city, but for the rest of the year, residents largely ignored him. A multitude of social interests had led to this less-than-wholehearted embrace, among them rivalry between religious orders, civic self-promotion, and religious beliefs.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 2011

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References

My thanks to Ann Twinam, Jorge Cañizares, and the reviewers of The Americas for their thoughtful readings of the manuscript and their valuable suggestions.

1. In Latin American historiography, scholars have tended to focus on how creole and racial identities have shaped devotional practices. For a focus on creole identity, see Brading, David A., Mexican Phoenix: Our Lady of Guadalupe (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001)Google Scholar and Teodoro Hampe, Martínez, Santidad e identidad criolla: estudio del proceso de canonización de Santa Rosa (Cuzco, Perú: Centro de Estudios Regionales Andinos Bartolomé de las Casas, 1998),Google Scholar among many others. For racial dynamics, see Meyers, Albert, and Hopkins, Diane Elizabeth, eds. Manipulating the Saints: Religious Brotherhoods and Social Integration in Postconquest Latin America (Hamburg, Germany: Wayasbah, 1988);Google Scholar Germeten, Nicole Von, Black Blood Brothers: Confraternities and Social Mobility for Afro-Mexicans (Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2006)Google Scholar.

2. Very little recent work deals with San Felipe de Jesús. An exception is the chapter that Morgan, Ronald J., dedicated to him in his book on Spanish-American saints to show how San Felipe’s hagiography exhibited a growing sense of creole identity in the colonial period. Spanish American Saints and the Rhetoric of Identity, 1600–1810 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2002), pp. 143–69.Google Scholar

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48. Ibid., fol. 235v.

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59. For a quick review of these restrictions in Europe, see Ditchfield, Simon, Liturgy, Sanctity, and History in Tridentine Italy: Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation of the Particular, Cambridge Studies in Italian History and Culture (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1995), esp. pp. 599.Google Scholar

60. This fact was lamented by the late-eighteenth-century San Felipe biographer Pichardo, José Antonio, in Vida y martirio del protomártir mexicano San Felipe de Jesús de las Casas, religioso del hábito y orden de San Francisco de Manila (Guadalajara: Francisco Loreto y Diéguez Sucr., 1934), p. 161.Google Scholar

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62. Philip III wrote the introduction to an early account of the Nagasaki martyrs. Santa María, Juan de, Relación del martirio que seys padres Descalços Franciscanos, y veynte tapones christianos padecieron en Japón (Madrid: Imprenta del Lic. Várez de Castro, 1599).Google Scholar In Rome, Ribadeneira was taken in by fellow Spaniard and Franciscan Fr. Francisco de Sosa, who had just been elected Minister General of the Franciscan order. Ribadeneira, , Historia, p. 11.Google Scholar

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64. For the causes and consequences of this persecution, see Boxer, , Christian Century, esp. pp. 308–61.Google Scholar Sec also Lach, Donald F., Asia in the Making of Europe (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965-), vol. 3, book 1, esp. pp. 174–75.Google Scholar

65. “Commettcmus negotium examinandum juxta sacrorum canonum pracscriptum, et Sanctae Romanae Ecclesie, ac quod cum Domino fieri poterit, ad Dei gloriam decernetur.” Pope Paul V to Japanese Christians, Rome, December 27, 1615 (draft), in Dai Nippon Shiryo, comp. The Institute of Historical Compilation, part 12, vol. 12 (Tokyo: Imperial University of Tokyo, 1909), p. 314.

66. Some of the key figures mentioned in the process were Bernardo Sandoval y Rojas, archbishop of Toledo; Peter Jovcr, the Franciscan general procurator; Thomas Zaulo, the procurator of the Discalced Franciscans; and Pedro Bautista Tamayo, a Discalced friar from the Philippines and the promoter of the cause. Archivio Segreto Vaticano, Congregazione dei Riti, Processus, vols. 1220-23.

