Middle Ages and Mexico

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Medieval Academy of America

The Middle Ages in the Conquest of AmericaAuthor(s): Luis WeckmannReviewed work(s):Source: Speculum, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Jan., 1951), pp. 130-141Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2852087 .

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THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE CONQUESTOF AMERICA*BY LUIS WECKMANN

THE purpose of this paper is not so much to present to the members of thisAcademy any particular point as to call their attention to the numerous mediaevalsurvivals scattered throughout the early and middle history of Latin Americato which, for no apparent reason, little or no attention has been paid. For themediaevalist it is interesting to note that there exists a natural continuity betweenthe Middle Ages in Europe - and especially the Spanish Middle Ages - andthe early institutional and cultural life of the Ibero-American colonies. As I hopeto prove, the Middle Ages found their last expression on this side of the Atlantic,where, after the termination of the mediaeval period in Europe, an appropriatesetting for the development of mediaeval ideals existed for an extended periodin the Spanish New World while, contemporarily in Europe, the Religious Re-formation and the so-termed Italian Renaissance were causing the abandonmentof the essentials that sustained mediaeval Christendom.

Although Renaissance thought has its importance in the shaping of earlyLatin American civilization, and some of the conquerors, notably Cortes, wereRenaissance men in their fondness for the visible, material things - grandeur,wealth, fame - it is nonetheless true that some old mediaeval trends, perhapsnowhere stronger than in Spain, the land of perennial crusading, greatly in-fluenced the early course of Latin American life. That should not surprise anyone.Forced to remain long in the background of European evolution, due to her al-most constant state of warfare, Spain realized, later than any other country inwestern Europe, the flowering of her mediaeval civilization. Thus, Spain was ableto transmit to America, as a living product and not as a dead tradition, many ofher mediaeval accomplishments. There was no waning of the Middle Ages inSpain as there was during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in the rest ofEurope. Spain found herself in the autumn of the Middle Ages during the firsttwo centuries of her modem history, when, against insurmountable odds, shestrove to keep alive and dominant such mediaeval ideals as those embodied inthe ecclesia universalis and in the universal empire. The conception of a uni-versal empire, the Company of Jesus, the new mysticism of St Theresa and of StJohn of the Cross, the new scholasticism of Vitoria and Suarez, the romance ofchivalry, the Romanceroand the theater represented the late fruits which theSpanish mediaeval spirit producedwell into the modern age.'Columbus, the first link between the Old World and the New, stands in aclearer light, perhaps, if we envisage him not so much as the first of the modernexplorers but as the last of the great mediaeval travelers. Although there is nodoubt that Columbus' mind was affected by Renaissance trends, we can still

* This paper was read at the twenty-fifth annual meeting of the Mediaeval Academy of America,held in Boston, on 14 April 1950. The author wishes to thank Mr Maurice L. Stafford and Dr LornaLavery Stafford, of Mexico City College, for their help in revising the English version of this paper.

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americasay that this man, the spiritual heir of Marco Polo, was impelled by mediaevalquests and geographical puzzles towards the exploration of new routes of naviga-tion. Was it not on the basis of Marco Polo's report (on his first voyage Columbustook with him Marco Polo's writings2),even if this was complemented by newerworks, that he set out to find the fabulously rich islands, off the coast of Asia,so lavishly and imaginatively described by the Venetian? Still other mediaevallegends concerning the existence of islands to the West and current in Columbus'days were known to him and in part impelled him to the undertaking of hisvoyages. Antillia (whence Antilles), St Brandan's Isle, Brasil, the Island of SevenCities, were among those legendary isles.3 Columbus never outgrew these geo-graphical conceptions. In all his travels, when navigating through the Antillesor borderingthe coasts of the American mainland, he thought (as his diary shows)that he was visiting the many islands which, as he said, were depicted in mediae-val maps at the end of the Orient in the vicinity of Cathay.4 The discovererwrites in the letter of his Fourth Voyage5 that he reached on 13 May (1503) theprovince of Mago (mentioned by Marco Polo) adjacent to Cathay, although hewas skirting the coastline of Central America. Before his final homeward voyageColumbus wrote to the pope that he had taken, in the name of Spain, 1400 islandsand 333 leagues of the continent of Asia, besides many other great and famousislands. This island, he adds, referring to Espanola, is Scythia, is Tarsis, is Ophir,and Ophaz and Cipango.6 If such were the geographical convictions of the dis-coverer, what then is strange in the fact that the papacy, barely a few monthsafter the discovery, divided these newly-found lands, mainly islands, betweenSpain and Portugal on the basis of the then uncontested doctrine that all islandsbelong to the Holy See, a curious mediaeval theory whose ultimate basis lay, asI have tried to prove7, in the 'Donation of Constantine'? The fact that the somuch misunderstood Alexandrine bulls of 1493 find their support in what we canterm 'the most illustrious forgery of the Middle Ages' could not have given ourcontinent a more mediaeval baptism. This quest of the islands, so rich in spicesand pearls and precious metals, lures the imagination not only of Columbus butalso of many later Spanish travelers. Cortes in his Cartas de Relaci6n makesallusions to them, to the wealth and secrets and 'admirable things' they hide.8In South America, Gonzalo Pizarro headed an expedition in 1539 to find the richlands of cinnamon and precious metals reported to exist beyond the mountainsto the east of Quito.9

