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The Church and the Enlightenment in the Universities*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
The English-language historian who deals with Spanish civilization and culture has to think as much of how he is going to grapple with the bias of his public as he does of finding what the case is. If his conclusions do not conform to their preconceptions, the uninformed public and sometimes, unfortunately, the historian will set him right. Salvador de Madariaga wondered why, when he published a book, the series of misunderstandings that followed should be called reviews when they could “ equally well be described as Extraviews, Counterviews, Sideviews, Underviews, Superviews, Supercilious views,” or “ just views.” And, of course, the most perceptive of all, “ favorable ” views.
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1959
Footnotes
*
This article was originally presented as a paper at the annual meeting of the American Historical Association, in a joint session with the Catholic Historical Association, December 30, 1958.
References
1 de Madariaga, Salvador, Essays with a Purpose (London, 1954), p. 183.Google Scholar
2 Villena, Guillermo Lohmann, in Arbor: Revista General de Investigación y Cultura, 37 (Madrid, Mayo-Agosto, 1957), 290.Google Scholar
3 Lanning, John Tate, Academic Culture in the Spanish Colonies (New York and London, 1940), pp. 53–54.Google Scholar Hereafter, Academic Culture.
4 Lanning, John Tate, “ Grados académicos en el Reino de Guatemala,” pp. 1–56,Google Scholar 101–115. (Unpublished manuscript based primarily upon the Libros de Grados Menores and Libros de Grados Mayores of the Archivo General del Gobierno de Guatemala. Hereafter, “ Grados académicos.”) See also the graph, “ Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1625–1821,” and tables entitled “ Analysis of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala,” in Lanning, John Tate, The University in the Kingdom of Guatemala (Ithaca, 1955), pp. 201,Google Scholar 203–204. (Hereafter, The University in the Kingdom.) The Mexican figures are based upon Archivo General de la Nación, Archivo Universitario, Grados de Bachilleres en Facultad Mayor, and Actos de Repetición y Grados de Licenciados en Todas Facultades, various tomos. See also Academic Culture, p. 53.
5 Bishop Payo de Rivera, in seventeenth-century Guatemala, favored a public university because he felt that only in this way could he defeat academic rivalry, enlist support, and get the linguists, the lawyers, and the doctors so pressingly needed. (Archivo General de Indias (hereafter, AGI), Audiencia de Guatemala, Legajo 373: Informe que hace al Rey Nuestro Señor el Obispo de la Ciudad de Santiago de Goattemala, sobre el punto de la Universidad, Para cuia fundacion, en dicha Ciudad, se pide Su Majestad licencia. Goatemala, 17 de octubre de 1659.)
6 Ample support for this point can be found in Whitaker, Arthur P., ed., Latin America and the Enlightenment (New York and London, 1942)Google Scholar and in other places.
7 Ambrosio Cerdán y Pontero used this figure of speech in the Mercurio peruano, VIII (November 10, 1791), p. 148. The author later came to Guatemala as oidor of the audiencia there and undoubtedly had stimulating intellectual effect in more than one place.
8 Iriarte, fab. 63, translated by Lanning, John Tate, The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (Ithaca, 1956), p. 128.Google Scholar Hereafter, The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment.
9 Archivo General del Gobierno de Guatemala (hereafter, AGG), Al. 3–9, 12633, 1905: Innovacion de los estudios de filosofía por Fray Antonio Liendo Goicoechea, referida por el mismo. Año de 1782. See also The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment, p. 347.
10 Troconis, Gabriel Porras, Historia de la cultura en el Nuevo Reino de Granada (Sevilla, 1952), 442–451.Google Scholar (Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos de Sevilla, LXVIII [N°. general], Serie 2a.)
11 AGI, Indiferente General, Legajo 1558: Informe del Dr. José Felipe Flores, 28 de febrero de 1803. This powerfully written and stimulating document has been published in Gonzalo Díaz de Yraola, La vuelta al mundo de la expedición de la vacuna (Sevilla, 1948), pp. 109–119. (Publicaciones de la Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos, de Sevilla, XL [N°. general], Serie Ia.: Anuario N°. 17).