67. “Litterae remissoriales ab auditoribus Sacrae Rotae cum inscrtione Rotuli pro Beatificatione SS. Petri Bap-tistae et sociorum ejus, Martyrum Japonensium, Ordinis Fratrum Minorum S. Francíscí Discalceatorum,” Rome, May 27, 1619, in Matritensi, Francisco, Bullarium Fratrum ordinis minorum sancti francisci, vol. 1 (Madrid: Ex Typographia Emmanuelis Fernandez, 1744), vol. 1, pp. 504–08.Google Scholar

68. The five cities were Mexico City, Puebla, Manila, Macao, and Nagasaki.

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70. Joannes de St. Bernardino, Collegio S. Isidori, September 22, 1626, “Aliqui testes occulares, & multi de audítu, & fama deponent serum Dei fres. Petrum Baptistam Martyrum anno 1597, Crucifixorum in Japonia antesig-nanum ac ducem visum fue post mortem ad altare celebrantem disparente interim corpore eius de Cruce,” AFIO, 600/17–4, fols. 1–lv.

71. Urban VIII, Salvatoris Domini nostri. The pope beatified the three Jesuit martyrs the following day. Urban VIII, Indultum S. D. N. Urbani VIII. Celebrandi Missam, recitandi Officium, de tribus Martyribus Paulo Michi, Ioanne de Goto Didaco Qttizai e Societate lesu, September 15, 1627 (Rome: M. A. Maraldus, 1627), in RAHM, Jesuitas, Tomos, vol. 67/10.

72. February 15, 1629. Archivo Histórico de la Catedral de México (ACCM), Actas, vol. 8, fol. 216. As the city council documents show, the rivalry between the Jesuits and the Discalced Franciscans continued in Mexico City. The Jesuits presented the bull of beatification of their Nagasaki martyrs to the city councilmen hours before the Discalced Franciscans.

73. September 4, 1628. Mexico City Council, Actas antiguas de cabildo, vol. 26 (Mexico City: Imprenta de El Correo Español, 1907), p. 341.

74. August 31, 1628. Ibid., pp. 339–40.

75. The documentation does not specify exactly where the councilmen attended the mass. Ibid.

76. The city earmarked 4,000 pesos for the celebration, which was roughly the amount allotted to receive a new archbishop. January 12, 1629. Mexico City Council, Actas antiguas de cabildo, vol. 27 (Mexico City: A. Carranza y Comp., Impresores, 1908), pp. 40–41.

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78. August 31, 1628. Mexico City Council, Actas, vol. 26, pp. 339–40.

79. September 4, 1628. Ibid., p. 341.

80. The Jesuits held a small counter-celebration for their three Nagasaki martyrs, but the next year this faded away entirely. August 31, 1628. Ibid., pp. 339–40.

81. Upon applying to Rome for more liturgical privileges, officials were surprised to find out they had to apply jointly with sponsors of the other saints. Anon, to Mexico City cathedral chapter, Rome, July 11, 1676, BLAC, G50, fols. 379–80.

82. Salasar, Luis Vaca, Sermón predicado en la Sancta iglesia Cathedral Metropolitana de Mexico, á la fiesta del Glorioso S. Felipe de Iesvs, protomartyr de las Indias, y patrón de la mvy noble y leal ciudad de México (Mexico City: Iuan Ruys, 1638), p. 12v.Google Scholar

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87. The day that the Nagasaki martyrs were killed, February 5, was also the feast day for St. Agatha, a third-century martyr. For a brief introduction to Agatha, see Girolami Cheney, Liana De, “The Cult of Saint Agatha,” Woman’s Art Journal 17:1 (Spring-Summmer 1996), pp. 39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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94. Medina found this baptism, but he dismissed the allegation because the date was May 11, 1586, which would have made Felipe eleven at his death. Medina, Vida, 1683, p. 4.

95. December 5 and 15, 1628. Barrio Lorenzot, Francisco del, “Compendio de los libros capitulares de la Muy Noble Insigne, y Muy Leal Ciudad de México,” Archivo Histórico de la Ciudad de México (AHCM), vol. 436a, fols. 136V-137, 137-137V.Google Scholar

96. August 20, 1629. Ibid., fol. 152.

97. Alegre, Francisco Javier, Historia de la provincial de la Compañía de Jesús de Nueva España, eds. Burrus, Ernest J and Zubillaga, Félix, vol. 2 (Rome: Institutum Historicum S. J., 1956), p. 405 Google Scholar. See also ACCM, Actas, vol. 8, fols. 358–59 and ACCM, Actas, vol. 9, fols. 203–03v.