Perhaps most poignantly mediaeval of all was the conviction displayed byColumbus in the course of his third voyage, when he firmly asserted that he hadfound nothing less than the Terrestrial Paradise. To support his assertion, hequotes, in genuine mediaeval fashion, the opinions of St Isidore, of the VenerableBede, of the 'master of scholastic history' (i.e., Petrus Comestor), of St Ambroseand of Johannes Scotus, all of whom had placed the earthly Paradise in the East.The earth, Columbus claims, is pear-shaped and Paradise lies in its highestsummit. He reports that he was able to locate the Terrestrial Paradise afterhaving encountered the mouths of the four rivers of Genesis that proceed fromthe Tree of Life, when he mistook the delta of the Orinoco river for the paradisi-

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americaacal streams.'1 The site of Paradise was so rich, asserted the discoverer, thatwith its wealth he could finance an army of 100,000 infantrymen and 10,000cavalrymen with which the old mediaeval goal of recovering the Holy Sepulchrecould be attained.l1 Columbus also rejoices at the thought that he has found anew land where the Lord can be served by the divulgation of His Holy Nameand Faith among so many new peoples, a truly mediaeval attitude.12In otherminor details, such as in the method of time computations, in Columbus'writings as well as in those of his pilots and staff, and in the diaries of subsequentexplorers, mediaeval usages are likewise followed.l3The mediaeval world was surrounded by a realm of fable. Beyond the knownlands there existed others, populated in mediaeval fantasy (drawn, it is true,from ancient sources, and distorted) by all kinds of mythical beings, monsters,enchantments so charmingly depicted in mediaeval mappaemundi. Such were, forinstance, the giants, pygmies, gimnosophists, sciopodies, Amazons, cinocephali,boys with white hair, people who lived only on smells, headless beings with eyeson the stomach, bearded women, etc., so dear to the mind of St Isidore, togetherwith griffons, dragons, the Sea of Darkness, the Land of Prester John. As the dis-coverers of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries came to venture to theedges of the world it was supposed that, sooner or later, they would encountersome of these mythical figures whose existence was, at least for a great numberof them, beyond dispute. Of special prominence in the early history of LatinAmerica is the quest for the Amazons, which seemed to have fascinated practicallyevery conqueror and which has left a permanent souvenir in the names of themightiest river of the continent and of the northernmost of Spain's provincesin America: California. Columbus already, in his second voyage, refers to a cer-tain island, Madanina, inhabited, according to Indian versions, only by women,information that is put down soberly and sceptically by the historian of theIndies.14Cortes, in a letter to the king in 1524, refers to what is now LowerCalifornia- presumably an island and at that time unvisited by Spaniards -saying that it was inhabited only by women who, at given times, received visitsof men from the mainland. Of the issue only female children were kept, the malesbeing disposed of.15The very name 'California'apparently derives from an islandof Amazons, ruled by Queen Calafia and mentioned in Las Sergas de Esplandidn,a Spanish romance of chivalry and sequel of the famous Amadls de Gaula.16Thesame year Cortes instructs his lieutenant and cousin, Francisco Cortes, whomhe is sending to Colima, to search out the truth concerning the rumors of theexistence of Amazons in that province.17 When the self-willed and despoticpresident of the first Audiencia of New Spain, Nufio de Guzman, flees from theking's justice for his misrule he heads for the Mexican Northwest with an un-authorized military expedition in an attempt to locate the kingdom of Cihuatlan,legendary land of the Amazons, in order, by this exploit, to justify himself in theeyes of his displeased sovereign.18Even before that, as early as 1518, Juan Diazbelieves in the existence of Amazons in the 'island' of Yucatan.19Other conquerorsseek for those evasive women in Colombia20and in the Plata region.2'A secretaryof the Royal Council, traveling in South America, and Pedro de Valdivia agree