12 Exhortacion que el Illustrísimo Don Manuel Ignacio González del Campillo, Obispo electo de la Puebla, hace á sus diocesanos para que se presten con docilidad a la importante práctica de la vacuna (México, 1804). The authors of the regulations for “ propagating ” the vaccine considered the use of priests in the vaccinating program so sound that they gave them an important role for the future. The regulations required a priest to accompany the alcalde de barrio (when he notified the people of an impending vaccination) to “ disabuse them of false ideas.” The curate also had to take the responsibility of reporting on whether the vaccination took or not. And when he had done all this, the priest was allowed to enter these services with great pride and hope of reward in his “ Relación de méritos y servicios.” (AGI, Indiferente General, 1558: Reglamento para la propagación y estabilidad de la vacuna en el reyno de Guatemala. … (Nueva Guatemala, 1805), Sections 37, 53, 70, 80, pp. 10, 14, 18, 22.
13 When several litigants tried to debar Dr. Pedro Carracedo (because, among other things, he had Negro blood), from competing for the chair of philosophy in the Seminario de San Carlos de Cartagena de Indias in 1801, the crown attorney upheld the decision of the bishop to admit the candidate to the competition. (Archivo Histórico Nacional, Bogotá, Sala Colonial, Colegios I: Testimonio de los autos obrados para la provicion de la cathedra de Philosofia del Colegio Real Seminario de Sn Carlos de Cartagena de Yndias, fol. 283. Hereafter, AGN, Bogotá).
14 AHN, Bogotá, Sala Colonial, Colegios II, fols. 229–263: José Ponciano de Ayarsa sobre que se le admita a optar grados en esta Universidad. (The document is printed in The Hispanic American Historical Review, XXIV [August, 1944], 435–451.) Professor King has somewhere called attention to the fact that the cédula here printed (to the viceroy of New Granada, Aranjuez, March 16, 1797), while enabling the applicant to graduate, either accidentally omitted or deliberately suppressed the fact that the privilege—the gracias al sacar—was paid for. See also The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment, pp. 28, 136, and The University in the Kingdom, pp. 193–196.
15 AGG, Al. 3–8, 12573, 1904. Se comunica la supresión de la sociedad económica por sus tendencias en favor de los indios. Año de 1800. (Real cédula, San Lorenzo, 23 de noviembre de 1799).
16 AGG, Al. 23, 10084, 1529. Cedulario de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala, XVI, fols. 248–249: Real cédula a la Audiencia de Guatemala. Madrid, 5 de julio de 1768. Ibid., fols. 477–482: Real cédula a la Audiencia de Guatemala. El Pardo, 18 de marzo de 1770. Ibid., fols. 545–550: Real cédula a los oidores de la audiencia de Guatemala. San Ildefonso, 16 de septiembre de 1770. Ibid., Al. 3–1, 12236, 1882, fols. 128–139: Real cédula al rector y claustro de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Madrid, 9 de diciembre de 1772. Ibid., Al. 3–4, Libro segundo de claustros plenos, de conciliarios, y de diputados de hacienda, 1756–1790, fol. 99. (The royal cédulas mentioned in this note appear in Lanning, John Tate, ed., Reales cédulas de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1954),Google Scholar Nos. 80, 83, 84, and 85, pp. 179–181, 187–191, 192–193, 193–194).
17 It was the Spanish law that poor students who could legally establish the fact of their poverty could graduate with any bachelor’s degree without cost. In 1770 the Spanish government issued a cédula requiring universities to graduate one bachelor in every ten gratis. However, when the crown learned that the American universities were not graduating the poor free and that the cédula of 1770 had not been circulated in the New World, it reissued the cédula as a printed circular in 1788. (Real cédula circular, 24 de agosto de 1788. AGG, Al. 3–1, 12236, 1882, fols. 162–162v.)
