¹ “Careful annotator of old happenings” and –a man incapable of telling anything but the exact truth” (Jerónimo de Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, book V, Ch. 1; book III, Ch. 22).

² See what he writes in Historia de los indios de la Nueva España, “Epístola proemial”, no. 3 and 34; introduction to treatise II, no. 187–188, and tr. II, chap. 1, no. 190. The quotations refer to the 1969 edition of the Historia by O’Gorman.

³ In El Libro de las Pláticas de los doce primeros misioneros de México, p. 30, ed. by Fr.Pou, José M. y Martí, O.F.M., in Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle, 3 (Roma, Biblioteca Vaticana, 1924).Google Scholar

⁴ Vida de Fray Toribio de Motolinía (México, Editorial Porrúa, 1944) pp. 165–66. This is the second edition, published as no. 4 of “Colección de Escritores Mexicanos”; it was published the first time by Joaquín García Icazbalceta in the introduction to his edition of Motolinía’s, Historia de los indios de la Nueva España (México, 1858).Google Scholar

⁵ See his correspondence of those years in Cartas de Joaquín García Icazbalceta, compiladas y anotadas por Felipe Teizidor (México, 1937).

⁶ This opinion was published by Pimentel, Luis García among the preliminary notes to his edition of the Memoriales (México, 1903) p. VI.Google Scholar Contrary to O‘Gorman’s interpretation, the transcribed paragraph probably does not mean that Icazbalceta considered the Memoriales a first essay— “un primer ensayo” —of the Historia. There is some difference between essay and draft. In any case, Icazbalceta’s tentative hypothesis does not represent the opinion about the writings of Motolinía which was generally received until our days; we will find later that this hypothesis has been abandoned for over half a century.

⁷ See Icazbalceta, García, Cartas (cit. in note 5) and Zavala, Silvio, Francisco del Paso y Troncoso. Su Misión en Europa, 1892–1916 (México, 1938).Google Scholar

⁸ Two of Lejeal’s articles, with other opinions regarding the edition of the Memoriales were collected and printed in a booklet by García Pimentel himself (México, 1907). Both the Memoriales and the booklet were reprinted recently by Edmundo Aviña in a facsimile edition (Guadalajara, 1967).

⁹ Communication to the Congress of Americanists, Stuttgart, August 1904, which is included in the booklet cited in note n. 8, p. 13 ss.

¹⁰ Loc. cit. p. 19. Lejeal did recognize also the importance of the Memoriales whose inferiority “regarding the Historia-he writes in p. 26–27–is only of literary character. From a historical and scientific point of view, Motolinía’s first version [i.e. the Memoriales] should be preferred to the second [-i. e. the Historia-] although the first is a little profuse.”

¹¹ El Eco Franciscano (Santiago de Compostela). The articles appeared in the issues corresponding to December 1, 1915, January 1, 1916, and February 1, 1917.

¹² In the second article (January 1, 1916) p. 18.

¹³ “Los doce primeros apóstoles de Méjico”, in II Congreso de Historia y Geografía Hispano-Americanas celebrado en Sevilla en mayo de 1921. Actos y Memorias (Madrid, 1921) pp. 315–330.

¹⁴ Cuestionario histórico. Escribió Fray Toribio Motolinía una obra intitulada Guerra de los indios de la Nueva España o Historia de la conquista de Méjico?, in Archivo Ibero-Americano, (Madrid, XXIII, 1925), pp. 221–247.

¹⁵ “Fray Toribio de Motolinía, misionero e historiador de Méjico en el siglo XVI”, in Illuminare, IX, 1931, n. 71, pp. 21–34.

¹⁶ “Remarques bibliographiques, sur les ouvrages de Fr. Toribio Motolinía”, in Journal de la Societé des Americanistes, nouvelle série, XXV, 1933, pp. 139–151.

¹⁷ Motolinía’s History of the Indians of New Spain. Translated and annotated by Francis Borgia Steck (Washington, Academy of American Franciscan History, 1951; 358 p.).

