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Father Gonzalo Tenorio, O.F.M., and his Providentialist Eschatological Theories on the Spanish Indies*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2015
Extract
At the present time there is much interest both in factual history and in the history of the ideas which motivated these facts. This might be the justification, for instance, of so many monographs which are now appearing in many countries about the religious motives which gave impulse to great reforms.
The Spanish enterprise of the Indies has already been the subject of such studies, both from the point of view of Spanish thinkers and writers or from the standpoint—much less frequent—of the “Indianos” or Americans themselves.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1960
Footnotes
*
Since the publication of Phelan'sJohn LeddyThe Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World. A Study of the Writings of Gerónimo de Mendieta (1525-1604) [University of California Publications in History, Volume 52.] (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1956), American interest in apocalyptical-eschatological interpretations of the history of Spanish America has been stimulated. The present study, written originally in Spanish, and translated and abridged by the Managing Editor, shows a Creole Franciscan's view of the empresa de las lndias. Fr. Gonzalo Tenorio, whose life encompasses most of the seventeenth century (1602-1682?), presents an even more pessimistic view of the Spanish Empire than did Mendieta. Tenorio's work, however, unpublished like Mendieta's, shows a peculiar stress on the importance of the Indies as the fulfillment of the Golden Era, and less proportionate stress on Spain and the Spanish Kings themselves.
References
1 I consider it superfluous to cite here all the various books treating of the several interpretations of the “empresa de las Indias,” as an “empresa misionera,” as the realization of the “idea de imperio, o Monarquia universal,” etc. Bibliographies can be found in any of these monographs. Other interpretations of the conquest, such as that of “mesianismo,” or of a “guerra divinal,” or that speak of eschatological ideas, have been less studied. For these latter ideas, see the following works and their bibliographies: Bataillon, M., Erasme et l’Espagne (Paris, 1937)Google Scholar; Castro, A., Aspectos del vivir hispánico. Espiritualismo, mesianismo, rectitud personal en los siglos XIV al XVI (Santiago de Chile, 1949)Google Scholar; Arco, R. y Garay, , La idea de imperio en la política y literatura españolas (Madrid, 1944)Google Scholar; Montes, J. Sánchez, Los Españoles ante la política internacional de Carlos V (Pamplona, 1951)Google Scholar; Phelan, J.L., The Millennial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (Berkeley & Los Angeles, 1956)Google Scholar; and Borges, P. O.F.M., “El sentido trascendente del descubrimiento y conversión de Indias,” in Missionalia Hispánica, 13 (1956), 141–177.Google Scholar
2 Archivo General de Indias [AGI], Lima 303. Fray Gonzalo was proposed twice more for bishoprics. A letter of April 3, 1660 adds the following information: “… de 58 años, … muy predicador … y por orden del Virrey anda entendiendo en el desagravio de los Indios y nunca he oido quejas de el.” See also letter of July 8, 1663 (AGI, Ibid.).
Concerning Fray Gonzalo’s birth in America of Spanish parents there are numerous allusions in his own works. That he was a descendant of the conquistadores of Peru and Chile has not been shown in any document. One or the other author calls him “Valdivia Tenorio,” but that is not documentary proof (See de San Antonio, Juan, Bibliotheca Universa Franciscana, 2 (Madrid, 1732), 21).Google Scholar de Quiros, F. Bernardo in his Solar de la Casa de Olloniego (Madrid, 1686)Google Scholar which contains the genealogy of the Valdivia family, does not mention our author. His parents were named Lorenzo Núñez Tenorio and María Núñez de Tuesta (Cf. “Información del habito del Gonzalo Tenorio,” Archivo de San Francisco de Lima [ASFL], Reg. 19, n. 42 bis).–His entry into the Colegio de San Martín on December 20, 1613 when 14 years old, as well as his gaining of the universify chair by opposition and his entrance into the Franciscan Order is confirmed by the “Catalogue of Students” and other documents in the Archivo Historico Nacional [AHN] of Madrid, “Codices y Cartularios, 164, n. 865.” He is listed as a catedrático of the University of Lima in ibid., 239b, fol. 144v.–For his entrance into the Franciscan Order, see also “Información del habito,” loc. cit.; for his teaching in the Order, see “Tabula capitular de 1630,” in Archivo Ibero-Americano [AIA], V (1945), 98–He was elected Provincial and Comisario General Interino of Peru at the Chapter of 1650 ( Cordova, D. y Salinas, , Coronica de la … Provincia de los Doce Apóstoles del Perú, ed. Canedo, Lino G., O.F.M. (Washington, 1957), p. 1003,Google Scholar and Arroyo, L., Comisarios generales del Peru (Madrid, 1950), p. 182.Google Scholar–His activity as “desagraviador de indios” is mentioned in the documents of Viceroy Conde de Alba. Land transactions with the Indians in Arequipa and Camana were supervised by him (AGI, Lima, 59, 60, 61; see also Dominguez, F., El Colegio Franciscano de Propaganda Fide de Moquegua (Madrid, 1955), p. 44 Google Scholar; Mendiburu, M., Diccionario histórico biográfico del Peru, 8 (Lima, 1890), 17,Google Scholar and Medina, J.T., Biblioteca Hispano-Americana, 6 (Santiago de Chile, 1902), 210.Google Scholar
3 Arroyo, op. cit., p. 164. See also Tibesar, Antonine O.F.M., “ The Alternativa: A Study in Spanish-Creole Relations in Seventeenth-Century Peru,” The Americas, 11 (January, 1955), 229–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Córdova, y Salinas, , Coronica, p. 460.Google Scholar
5 See below, p. 332.
6 There is a royal cédula in the AGI (155, 2, II), dated December, 1670, in which it is proposed that the procurator of the cause, Fr. Tenorio, be paid from money coming from America. He complained nevertheless that he had not been paid. See the text published in AIA, IV (1915), 137.