18 “ Grados académicos,” passim.
19 AGG, Al. 3–25, 13308, 1962: Consulta acerca de que si habiendo derogada la Constitución, aun se reciben alumnos ilegítimos, como se en ella se manda. Año de 1816.
20 AGG, Al. 3–8, 12805, 1905. Diligencias practicadas de oficios, sobre la utilidad, o inutilidad de la cátedra de la lengua Cakchiquel. Año de 1812. For a survey of the question of Indian languages, see The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment, pp. 5–26.
21 Gazeta de Guatemala, VII (No. 331, 28 de noviembre de 1803), 441.
22 In some places the clerics advocating the vernacular were at least three to one in the majority.
23 See Note 4 above.
24 Computed from data in “ Apéndice a la décima primera gráfica, labor educacional en la Nueva España,” in Benítez, José R., Historia gráfica de la Nueva España (México, 1929), pp. 273–282.Google Scholar
25 This was because the arts course embraced logic, metaphysics, physics, and ethics. At first based upon Aristotle, these subjects in the course of the eighteenth century came to include much of modern psychology, philosophy, botany, chemistry, and other matters of special concern to the century. The theses defended for higher degrees, while they sometimes reflect the changing times, are most often purely professional and confined to the conventional aspects of the faculty.
26 Dale, William Pratt, The Cultural Revolution in Peru, 1750–1820, p. 103. (Unpublished Ph.D. thesis [1941], Duke University Library.Google Scholar Hereafter, Dale, The Cultural Revolution).
27 “ Así a la mitad del siglo diez y seis se reconocio la inutilidad, y aun el perjuicio de semejante Teología enteramente desconosida en dose siglos. …” (AHN, Bogotá, Sala Colonial, Sección Colegios, Legajo II, Methodo provisional … , fol. 9. See also fols. 10–13).
28 The bulk of the documentation on this question is in AGG, A. 3–9, 12637, 1905. Autos instruidos ante el Sr. Rector de la Real Universidad sobre el informe que hizo al Rey nuestro Señor el R. P. Fermín Aleas del Sagrado Orden de Predicadores. Años de 1782–1783. The government file covering the same ground is AGG, Al. 3, 1164, 45. Fray Fermín Aleas, sobre que la Universidad ha tomado providencia contra él, por lo que informó a S. M. sobre el Nuevo Método de estudios. Año de 1782. The cloister minutes on the case are in Libro de claustros, 1756–1790, fols. 158–159, 159–160, 164–164v. For fuller documentation, see The Eighteenth-Century Enlightenment, pp. 53–69.
29 AGG, Al. 3–9, 12638, 1905. Testimony of Fray Miguel Francesch.
30 Biblioteca Nacional, Bogotá, Manuscritos 202: Methodo provisional, e interino de los Estudios que han de observar los Colegios de Santa Fé por aora, y hasta tanto que se erige Universidad publica, o su Magestad dispone otra cosa, Dr. Don Francisco Antonio Moreno, p. 8.
31 Malvin de Montazet, Antoine de, Institutiones philosophicae (5 vols.; Lyons, 1784).Google Scholar The only edition available to me, that in the Widener Library, is dated 1788.
32 AGG, Al. 3–12, 12811, 1926: Thesis of José Pérez, February 15, 1792: Illicita sunt singularia certamina quae duella vocitantur.
33 The theses generally defended the position that man cannot realize perfect happiness in himself, that every ethical act must be for the benefit of society. The relatively rare defense of monarchy was undoubtedly owing to the danger in debating the form of government. (See, for example, AGG, Al. 3–12, 12813, 1928. Thesis of Manuel José del Castillo, December 24, 1794: … Ex variis speciebus civilis regiminis, quae ad tres generales revocari possunt, primatum sibi vindicare, Monarchicum videtur. …
34 de Mendiburu, Manuel, ed., Diccionario histórico-biográfico del Perú (2nd ed.; 11 vols.; Lima, 1931–1934), 6, 9–11.Google Scholar Of some three hundred original subscribers to the Mercurio peruano, at least twenty-seven were priests, many of them prelates. (Prospecto del papel periódico intitulado Mercurio peruano … (Lima, 1790).