¹⁸ Gil Salcedo, J. Jesús, Estudio bio-bibliográfico de Motolinía (México, Centro Universitario México, 1953). Xerox copy in the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Canedo, Lino Gómez, “Motolinía, enigma historiográfico,” in Boletín del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, (Biblioteca Nacional de México, n. 4, July-December 1970), pp. 155–177.Google Scholar

²⁰ Catálogo de la colección de documentos relativos a la historia de América formada por Joaquín García Icazbalceta, anotado y adicionado por Federico Gómez de Orozco (México, 1927). Gómez de Orozco limited himself to transcribing Icazbalceta’s description of the manuscript: “Memoriales de Fr. Toribio de Motolinía en 126 ff. útiles, más un Calendario”. He adds that this manuscript was a part of the Libro de oro y tesoro índico, “códice del siglo XVI”.He does not say any more.

²¹ The method of paraphrasing and accommodating biblical texts was often used by Motolinía. So in n. 276 (Ch.50) of the Memoriales he changes the original “sedent” of Luke I, 79 into “sedebant”. Likewise in n. 278: “Qui vos audit me audit, qui vos spernit me spernit” (Luke, X, 16) spernit becomes spernunt (the manuscript really has sperenit, but it is an obvious error). In n. 280 he assembles two different texts: “et manus nostrae contrectaverunt” (Epist. I of St. John, I, 1) and “caeci vident, claudi ambulant”, etc. of Matthew XI, 5.

²² According to a letter by the Viceroy (México, September 1, 1559) the fleet in which Ayala came, had sailed from Spain on April 18, 1559, and arrived at Veracruz the 15th of the next July (AGI. Audiencia de México, leg. 280. Published by Paso y Troncoso, Epistolario de la Nueva España, vol. VIII, p. 200). Ayala did remain in México City at least until Nov. 30, 1559, when he was the main celebrant at the funeral services for Charles the Fifth (García Icazbalceta, Obras, VI, pp. 401, 424, 432).

²³ Mendieta, Historia eclesiástica indiana, book V. Chs. 22 and 24.

²⁴ Cuevas, Mariano, Documentos inéditos para la historia de México (México, 1914).Google Scholar

²⁵ See the critical study which precedes the Historia, whose conclusions O’Gorman confirms in his introduction to the Memoriales. However, O’Gorman’s opinions on the nature of the Historia do not appear to me always very consistent. It never seems completely clear whether he considered the Historia to be a fragmentary copy or a real synthesis of Motolinía’s lost work, with additions and omissions purposely made. How can O’Gorman be sure that we have in the Historia a “versión compendiada pero auténtica’ of the lost work?

²⁶ We know that the topics alluded to by Motolinía in his letter of 1555 were treated in the manuscript which Zorita used, because this author quotes Motolinía in relation to those matters (Zorita, Historia de la Nueva España, part 2. chaps. 8–9) and the same topics are found in the Memoriales. On the other hand, Motolinía’s lost work dealt also with the conversion and advancement of the Indians. So it is possible—maybe probable—but not certain, that both the references by Las Casas and by Motolinía himself are to the same work.

²⁷ See note n. 1.

²⁸ The official document, in Latin, is printed at the beginning of the edition of Mendieta’s Historia eclesiástica indiana by García Icazbalceta (México, 1870). But the interest of Mendieta in the historical past of New Spain must have been previous to the General’s command, since we know by his own testimony that he sought information from Andrés de Olmos, who according to Mendieta himself died on October 8, 1571. The communication between Olmos and Mendieta has to have been before the latter left for Spain in 1569-1570. See note 36 to this article.

²⁹ Cuevas, , Documentos, p. 300.Google Scholar

³⁰ The Relación ends with these words: “Which began to write some ten years ago father Fray Jerónimo de Mendieta, and later for its conclusion he was helped by Fray Pedro Oroz and Fray Francisco Suárez.” See the edition by Chauvet, p. 182.

³¹ Relación, p. 67. That Mendieta may have incorporated the last of these treatises “Venida de los doce primeros padres y lo que llegados acá hicieron” -in the final compilation of the lost work which O’Gorman supposes was done in 1543, is only an hypothesis. But Mendieta’s reference seems to prove that previous to 1584 Mendieta knew of such a writing by Motolinía. We will see that Mendieta’s source could very well have been more than just hearsay, as O’Gorman assumes.

³² Mendieta, book V, part 1, Ch. 22; Torquemada, book XX, Ch. 25.

