Spirit and Letters of the Spanish Colonial Period
(revised)
© 2001 Donald J. Mabry
The spirit of the colonial period was incarcerated in the Church. It was the unifying force everywhere. Inquisition was used to enforce membership in Catholicism. Most public buildings were churches. Church controlled education. Spanish Christianity was reformed in the 16th century by Cardinal Ximénez de Cisneros. It was
vibrant and idealistic.
The Church was more under Crown control in Spain than any other
European monarchy. The Crown controlled appointments to Church officers and papal bulls
coming into the kingdom as well as other means of control. This was the Patronato Real.
The Church had to give a "free gift" to the Crown. Spaniards, as are most
people, were very concerned with status, with who had precedence. Being appointed to a
high church office or having a relative who was gave status.
Royal officials always enforced their position.
The deterioration of the Church occurred. The Spanish church peaked in
strength in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. By the 18th century, it had serious
problems with corruption and marriages by the clergy.
Church was also an economic institution. In New Spain, it controlled
about half of the land. In Peru it controlled about one third. Because of mortmain, it
accumulated wealth during the colonial period. Piety, shrewd bishops, and mortmain
consistently increased the amount of land the Church held. The Church, particularly the
Jesuits, served as bankers through loans to secular people. The Church collected taxes
such as the tithe and the crusade tax ( one paid for not going). The clergy had to pay annates
to the Crown at the rate of one-half of the first year's revenue of the clerical offices
held.
The clergy were spilt between the hierarchy and the parish clergy.
The parish clergy were poorly paid and often uneducated. Some parish priests found
non-Church revenue in order to support themselves. This created conflicting goals. Among
the higher clergy, there legal fights over bishops' personal estates. Class structure
played an important role in Church politics and organization. Peninsulares (Spaniards born
in Spain as opposed to Spaniards born in the colonies who were called criollos) held the
high offices. In criollo families, at least one member of the family went to the clergy,
that is, became clergy.
Church also riven by the secular-regular controversy. Regular clergy
lived by rules or reglas, groups such as the Dominicans, Franciscans, and Jesuits. Secular
clergy focused on the lay public, serving as parish priests. The status was with the
regular clergy because their lives were more devoted to serving God. They were the
missionaries "Christianizing" the Indians. The rule, though not
always enforced, was that regular clergy would yield their missions to the secular clergy
once the mission was accomplished. The Church was concentrated in the cities. Even
regular clergy preferred the amenities of urban life.
Holy Office of the Inquisition
The Inquisition was under state control. Goal was to root out
heretics and heresy. It was brought by a bishop to Santa Domingo in 1517 and remained under the
control of bishops until 1569 when the king established tribunals of the Holy Office
of the Inquisition at Mexico City and Lima. Later put one in New Granada in 1610. Bishop
Juan de Zumárraga of Mexico City became the Inquisitor of New Spain in 1535. It was ended
but reestablished in the 1570s. In theory, it had jurisdiction over Christians. Since
1478, it tried to convert Jews and Muslims. Indians were exempt from its activities. The
health of their souls were the responsibility of the ordinary clergy. Later, the Church
expanded its authority to include morals. It was powerful. Censored books and sought to
control thoughts.
Originally, the Spanish recruited Indians into the clergy. That made conversion and
control easier. By the late 16th century, when the imperatives of the conquest were gone,
Indians excluded from the clergy in the late 16th century.
Education
Education was for the upper-class males but there were schools for
Indian males. Jesuits specialized in education and had many institutions. When the Jesuits
were expelled from Spain in 1767, it was impossible to replace their educational efforts.
Almost all schools were for upper-class Spaniards although there was the occasional effort
to educate upper-class mestizo and cacique (an Indian leaders) sons.
The curriculum was medieval. They taught curriculum Aristotle
and Scholasticism. There were a few women in monastery schools. The ideal was to have
convent-trained women and monastery-trained men marry and carry out Christian ideals and
ideas.
Spanish enjoyed great success in transplanting institutions and
culture. In 1538, the Crown founded a university in Santo Domingo; in 1551, the
University of Mexico; and in 1551, the University of San Marcos in Peru. These
universities had state support but money was always a problem. The entering fees were
small but rose the longer one stayed. This favored the rich, the upper class. It cost a fortune to get a doctorate.
Curriculum
It was scholastic. A product of the Catholic Counter Reformation.
Stressed reliance on authority, e.g. Scriptures and Aristot1te. Sought philosophical not
scientific truths. Spanish institutions were the last stand of scholasticism.
Enlightenment authors only read in the late 18th and early 19th centuries after battle
with the scholastics. Very few scientists.
Degrees above the bachelors:
Doctor of Theology was the highest [replaced today by the Doctor of Philosophy or
Ph.D.]
Doctor of Laws which was Church and Roman Law
Doctor of Medicine. These were about as good as contemporaries in England, France in the
18th century.
The purpose of higher education was to train church officials and
government officials. Had small libraries but these were important repositories of
knowledge.
Initially, the Spanish exercised considerable control over thought
and press through the Inquisition and the state. Control weakened over time. Permission
granted to more upper class people to read. Book smuggling increased. On the whole, there
was considerable freedom of thought within limits. Couldn't attack the Crown but could
attack government officials and their behavior. Same was true of the Church.
Printing came to Mexico City in 1535 and to Lima in the 1550s.
One had to have permission of the Council of the Indies to print a book. Very
little was printed in the colonial period because it was too expensive. Most that was
printed was of a religious nature. There were no newspapers until the 18th century.
Newspapers were printed in Guatemala, Mexico City, Lima, and Buenos Aires. Usually, they
were weeklies loaded with announcements and religious notices. Some of the papers played
an have important role in the Independence period.
How much literacy? About 25% of the urban whites.
Chronicles are an excellent source of what was going on.
Writing style was baroque. Got more baroque as time went on.
Architecture? The Church was important. Most churches were in the
baroque style. Use of gold in churches.
Mining reforms in the 1770s. Mining had stayed
the same for 200 years. It was a conservative society. Refused to change methods and
workability of old techniques. The mining guilds and schools also resisted change. Had to
inculcate new ideas into colonists in order to get more productivity.
CONCLUSIONS
Spain was very successful in passing her culture from Spain to
America. It was baroque and scholastic and meant for the upper classes. Spanish culture
and letters were infinitely better developed than British America.
You can read about other topics in colonial Latin American history by buying and reading
Colonial Latin America by Don Mabry.
Click on the book cover or the title to go to Llumina Press.