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americain their belief that the Amazons really live somewhere in Chile.22 Finally,Orellanaboasts of having seen them along the banks of the river which now bearstheir name.23The Amazons, however, did not monopolize the imagination of the conquerors;giants, too, were believed to have lived or to live still in the Antilles. Such is, atleast, what Diego Ordaz maintains in the early sixteenth century.24The governorof Cuba, Velazquez, believes in the existence of strange beings with great flatears and others with dog-like faces which he wants Cortes to locate in Azteclands;25 n Cibau, apparently, there are human beings still adorned with tails;26somewhere else there are to be found hairless persons27and as late as the middleof the sixteenth century, according to an ancient legend, a dragon terrified everyafternoon the peaceful dwellers of the city of Puebla until the monster was killedby a gallant knight. The memory of this deed still lingers in the old 'house of theone who killed the animal' in that locality. Although explorers express their dis-appointment at not finding the monsters they had hoped to encounter,28some ofthese mythical creatures have remained as motifs in early Latin American artlike the four figures of cinocephali adorning the fountain of the Franciscan con-vent of Tepeaca in Puebla.29The Fountain of Youth is another of those fascinating myths that lure the earlySpanish discoverers. Pedro Martir de Angleria, the protohistorian of America,makes a passing reference to it as existing somewhere in the Caribbean, althoughhe expresses his disbelief in its existence.30 L6pez de G6mara, without com-mitting himself one way or the other, also mentions it.31The aged and experiencedPonce de Le6n - perhaps because of his years - firmly believes in this Fountainand goes forth to seek it after being informed that it is located in a certain islandcalled Bimini.32

Among the other recurrent legends of early American exploration, El Dorado,the gilded man whose kingdom was so rich that his subjects painted him everyday with gold and washed him off at night,33and Quivira and the Seven Citiesof Cibola, founded by seven mediaeval bishops, have conspicuous places, thesecond legend having led to Coronado's discovery34of the American Southwest,where to this day New Mexico's folk plays represent a survival of mediaevalmystery plays. L6pez de G6mara, author of the Historia Generalde las Indias,the first seven chapters of which are in spirit and in form still mediaeval, weighthe reasons advanced by the fathers of the church and by ancient writers forand against the existence of antipodes. After wearisome references to Lactantius,St Augustine, St Isidore and others, the author finally accepts the probability oftheir existence in the New World,35after which he passes on to discuss the beliefof the inhabitants of Iceland that Purgatory is to be located under their island.3Among the fabulous beings which the imagination of the Spaniards places some-where in America, room is reserved for the Devil himself. According to G6mara,the Devil is the principal god worshipped in a certain island of the CaribbeanSea where he appears many times and 'even speaks' to his devotees.37To balancethis, we also find the Apostle Saint James, the Patron Saint of Spain, fightingside by side with the Spaniards in many of their military engagements.38 The

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof AmericaNew World is, no doubt, a land of hidden marvels, of untrodden mysteries; theland, as Columbus said, of Alpha and Omega, where the sun rises and where thesun sets,39 he beginning and end of the earth.That the Spaniard of the sixteenth century was naturally prone to believe insuch marvels can be explained in part by the fact that the romances of chivalry,partially outmoded in the rest of Europe, were still very popular among Spanishreaders.Ferdinand Columbus, son of the Discoverer, heads the list of prominentmen in the history of the New World who were attracted by this type of reading.40When the army of Cortes, after an exhausting march, finally catches its firstglimpse of the city of Tenochtitlan, strange and beautiful, mirroring its colors inthe lake upon which it was built, Bernal Diaz, the soldier-chronicler of the ex-pedition,41merely comments: 'We were astonished and told ourselves that thisseemed like a thing of enchantment, such as they related in the book of Amadis,'after which the conquering army entered the Aztec capital with all the trappingsof mediaeval splendor. Later on, when a rebellious soldier is condemned to deathhe finds no better way to express his disagreement with his sentence, which heattributes to tyranny rather than to justice, than to hope that sometime, in abetter future, the Twelve Peers will rule - a reference to the Historia de Carlo-magno y de los Doce Pares, a romance of chivalry first published in Spain in (thedate is very revealing) 1525.42