³³ Zorita did not arrive in Spain until the summer of 1566. The vagueness and scantiness of the quotations from Motolinía in authors like Dávila Padilla (1596), Fr. Juan Bautista (1600–1601), Torquemada (1615) and others makes it difficult to determine if they refer to the same work used by Zorita or to a copy or draft similar to the Memoriales. Dávila Padilla (Historia de la fundación de la Provincia de Santiago de México, book I, Ch. 22) quotes “un libro de los ritos y conversión de los indios, y hase quedado—he adds—en cuadernos de mano, mereciendo andar impreso en las de todos”; the reference is to chapter 30 of the third part, where Motolinía told of how the Franciscans of Tlaxcala lent the Dominican Fray Bernardino Minaya two of the children educated by them, to serve as interpreters and catechists. This episode was narrated by Motolinía in the Historia but is not found in the Memoriales. The work used by Zorita had this story in chapter 8 of the fourth part. Torquemada Monarquía Indiana, book 19, Ch. 13 (on the education of the young people among the Aztecs) copies from Motolinía a paragraph that not only presents notable variants in regard to the corresponding passage of the Memoriales but also to the one quoted by Las Casas. Other similarly puzzling examples could be easily given.

³⁴ So in book III, Ch. 2 refers to “un su libro”, in Ch. 46 to “aquellos sus memoriales”.

³⁵ Preliminary study to the Memoriales, pp. LXVI–LXVIII.

³⁶ “Y yo quo esto escribo, teniendo algún deseo de saber estas antiguallas, ha muchos años que acudí al mismo padre Fr. Andrés, como a fuente de donde todos los arroyos que de esta materia han tratado emanaban, y él me dijo en cuyo poder hallaría esta su última recopilación escrita de su propia mano, y la hube y tuve en mi poder; y de ella y de otros escritos del padre Fr. Toribio, uno de los primeros doce, saqué lo que en este libro de los antiguos ritos de los indios escribo” (Historia eclesiástica indiana, prologue to the second book).

³⁷ “Y las [cosas] memorables que sucedieron a los doce primeros religiosos hijos de nuestro seráfico Padre (que como otros doce apóstoles obraron la conversión de aquellas naciones bárbaras) esas casi las dejaron escritas dos de ellos, que fueron el santo padre Fr. Francisco Jiménez en la vida que escribió del santo Fr. Martín de Valencia, y el santo padre Fr. Toribio de Motolinía, en un borrador que dejó escrito de su mano, y en él todo lo que sucedió a los doce santos en la dicha conquista, como lo vio por sus ojos” Domayquia’s “Advertencias preámbulas” (preminary remarks) to his planned edition of Mendieta’s Historia in 1611. These can be found printed in the edition by García Icazbalceta.

³⁸ With regard to this last work, it should be remarked that Sahagún, in his prologue to the Coloquios, declines to write about the wonderful things that happened during the first twenty years of evangelization by the Twelve and their successors, because “muchas las dexó escripias uno de los doce primeros-que se llamaba fray Toribio de Motolinía-y por eso las dexo yo descrevir” (Ed. Pou y Martí in Miscellanea Fr. Ehrle III, p. 300).

³⁹ Relación, p.47.

⁴⁰ Chauvet had already touched on the sources of the Relación (pp. 26–29) demonstrating that their authors used also written sources. As for the memoirs or writings of Fr. Rodrigo de Bienvenida, Angélico Chávez attributes them great authority in his recent edition of Oroz’s, Varones ilustres. The Oroz Codex. (Washington, Academy of American Franciscan History, 1972).Google Scholar

⁴¹ A copy of this letter was kept by Oroz in Varones ilustres (Ms. Tulane University, fols. 5v–6). Translated and annotated by Chávez, The Oroz Codex, pp. 49–56.

⁴² I am not taking here into consideration the somewhat mysterious “Guerra de los indios” or “Historia de la conquista de México”, whose Motolinian authorship is decidedly denied by O’Gorman. His arguments, however, do not seem to me so conclusive. Let’s discard the one based on Motolinía’s letter of 1555, because-contrary to what O’Gorman supposes-we have the complete text of that letter. It is not possible to discuss here all the other arguments, but I would like to remark that Mendieta (Historia, book IV, Ch. 5) places the visit by the Michoacan king to Míxico in 1525, and Torquemada adds: “bautizóse y llamóse Francisco en el bautismo” (Monarquía Indiana, book 19, Ch. 12).