98. St. Gregory Thaumaturgus was the city’s patron saint of water. Lorenzot, Barrio, “Compendio,” AHCM, vol. 436a, fols. 152, 152v, 158 Google Scholar. For the trajectory of Gregory’s life, see Van Dam, Raymond, “Hagiography and History: The Life of Gregory Thaumaturgus,” Classical Antiquity 1:2 (October 1982), pp. 272308.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

99. October 20, 1694. Lorenzot, Barrio, “Compendio,” AHCM, vol. 436a, fol. 322.Google Scholar For a good discussion of the cult to the Virgin of Remedies in Mexico City, see Curcio-Nagy, Linda A., “Native Icon to City Protectress to Royal Patroness: Ritual, Political Symbolism and the Virgin of Remedies,” The Americas 52:3 (January 1996), pp. 367–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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105. February 5, 1638. ACCM, Actas, vol. 9, fol. 330v.

106. “…la juventud se alentará en virtud y Nuestro Señor lo gratificará [el apoyo del público] dando á esta ciudad otros muchos hijos santos,” January 18, 1636, Mexico City Council, Actas antiguas de cabildo, vol. 30 (Mexico City: A. Carranza y Comp. Impresores, 1908), p. 118.

107. Philip IV, Madrid, 27 August 1638, in Apéndice Documental no. 1 in Ríos, Eduardo Enrique, Felipe de Jesús, el santo criollo (Mexico City: Ediciones Xochitl, 1944), p. 183;Google Scholar October 19, 1640, ACCM, Actas, vol. 10, fol. 61.

108. Serna, , Sermón predicado en la Santa Iglesia Cathedral de México (Mexico City: Viuda de Bernardo Calderón, 1652), p. 6.Google Scholar

109. Caxica, Sermón, n.d.

110. Medina, , Vida, 1683, n.d.Google Scholar

111. Clement X canonized her on April 2, 1671. The historiography on St. Rose of Lima is extensive, but a good start is Pinilla, Ramón Mújica, Rosa limensis: mística, política e iconografìa en torno a la patrona de America (Lima: IFEA, Fondo de Cultura Econòmica, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú;, 2001).Google Scholar

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113. Specifically, the chapter wanted the pope to make Felipe patron saint of all New Spain. May 18, 1674. ACCM, Actas, vol. 19, fol. 10lv.

114. Brading, Mexican Phoenix, pp. 76-77; Poole, Stafford, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Origins and Sources of a Mexican National Symbol, 1531–1797 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1995), pp. 128–43.Google Scholar

115. Archivo General de la Nación de México (AGNM), Bienes Nacionales, leg. 832, exp. 2, fols. 62v–63, 70–71, 83v–84.

116. Br. Don Alonso de Gómez Rui Gómez Robles to Mexico City Cathedral Chapter, Mexico City, August 8, 1699, BLAC, G64, fol. 101.

117. January 4, 1704. Lorenzot, Barrio, “Compendio,” AHCM, vol. 437a, fol. 17v.Google Scholar This celebration itself was a compromise reached in 1641 when the Franciscans had threatened to hold a commemoration to San Felipe on February 5 and thereby conflict with the cathedral’s event. May 10, 1641. Mexico City Council, Actas antiguas de cabildo, vols. 32–33 (Mexico City: Imprenta de A. Carranza e Hijos, 1910), p. 209.

118. January 28, 1704. Ibid., fol. 18. In the end, the city-sponsored celebration moved to the Augustinian order. February 4, 1704. Ibid.

119. Figueroa, Vidal, Devocionario, 1712, n.d.;Google Scholar del Río, Alfonso Mariano, Separación y singularidad entre los veinte y seis protomartires del Japón de San Felipe de Jesús, Indiano, Patricio, y Patrón de México (Mexico City: Francisco de Rivera Calderón, 1715).Google Scholar Río, , Separación y singularidad, p. 22.Google Scholar

120. Pichardo, , Vida y martirio, pp. 278, 297.Google Scholar

121. Río, , Separación y singularidad, p. 1.Google Scholar

122. Pichardo searched the book of inscriptions from the beginning of the college in 1573 to the end of 1583 and found no trace of Felipe. Pichardo, , Vida y martirio, p. 272.Google Scholar