In some episodes of the civil and urban life of the early colony, such as thedinner offered in 1538 by the first viceroy of New Spain to commemorate thesigning of a peace treaty between Charles V and Francis I of France, all thesplendor of the most magnificent of all mediaeval courts, that of the dukes ofBurgundy, was reproduced. On this occasion, the pieces de resistance were hugepastries filled with live quail and rabbits. The mises en scene, a favorite deviceof the Burgundian dukes to entertain their guests and to display their wealthand magnificence, were also continued in New Spain where, for example, themain square of Mexico City would be converted into a lake and a naval battlefought around a fortress built on an artificial island, the whole episode represent-ing the siege of Rhodes by the Turks.43Nothing strange in this, if it is rememberedthat Charles V of Spain, himself born in Ghent, was the heir of Burgundianpolicies and of Burgundian grandeur through his father, Philip the Fair.In the legal and institutional realm of early America the mediaeval imprint isequally patent. The Spaniards of the period retained the ideal of a universalempire, of whose present incumbent they were but servants. Charles V remainedfor them the dominus mundi, the legitimate and God-ordained lord of the world.Sometimes, they found no better reason than this to demand from Indian rulerstheir submission to the king. Typical is the case of Francisco Pizarro in Peru,and his counsellor, Fray Vicente de Valverde, both of whom informed the lastof the ruling Incas that they were the envoys of the pope and the emperor, thelords of the world, who demanded his submission to their authority.44 In thelegal terminology of this and of later ages we find many feudal reminiscences too:the Indians are regardedas 'vassals', a somewhat ideal conception badly shatteredby reality;46 n the creation of titled estates with which the conquerors were re-

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americawarded, in the terminology used in the documents of donation with their mentionof woods, pools, meadows and so forth, all are mindful of feudal Europe. The oath,a basic institution of the feudal age, where it sustained the very fabric of society,plays an important role in appeasement of internal quarrels, and in setting upalliances between the conquerors. When, for instance, Almagro and FranciscoPizarro were reconciled at Cuzco, they attended mass together and, joining handsover the consecrated host, swore not to malign one another, not to send separatereports to the emperor, and to share equally all profits - a scene which recallsthe famous story of the oath exacted from King Alfonso VI by the Cid4 and whichproved, may I add, equally ineffective.The pastimes of the conquerors are still those of a feudal class: tournaments,tourneys of canes (juegos de canas), hawking, etc., all of which presupposed amounted nobility. When Las Casas had in mind his scheme of colonization inSouth America, at Cumana, he founded an order of 'Knights of the Golden Spur'to finance it.47Other usages, such as the cutting of boughs from trees in token oftaking possession of the land and the reservation of hidden treasures to the king,the 'royal fifth', are also reminiscent of feudal practices. The derechode lanzaspaid to the king by the early encomenderos orresponds in general to a feudalscutage. The encomienda system itself, by placing a certain number of nativesunder the protection and guide of a Spaniard, could be considered feudalisticbecause conceived in the spirit of patronage, so characteristic of the feudalworld. But since land tenure was not included in this system, the encomiendawas deprived of what could have been its most feudal characteristic. Still, acontemporary Mexican scholar, Federico G6mez de Orozco, thinks it possible totrace the encomiendaback to mediaeval Spain, where conditions similar to thosein sixteenth-century New Spain were created as the Christian kingdoms of thepeninsula in their southward expansion were faced with the problem of a newlysubjected class of non-Christians, and these new vassals of the crown were placedin trust (en encomienda)with the military orders which were made responsiblefor their spiritual welfare. Another thought should be given to the Capitaneas oradministrative divisions of Brazil in the colonial era that resemble very stronglythe type of administration prevalent during the late Middle Ages in the Madeiraand Azores islands; and the sesmarias, the Portuguese mediaeval form of landgrant introduced in Brazil after 1500, cannot pass unmentioned. Also, themediaeval Spanish institution of the municipality - of ancient extraction butfortified by the role the townspeople played in the War of Reconquest - thecabildoabierto,already obsolete in the peninsula, was revived in America by theconquerors, eager to preserve for themselves and for their descendants a voicein the internal government of the colonies.48Perhaps nowhere else is more visible the imprint of the Middle Ages in America,and especially in Mexico, than in the realm of art. Military architecture in thebeginnings of the sixteenth century, the early fortresses and castles built by thefirst conquerors, with their moats, drawbridges and turrets, such as thecastles of Ulua and Acapulco, are still genuinely mediaeval, and the same can besaid of such walled cities as Campeche. In regard to religious edifices, conventual