35 In the front matter of the first number of the Gazeta de Guatemala (Library of the Sociedad de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala) is a list of these original subscribers.
36 Guatemala City. The census of degrees is based largely upon AGG, Al. 3–13, 12962–13069, 1944–1948. See Note 4 above.
37 Villena, Guillermo Lohmann, “Religion and Culture in Spanish America,” The Americas, 14, No. 4 (April, 1958), 183–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
38 Leguía, Jorge Guillermo, El Precursor: Ensayo biográfico de D. Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza (Lima, 1922), pp. 45–46,Google Scholar 69–74.
39 Ibid., pp. 34–36, and Dale, , The Cultural Revolution, pp. 46,Google Scholar 49.
40 Dale, , The Cultural Revolution, p. 77.Google Scholar
41 Ibid., p. 90.
42 Ibid., pp. 106–122.
43 AHN, Bogotá, Sala Colonial, Colegios, II, fols. 266–516, 604–610. Expediente formado con razón de la reforma de estudios y fundación de universidad pública. See especially, José Celestino Mutis, su discrepancia con los dominicos, por el sistema de Copérnico. For some critical documents from this expediente, see Lanning, John Tate, “El sistema de Copérnico en Bogotá,” Revista de Historia de América, No. 18 (December, 1944), pp. 287–306.Google Scholar
44 Academic circles everywhere accepted the system, even if they did sometimes present it as an hypothesis. For example, Archivo General de la Nación, México (hereafter, AGN), Archivo Universitario, Gobierno, 1795–1806, thesis of Bartolomé Núñez, March 9, 1801: Copernicanum systema ut hipotesis potest deffendi.
45 Fray Domingo de Acuña to Viceroy Manuel de Guirior, Bogotá, 27 June, 1774: “ Ahora V. Excelencia mande lo que fuere de su superior agrado que la mayor complacencia de este humilde Capelln. es hacer cuanto se me ordene y sino fuere de su superior agrado no de defenderá la dicha tesis; y tambien están prontos el Regente y Catedrático a defender la contraria.” (Italics not in the original). (AHN, Bogotá, Sala Colonial, Colegios II, fol. 268. See also fol. 277).
46 Ibid., fols. 283–284.
47 Based on Biblioteca Nacional, Bogotá, Manuscritos 145: Libro de propinas de la Universidad de Santo Tomás. The Dominicans, having awarded no degrees since 1770, resumed with a few in 1775 and then suddenly conferred 154 in 1776.
48 Corte Suprema del Ecuador, Archivo Colonial, Legajo Cuerpos Docentes: Expediente sobre que los Comisionados para formar los nuevos Estatutos de la Universidad arreglen el Plan de Estudios y método de enseñanza en ella, con asistencia y dictamen para Catedráticos. For a printed copy of some of this documentation, see Lanning, John Tate, “ La oposición a la ilustración en Quito,” Revista bimestre cubana, 53 (No. 3, Mayo-Junio, 1944), 228–241.Google Scholar
49 El Rector y Claustro de la Real y Pública Universidad al Sr. Presidente de la Audiencia, Quito, Febrero 1°. de 1803. Ibid., pp. 229–237.
50 AGG, Al. 3, 1162, 1890, Libro de claustros de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Carlos, 1756–1790, claustro pleno de 11 febrero de 1783: “… El Dr. y Maestro Fr. Juan Terraza y el Padre Fr. Dr. Domingo Pastor, fueron de dictamen que se erija y dote la cátedra del Ilma. Melchor Cano … y los demás señores de que se compuso este claustro … fueron de dictamen contrario. …”
51 Gutiérrez presided over academic acts where such quibbles were heard. See the thesis of José Domingo Vandín, December 9, 1786 (AGG, Al. 3–12, 12798, 1786).