123. Medina, , Vida, 1683, pp. 7v-9;Google Scholar Pichardo, , Vida y martirio, pp. 163–64, 233.Google Scholar

124. Medina, , Vida, 1751, pp. 2324.Google Scholar Later research confirmed that the young man had gone to the Philippines to purchase goods for his father’s import business. Gaspar Ruan, a son of Alonso’s business partner who would later marry Felipe’s sister, traveled to Manila to purchase goods there in the late 1590s. Capt. Valdcs, Clemente de, “Registro y recibo de Gaspar Ruan estante en esta ciudad,” Manila, July 13, 1598, BLAC, Testimonios auténticos, G50, fols. 350-50V.Google Scholar

125. Río, Separación y singularidad, n.d.

126. Bossy, Sec John, Christianity in the West, 1400–1700. OPUS (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), esp. pp. 1112.Google Scholar

127. Dávila, , Memorias, p. 6;Google Scholar Figueroa, Vidal, Devocionario, 1712, n.d.Google Scholar

128. The most likely was across the corner from the Regina Coeli convent on Tiburcio Street in a house named San Eligio. Another option was the original location of the Oratory of San Felipe Neri. Another was on Calle de la Palma in a house named San Felipe. Another was on Calle de San Felipe. Pichardo, , Vida y martirio, pp. 161–64, 233.Google Scholar

129. Dávila, , Memorias, pp. 36.Google Scholar

130. Ibid., p. 7.

131. Some of the other members were Antonio Calderón Benavides, Santiago de Surricaldai, Pedro Días de Arévalo, Diego del Castillo Marquéz, Dr. Ignacio de Santillana, Joseph Marqués de los Ríos, and Juan Millán de Poblcte. Ibid.

132. Figueroa, Antonio Vidal, Devocionario a los santos Felipe Neri y de Jesús (Mexico City: [n.p.], 1712), n.d.Google Scholar

133. Eligio or Eligius also known as Eloy was a seventh-century royal counselor in Merovingian Gaul, bishop of Noyon, and missionary in Flanders. Dado of Rouen, “Life of St. Eligius of Noyon,” trans. McNamara, Jo Ann in Medieval Hagiography, An Anthology, ed. Thomas Head (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 137–68.Google Scholar

134. Medina, , Vida, 1683, p. 8v.Google Scholar

135. Medina, , Vida, 1751.Google Scholar

136. de Guijo, Gregorio Martín, Diario, 1648–1664, ed. de Terreros, Manuel Romero, vol. 1 (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1952), pp. 2930.Google Scholar

137. Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 37,40.

138. la Peña, Ignacio de, Trono mexicano en el convento de religiosas pobres capuchinas (Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, 1728), p. 7.Google Scholar

139. “Religosa Sor Maria Felipa abadesa de las religiosas capuchinas sobre fundación del convento de San Felipe de Jesús, Nov 5 de 1665,” AGNM, Reales Cédulas, vol. 25, exp. 659, fol. 408.

140. Robles, Antonio de, Diario de sucesos notables (1665–1703), ed. Leal, Antonio Castro, vol. 1 (Mexico City: Editorial Porrúa, 1946), 130.Google Scholar The poems praised San Felipe de Jesús and various aspects of the convent. The first place entry by Francisco de la Cruz Torquemada began, “Felipe Luzero Indiano,/ aquilatando el destino,/ quiso desde lo divino/ ser político en lo humano.” Ribera, Diego de, Breve relación de la plavsible pompa, y cordial regocijo, con que se celebrò la dedicación del tempio del inclito mártir S. Felipe de Jesús, titular de las religiosas capuchinas, en la muy noble y leal ciudad de Mexico … (Mexico City: Bernardo Calderón, 1673), p. 6.Google Scholar

141. “Inventario,” BLAC, G50, fol. 142.

142. A partial list of the many churches, chapels, and convents built from the 1640s-1700 in Mexico City and named for Mary would include Nuestra Señora (NS) de la Piedad, NS de la Merced, NS de la Concepción, NS de Monscrrate, and NS de Balvanera. Guijio, Diarto; Robles, Diario.

143. BLAC, G50, fols. 191–91v, 216–19.