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americaarchitecture of the first and even of the second half of the sixteenth centurymight be classified, according to Manuel Toussaint, Mexico's leading critic ofColonial art, as a mediaeval survival. It can be said, adds that authority, thatthe great fortified temples and convents of this period stand as the final expressionof the Middle Ages in the world.49Mediaeval Spanish architectural styles - Gothic, Moorish and even Roman-esque, not in its pristine purity, it is true, inasmuch as no preconceived plan wasfollowed and Indian ingenuity was an important new factor - are transmitted toAmerica. I am going to give very briefly some examples taken from Toussaint'srecent Historia del Arte Colonial en MExico.The convent of Tepeaca (finished in 1580) still mirrors the Middle Ages withall their rudeness and vigor.50Mediaeval Gothic or, to be more exact, IsabelineGothic elements are still prevalent in the Franciscan convent of Zacualpan deAmilpas51and in the convent of Yecapixtla (built by the Franciscans between1535 and 1540), the monument which preserves perhaps the greatest num-ber of Gothic survivals in New Spain.62When the structures of these imposingearly monastery-fortresses do not follow any architectural style in particular,Gothic elements are concentrated in the facade and especially in the portal, asin the very rich fagade of the convent of Huaquechula (Puebla), where, in addi-tion, exists a relief of mediaeval character depicting the Last Judgment and an'open' chapel whose inner vault is considered the richest example of a Gothicceiling to be found in Mexico.6 The facade of the Augustinian convent of Actopanhas many Gothic features such as the great curved arch of the lintel.4 Althoughin some cases, e.g., Tepoztlan (second half of the sixteenth century), the facadeis already Plateresque, the sculpture retains a mediaeval air.66 n the cloister ofthe convent of Acolman, Gothic-Isabeline elements are frequent, e.g., the columnsgarlanded with apples which surround the lower cloister.6 The upper gallery ofthe cloister of the Augustinian convent of Cuitzeo is crowned by a row ofgargoyles representing figures of fantastic monsters, each different and each witha distinct Gothic flavor.67In civil architecture, too, although to a lesser degreethan in ecclesiastical architecture, Gothic influences can also be detected.68Many additional examples could be cited.Mediaeval Moorish art also found its last expression in America, especially inthe construction of some 'open' chapels, suitable for the worship of a largenumber of Indian neophytes; the best example is the royal chapel of Cholula, inall architectural respects a mediaeval mosque.69Mudejar elements are present insome of the facades of sixteenth-century monasteries, with the geometricalpatterns which usually accompany Arabic art,60and also in the wooden ceilingsor alfarjes and in the eight-sided pillars to be found in the earliest monasteries; aswell as in towers, public fountains and some private residences where mediaevalArabic influence can still be detected at the beginning of the eighteenth century.6

Perhaps the most striking phenomenon in relation to mediaeval architecturalsurvivals in America exists in the construction of Romanesque churches and otherbuildings of Romanesque type. The church of the Franciscan convent of Patz-cuaro is, essentially, a Spanish Romanesque church which could have been built

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americain the twelfth century.62Romanesque chapels and capitals adorn many sixteenth-century churches.3 This is not as surprising as it may appear: Romanesqueconstructions in New Spain are not, strictly speaking, afterthoughts but followa 'natural' architectural evolution. Romanesque style took a deep and lastinghold in those European countries that had long been a part of the Roman empire,such as Spain and southern France, regions in which Gothic may be regardedmoreor less as a foreign intrusion. Old Roman structural devices and constructionsremained alive - even though suffering alterations and decay - for manycenturies in the Mediterranean countries, and the fact that the Spanish cortijobasically follows the plan of the Roman villa, which likewise is copied in the plan-tation or hacienda of central and northern Mexico, is an eloquent proof of thelasting character that the Roman genius gave to its edifices. The pattern of theunwalled town with a fortified church featuring strong walls, ramparts, merlons,narrowskylights, so familiar in the Mexican central countryside, has its precedentin mediaeval mendicant practices, especially in southern France, like Spain aMediterranean land.64In sculpture, in painting, and in the minor arts mediaeval influence is oftenpresent. Such elements as decorative sculpture, pulpits, wooden reliefs, doorframes, rosettes, brackets, crochets and canopies in the frontispieces still have amediaeval flavor and some of the human representations, such as hunting scenes,are undoubtedly copied from fifteenth-century Flemish and French tapestries.66Gothic ironwork and metalwork in general, is also very numerous in the earlycolony: many chalices, candlesticks (with drip-pans), staffs, nails, knockers,and railings reveal a Gothic ancestry.66The cultural atmosphere of sixteenth-century New Spain represents in manyrespects an unfolding of mediaeval Spain. In the colleges, and notably in theRoyal and Pontifical University of Mexico founded in 1551 - whose constitu-tions and organization were copied from those of Salamanca, and where graduatesgave each member of the cloister 'six fat hens, four pounds of cold viands and apair of gloves' after their reception67 St Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotusreigned supreme at least until the eighteenth century. In the days of Carlos deSigtienzay G6ngora, the University of Mexico, in its government and curriculum,was still an interesting and curious survival of European mediaevalism.68 Theearly Mexican historiographers and, more notably so, the first Spanish historiansof America, followed the practice of the mediaeval chroniclers, in transcribingin their writings material from older sources without bothering to acknowledgetheir debt. There are traces, I believe, of Spiritual Franciscanism in the teachingsand writings of Friar Peter of Ghent, one of the first Franciscans to arrive inMexico and one of the most venerable figures of the early history of the Mexicanchurch. The councils of that period, needless to say, echoed those of contemporaryEurope.Finally, before I conclude this paper, which pretends merely to point out theexistence of a potential field of study, I shall enumerate some other pheonmenain the early, and even in the moder, life of Mexico which can be considered medi-aeval survivals. Futher research could aid in the task of understanding the vital