⁴³ O’Gorman, Memoriales, preliminary analytical study, section two, note 50.

⁴⁴ Memoriales, p. LIII and LV. In his introduction to the Historia (México, Porrúa, 1969) p. XIII, O’Gorman wrote: “la Historia es un libro distinto y sui generis respecto a la obra de que es compendio y selección.”

⁴⁵ Memoriales, p. LV–LVI, where O’Gorman refers to what he wrote in his introduction to the Historia. On my part, I would refer to my article “Motolinía, enigma historiográfico”, in Boletín del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas (Biblioteca Nacional de México n. 4, julio-diciembre 1970), pp. 153–177.

⁴⁶ O’Gorman finds anachronistic and incompatible with Motolinía’s authorship of the Historia such references as to call Cortés “gobernador y capitán general”, writing of 1521 events when Cortés still did not yet have that title, and saying that Fr. Martín de Valencia was “provincial” of the Holy Gospel when officially he was only “cutos.” I hope that I have sufficiently clarified these minutiae in my article cited in note 45. The strange thing is that Motolinía perpetrates the same anachronism in Memoriales, part I, Ch. 2, p. 21, n. 37, referring also to Cortés as “gobernador y capitán general.” But in this case O’Gorman makes no complaints.

⁴⁷ Cario, Agustín Millares y Mantecón, J. I., Indice y extractos de los protocolos del Archivo de Notarías de México, D.F.Vol. 1 (1524–1528).Google Scholar The letter of Cortés was published by Icazbalceta, García in Colección de documentos, 1, 470–483.Google Scholar “Tenustitlán” appears repeatedly in Documentos relativos a Hernán Cortés, published by Archivo General de la Nación, Mexico. It would be good for somebody to investigate the origin of “Temistitán,” “Timystitán,” “Lemixtitan” and other corrupted forms of Tenuchtitán. Could this not have been a simple case of misreading by the copyists? Even in the manuscript of the Memoriales “Temichtitlán (Part I. Ch. 53, fol. 67) and “Muchtitlán” (fol. 60) appear. Certainly it is not “un arcaísmo exclusivamente peninsular,” as O’Gorman thinks.

⁴⁸ Relación [Historia] de la Nueva España, ms. Biblioteca de Palacio. Madrid, fol. 463.

⁴⁹ Historia de los indios, tr. III, Ch. 2. See note above 46.

⁵⁰ Manuscript in the Rich Collection under the title: Ritos antiguos, sacrificios y idolatrías de los indios de la Nueva España y de su conversión a la Fe, y quienes fueron los que primero les predicaron. Under the same title and with the notice of having been copied from “códice X-II-574 de la Biblioteca del Escorial” its first edition was published in Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España, vol.53, pp. 295–574 (Madrid, 1869). It is an anonymous work, without any name of author or editor, foreword or annotation. Gil Salcedo noted some of the variants in this manuscript, I do not know if according to the forementioned edition or the original; these variants are also given by O’Gorman in his 1969 edition. A critical edition of the Escorial manuscript has just been published by Sarah Jane Banks; it is a dissertation presented to the University of Southern California for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Unfortunately, Dr. Banks has not been able to locate and consult the two other 16th century manuscripts of Motolinía’s Historia nor was she aware, apparently, of the more recent developments in the field of Motolinian research.

⁵¹ Contrary to what O’Gorman thinks, the Historia de los indios was not used for the first time by Robertson in 1777; the manuscript had been so labeled in the catalogue of the Escorial library.

^* Since writing the above, I have read the well documented and very valuable article in Caravelle, in which G. Baudot comments on the edition of the Memoriales by O’Gorman, and presents some of the results of his own investigation on Motolinía. At the end, in a note, he makes a brief allusion to the article which I devoted to O‘Gorman’s edition of the Historia (“Motolinía, enigma historiográfico,” in Boletín del Instituto de Investigaciones Bibliográficas, National Libraryof México, (July-December 1970). I would just like to say that in that study it was not my intention to examine directly the Motolinian question-as Professor Baudot seems to have under-stood-but merely the acceptability of Dr. O‘Gorman’s conclusions, considered in the light of the present state of the investigation. Baudot’s article appears in Caravelle, no. 17, 1971, pp. 7–35.