52 Philip Henry Gosse, Omphalos: an Attempt to Untie the Geological Knot (London, Though it was the invariable custom for the student defending an elaborate set of theses to put in the front matter that he was sub disciplina of this or that professor, in this case Escoto’s name was suppressed.
53 Gosse, Philip Henry, Omphalos: an Attempt to Unite the Geological Knot (London, 1857).Google Scholar See Gosse, Edmund, Father and Son (eleventh edition; London, 1925), pp. 108,Google Scholar 110.
54 AGG, Al. 3–4, 12339, 1891: Libro tercero de claustros plenos, 1790–1808, claustro de 14 de marzo de 1803, fol. 136–136V.
55 Most of these documents are in AGG, Al. 3–9, 12633–12638, 1905.
56 For example, the Theatre crítico universal (9 vols.; Madrid, 1758–1763) and Cartas eruditas y curiosas (5 vols.; Madrid, 1742–1760).
57 For example, Jorge Juan, Antonio de Ulloa, M. Louis Godin, Alexander von Humboldt.
58 The more obvious ones are the expedition of Charles Marie de la Condamine to measure a degree at the equator (1735-) and the botanical and natural history expeditions to Peru, (Hipólito Ruiz, José Antonio Pavón), New Granada (José Celestino Mutis), and New Spain (Martín Sessé, José Mariano Moriño).
59 Dr. Hipólito Unanue (Lima, 22 April, 1805) requested permission to read prohibited books on the ground that “ commerce ” was introducing many French and English books that needed to be studied and, if need be, combated. Of himself he said “ Mi literatura es el fruto del estudio y la ensenate continua de treinta años … mi temperamento es nimiam. escrupuloso. …” The Lima Tribunal passed on this request to the Supreme Tribunal of the Inquisition in Madrid with the remark that Unanue “ honors this region.” The petition was approved. (Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Inquisición: Lima, 2218).
60 For an objective, realistic account of some phases of the censorship of books, see Leonard, Irving A., Books of the Brave (Cambridge, 1949), pp. 113,Google Scholar 117, 130, 138–139, 160–162, 175–178.
61 Samaniego to Marte (Menéndez, Marcelino, y Pelayo, , Historia de los heterodoxos españoles, 6 [segunda edición, Madrid, 1930], 313),Google Scholar translated by Madariaga, Salvador, (The Rise of the Spanish American Empire [New York, 1947], p. 230).Google Scholar
62 See Dale, Cultural Revolution; Leguía, Jorge Guillermo, El Precursor, pp. 26–34.Google Scholar
63 Villena, Guillermo Lohmann, “ The Church and Culture in Spanish America,” loc. cit., p. 397 Google Scholar; Paz, Luis, La Universidad Mayor, Real y Pontificia de San Francisco Xavier de la capital de los Charcas (Sucre, 1914), pp. 256–257.Google Scholar
64 Though the copy of Peralta’s defense in the Manuscritos Varios, Tomo 29, upon which this statement is based, was lost in the disastrous fire in the National Library of Lima in 1943, the point is carried well enough by Mann, Bess Mae, “Pedro Peralta Barnuevo and the Culture of His Epoch” (M.A. thesis, Duke University, 1937), pp. 202–203,Google Scholar and by de la Riva-Agüero, José, La historia en el Perú (Lima, 1910), p. 330.Google Scholar Riva-Agüero had access to the proceso in the archives of the Dominican Convent in Lima.
65 AGI, Audiencia de Lima, Legajo 1057, Cuaderno II, fol. 45v. (Visita of the regente of the Audiencia of Cuzco, Manuel Pardo, to the Convictorio de San Carlos de Lima).