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americapowers that lie within many mediaeval institutions and ideas which enabledthem to outlive their own epoch in a different environment, not as mere antiquesbut still full of energy and of potentialities.Theology was in colonial days and even beyond, down to the Wars of Reform,the queen and pinnacle of all university studies, with the Sententiae of PeterLombard the undisputed text in that field. Latin remained compulsory for uni-versity work throughout the Spanish commonwealth until the days of KingFerdinand VI,69 and to the study of Latin that of oriental languages and ofnative languages was added as the result, I believe, of the impulse given in thisdirection in mediaeval days by St Raymond Lull. The power and influence ofthe church in colonial Mexico, especially that of the mendicant orders, was con-siderable. A distinguished contemporary Mexican historian, Pablo Martinez delRio, has said 'not without exaggeration, of course' that the history of colonialMexico is the history of mediaeval Europe without the strife of the Investitures.Religious festivities, the holidays par excellence until the nineteenth century(and, to a certain extent, even today, especially in rural areas) combined inmany instances Christian purposes and pagan ceremonies in a process of syn-chretism that the practical genius of the church fostered in Europe in the era thatfollowed the Germanic migrations. The old practice of the church in mediaevalEurope of building Christian sanctuaries on the site of heathen sacred abodes,was repeated in Mexico, where many a church of today is build upon a paganpyramid. Religious theater, especially that celebrated in the atria of churches -in many instances to-day, the atrium of the local church, is still the center oftown life - is also remindful of mediaeval practices. The dominance of religiousthemes in colonial painting, architecture and sculpture (and the fact that sculp-ture was in many cases ancillary to architecture) as well as the noticeable activityof the miniaturists in the sixteenth century and after, are very suggestive. TheInquisition was not suppressed in Mexico until 1812. The great devotion to theVirgin, even today the most cherished form of piety, would have been mostpleasing to St Bernard of Clairvaux.70The mediaeval idea of law dominated the political and institutional life ofthe colony: natural law is considered to be paramount and in case a royal or-dinance sent from Spain contradicted it the royal command was not carried outby the viceroys. This is, I believe, the explanation for the curious practice of theviceroys, who, upon receiving a royal order that conflicted with natural preceptsor the customary law of the country, placed the documents upon their heads andsaid: 'Let us obey them but let us not carry them out'.71The problems of the sub-mission of the Indians and of the status of their property were discussed on thebasis of the doctrines of the great theologians and canonists of the Middle Ages.Beautiful legends such as the one that attributes to the manual interventionof the angels the completion of the towers of the cathedral of Puebla dot hereand there colonial history and traditions. The military orders established them-selves deeply on Mexican soil and were prominent in the conquest and settlementof many areas as well as in the setting up of the structure of colonial society.The landed nobility of early Mexico and her successor of independent days, the

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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof Americaclass of landowners (both conservative and liberal) practically dominated theeconomic life of the country, In this connection it should be remembered thatthe last great attack on latifundia, with wholesale expropriation of estates,where the conditions of the peasants were in many points similar to those ofmediaeval serfs, was carried out only fourteen years ago.In geographical nomenclature, there was in Latin America a great recurrenceto religious names that range from the City of Our Lady of the Assumption andthe Port of the Triumph of the Cross to the promontory of the Eleven ThousandVirgins.72Even today typical mediaeval first names are widely used by the ruralclasses of Mexico, some of which possess a sixteenth-century Castilian diction:even one of our latest presidents, of humble parentage, had the charming mediae-val name of Abelard.73A comparative study of mediaeval guilds and the guildsof New Spain (whose ordinances have been edited by Silvio Zavala) will, I amsure, prove fruitful. In this connection too, the importance of fairs (usually heldin the atria of churches)74as means of distribution corresponds to the economictype of organization of mediaeval Europe. The peddler, too, is still a familiar fig-ure in some Mexican rural areas.As I have tried to point out, the study of mediaeval survivals in America isa fascinating field of research, for the better understanding of the early historyof the New World and for its later currents and developments where mediaevalideas and practices are palpable even today, as well as for the better appreciationof the intrinsic vitality and permanence of such ideas and practices which asliving forces were able to survive their own atmosphere and their own epoch andto bear magnificent fruits in a different environment beyond the seas in the NewWorld which in many respects came to fulfill mediaeval expectancies.

MEXICO CITY COLLEGE1 C. Sinchez-Albornoz, 'La Edad Media y Am6rica,' in Espaila y el Islam (Buenos Aires, 1943), p.182.2 De consuetudinibus et conditionibus orientalium regionum (Antwerp, 1485?). Cf. S. de la Rosa,Librosy aut6grafosde Don Crist6balCol6n (Seville, 1891), and H. H. Hart, Marco Polo (Palo Alto,

1942), p. 442, n. 1.3 Cf. J. Kirkpatrick, TheSpanish Conquerors 1934), p. 6. On the Isle of St Brandan, cf. P. Gaffarel,Histoire de la d6couverte e l'Am&rique vant Colomb(Paris, 1892), I, 205.4 Navarrete, Colecci6n de documentos, etc., II, p. 58. A. P. Newton maintains that Columbus, in hisgeographical ideas, was emphatically a man of the Middle Ages, and an uncritical one at that; thediscovery of the New World, he adds, was accomplished not with Greek or modern geographicalconcepts but with mediaeval (Travel and Travelersof the Middle Ages [London, 1949], pp. 16, 18).5 Crist6bal Col6n, 'Carta de la Cuarta Navegaci6n,' in Navarrete, I, 296-313.6 Kirkpatrick, op. cit., p. 34.

7L. Weckmann, Las Bulas Alejandrinas de 1493 y la Teoria Politica del Papado Medieval: Estudiode la Supremacia Papal sobreIslas, 1091-1493 (Mexico, Instituto de Historia, 1949).8 'Carta Tercera de Relaci6n,' II (ed. Espasa, 1932), 50; cf. also the 'Carta Cuarta de Relaci6n,'p. 116, and the 'Carta Quinta de Relaci6n,' p. 244.9 L6pez de G6mara, Historia General de las Indias, ch. cxliii; C. E. Chapman, Colonial HispanicAmerica: a History (New York, 1946), p. 58.10C. Colon, 'Carta de la Tercera Navegaci6n,' (October 1498), in Navarrete, I, 242-264; Chapman,op. cit., p. 15. According to Cosmas, the site of Paradise was located 'beyond the Ocean' (ed. Mc-

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140 The Middle Ages in the Conquestof AmericaCrindle, Hakluyt Society, 1897, p. 33). The four streams of Paradise, which emanate from the Treeof Life are called Geon, Phison, Tigris and Euphrates by an anonymous writer of the ninth century(in Geogr.GraeciMinores,I, 513). Cf. M. L. W. Laistner, TheDecay of GeographicalKnowledgeandtheDecline of Exploration.11Chapman, op. cit., p. 30; Kirkpatrick, op. cit., pp. 4-5.12 C. Col6n, Carta de la Tercera Navegaci6n,' loc. cit.13 For instance, 'el primer domingo despues de Todos Santos,' as written by Diego Alvarez Chanca,Columbus' physician, instead of 'el tres de noviembre (de 1493)' (Navarrete, I, 198-224).14Pedro Martir de Angleria, Decadas, I, ii, 3; vii, viii, 1; vII, x, 3.15 Hernan Cortes, Cartas de Relaci6n, II (ed. Epsasa, 1932), 84-85.16Chapman, op. cit., p. 43. For another theory of the origin of the name 'California,' cf. R. Putnamand H. I. Priestley, California: the Name (Berkeley, 1917).

17 'Instrucciones,' in Colecci6nde Documentos ineditos de descubrimientosy conquistasen America,xxvI, 153.18 Cf. 'Tercera relaci6n de la jornada de Nufio de Guzman,' in J. Garcla-Icazbalceta (ed.),Documentospara la historia de Mexico, II (1866), 451.19H. R. Wagner (ed.), Thediscoveryof New Spain byJuan de Grijalva(Pasadena, 1942), pp. 22, 207.20 Relacion del descubrimiento y conquista del nuevo reino de Granada,' by J. de San Martinand A. de Lebrija, cited by I. S. Leonard, Books of the Brave (Cambridge, Mass., 1909), p. 57. I ammuch indebted to this excellent book, which combines sound scholarship with literary attractiveness.21 Ibid., p.6 22Ibid. Ibid., pp. 62-63; Gomara, ch. cxlii.23Leonard, op. cit., p. 58. 24 Pedro Mirtir de Angleria, v, ix, 4.25 Colecci6nde documentos neditos para la historia de Espana (Madrid, 1842-95), I, 404, item 28,cited by Leonard, p. 46.26 C. Colon, 'Carta de la Primera Navegaci6n,' in Navarrete, I, 167-175.27 Ibid.28 Columbus, for instance, writes: 'En estas islas, hasta aqui, no he hallado hombres monstrudoscomo muchos pensaban,' loc. cit.29 M. Toussaint, Historia del Arte Colonialen Mexico (Mexico, 1948), p. 51.30 , , . 31Ch. xli.32 Cf. L. Olschki, 'Ponce de Le6n's Fountain of Youth: History of a Geographical Myth,' inH.A.H.R., xxI (1941), 3, pp. 361-385. In mediaeval literature the Fountain of Youth is mentioned,

among other places, in the writing of the Pseudo-Mandeville (ed. Hamelius, I, 202-203) and in theapocryphal letter from Prester John to the Emperor of Constantinople, attributed to ArchbishopChristian of Mainz, Barbarossa's Chancellor (cf. Sir E. Denison Ross, 'Prester John and the Empireof Ethiopia,' in A. P. Newton, Travel and Travelersof the Middle Ages [1949], pp. 174-77, especiallyp.176).3aCf. Chapman, op. cit., p. 54.a4Cf. Chapman, op. cit., p. 43, and H. E. Bolton, Coronado; n the days of Prince Henry the Navi-gator this legend was in vogue.3aCh. iv. 3 Ch. xi. 37Ch. xxvii.

38 Cortes, among other conquerors, 'saw' the Apostle St James fighting at his side: 'Carta Tercerade Relacion,' I (ed. Espasa, 1942), 218; II (1932), 31; 'Carta Quinta de Relaci6n,' II, 190.a9Pedro Martir de Angleria, I, iii 3.40 A. Huntington, Catalogue of the library of Ferdinand Columbus (New York, 1905), cited byLeonard, op. cit., p. 21.41Author of the Historia verdaderade la conquistade la Nueva Espana, a masterpiece of sixteenth-century historiography, of which there are many editions in various languages.2 Anales de la Biblioteca Nacional [Buenos Aires], viI, 124, cited by Leonard, op. cit., p. 124.4aBernal Diaz del Castillo was a witness of those celebrations.44Gomara, ch. cxiii (pp. 14 and 17 of Vol. II, ed. 3941).45 Cf. Sanchez-Albornoz, Espana y el Islam (1943), p. 191.


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The Middle Ages in the Conquestof America 14146Kirkpatrick, op. cit., p. 176. 47Ibid., p. 295. 48Ibid., p. 277.49M. Toussaint, op. cit., p. 77. 60Ibid., p. 79. 61Ibid., p. 88.62Ibid., p. 88. 53Ibid., p. 82. 54Ibid., p. 113.65Ibid., p. 95. 56Ibid., p. 89. 57Ibid., p. 91.68Such are, for instance, the cases of the Merida house and the public fountain of Texcoco, alsomentioned by Toussaint (pp. 122, 26).69Ibid., p. 81.60Mudejar elements are noticeable in the 'Casa del Judio,' in the old house built in the Calle de la

Amargura (today Argentina and Guatemala, in Mexico City), in the Moorish fountain of Chiapa deCorzo, etc. (ibid., pp. 122-124 and fig. 25).61One example of this can be seen in the facade of the Dominican convent of Chimalhuacan of thesecond half of the sixteenth century (ibid., p. 97).62Ibid., p. 85 and fig. 80.63Among other constructions, where Romanesque reminiscences can be detected, it is sufficient tomention the chapel of St Gertrude in the Dominican convent of Teposcolula, the capitals of thecloister in the monastery of Amecameca; and the 'open' chapel of Tlalmanalco (ibid., pp. 97, 48).64 C. Kubler, Mexican Architecture n the XVIth century,I (1948) 95.65 Cf. Toussaint, op. cit., pp. 47, 48, 50.66Ibid., p. 57, 58, 60, 61.67 J. T. Lanning, Academic Culturein the Spanish Colonies (1940), p. 51.68 I. A. Leonard, Don Carlosde Sigiienza y G6ngora (Berkeley, 1929), p. 182.69Chapman, op. cit., p. 197.70 Both sides in the Mexican War of Independence (which in reality was a civil war) invoked theprotection of the Virgin and depicted her, under different advocations, in their respective banners:the royalists had the Virgen de los Remediosand the insurgents the Virgen de Guadalupe.1 In Spanish: 'Obedezcase pero no se cumpla.' A precedent of this may be found in Spanishmediaeval law where there was an appeal 'from the misinformed king to the well-informed king.'2The first-mentioned city is the capital of Paraguay; the seaport is located in Honduras. The first

city-fortress ever built by Europeans in America, founded by Columbus in Espanola in 1942, wasbaptized 'the city of the Nativity (Navidad) of the Lord.' Religious names in American geographicalnomenclature are practically boundless.73President Abelardo L. Rodriguez, 1932-34. Other such names-Constantine, Toribius,Euphemia, Lazarus - are common.

74 In Mexico, the fairs of Acapulco and Jalapa, held in the atria of churches, were famous in colonialand early independent days.

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