7 In various of his writings he speaks of an aggravating sickness which attacked him soon after his arrival in Spain and remained with him a long time.
8 Medina (op. cit., VI, 210) cites as his: Discurso sobre la nulidad del Capítulo Provincial, que celebró el muy Reverendo Padre fray Francisco de Borja, Comisario General del Peru, este año de 1656 en el Convento de Guadalupe. Proponese la narrativa del caso. 66 pages (Lima, 1656). There also exists, in manuscript, a memorial entitled “Dudase si en la Religión de Nuestro Padre S. Francisco los Lectores Jubilados puedan ser Provinciales sin aver sido Guardianes, ni obtenido otros officios ynferiores (27 fols.), whose principal redactor seems to have been P. Tenorio. A copy exists in the Harvard College Library. See Canedo, Lino G. O.F.M., “Some Franciscan Sources in the Archives and Libraries of America,” The Americas, 13 (1956), 210.Google Scholar
9 Fifteen of the sixteen volumes are written by a professional copyist and corrected by the author. The sixteenth volume is transcribed for the printer by the author himself. All sixteen were ready for the printer, and some had already been given to censors. Both the Inquisition and the Junta de Teólogos de la Inmaculada caused difficulties for the author. Cf. the “Proceso” in AHN Madrid, Consejos, lib. 2739, año 1675. It was the latter group, however, which definitively prohibited the publication of the volumes. In this article we will use for citation the individual titles of each volume, together with the respective folio number.
10 Fruetus lmmaculatus, fol. 628.
11 Ibid., fol. 624v.
12 Fr. Tenorio alludes very little to Macchiavelli’s doctrines, but in the Spanish literature of that time it was almost a constant preoccupation to impugn the doctrines of the Italian author. Cf. Arco y Garay, op. cit., pp. 118, 322, 533.
13 Ibid., fols. 669v; 628–629.
14 Ayala, F.J., “Iglesia y Estado en las Leyes de Indias,” Estudios Americanos, 1 (1949), 421 Google Scholar f.
15 Caramuel, J., Declaración mística de las Armas de España, invictamente belicosas (Louvain, 1636),Google Scholar prologue.
16 Cf. Partus immaculatus, fols. 598–614.
17 Montes, J. Sánchez, Los Españoles ante la política internacional de Carlos V (Pamplona, 1951), p. 109 Google Scholar; Arco y Garay, op. cit., 152 ff.
18 Partus immaculatus, fols. 610 ff.; Fructas immaculatus, fols. 833 ff.
19 Interpretatio Isaiae, I, fol. 259; Partus immac., fol. 608v. This quotation from Tenorio is given in extenso to show his style of writing. It also shows us some of the reasons why Fr. Tenorio had difficulty in getting permission to publish this work.
20 Fructus immac., fols. 625v–677.
21 Interpretatio Isaiae, I, fols. 324v–329.
22 Paradisus restitutus, fols. 113v–114. Some part of this complaint may be due to the effects of the alternativa. See Tibesar, loc. cit., passim.
23 Restauración Política de España (Madrid, 1619), p. 50. This author alludes to the same vices which Tenorio enumerates: “… y la gente tan reglada y afeminada.”
24 Fructus immac., fol. 627.
25 For these texts see Fructus immac., fols. 616v–618v.
26 Partus immac., fols. 600v–606v.; Fructus immac., fols. 627v. The reconquest of the Holy Places is frequently mentioned in Spanish literature of the period as a holy venture. See Arco y Garay, op. cit., pp. 468, 470, 472, 528, etc. and Sánchez Montes, op. cit., pp. 93 ff. The theme of the universal preaching of the Gospel is perhaps partly due to the false chronicles that abounded in those days. See Alcántara, J. Godoy, Historia crítica de los falsos cronicones (Madrid, 1868), pp. 59–66.Google Scholar
27 One can see a copious bibliography contemporary with our author in Pereira, Solórzano, De lndiarum Jure (Madrid, 1629), pp. 177 Google Scholar ff. Tenorio (Unum Christi Ovile, fols. 549 ff.) himself cites the following authors: Acosta, Gómara, Oviedo, Salazar, Malvenda, Bitero, Bozio, Pedro Mártir, Herrera, Torquemada, Mexía, Gregorio García, Ramos y Calancha, etc.
28 psalmi immac., I, 244v–245v.
29 Ibid., fols. 74–75V.
30 Psalmi immac., fol. 244v.
31 Stimulus Missionum, sive de propaganda a religiosis per universum orbem fide (Rome, 1610), p. 6.
32 De natura novi Orbis (Salamanca, 1589), pp. 41 f.
33 Interpretano lsaiae, I, fols. 230, 369; Psalmi immac., 57, 75v.
34 Tenorio considers this triple universal preaching of the Gospel in the third disputation of the volume entitled Unum Christi Ovile, fols. 515–784.
35 One such resumé can be seen in Solórzano Pereira, op. cit., pp. 195 ff.
36 Interpretatio Isaiae, I, fol. 369v.
37 Ibid., fol. 369v.
38 Ibid., fol. 368v.
39 Interpretatio Isaiae, II, fols. 4ν, 248rv; Clavis Regia, fol. 444.
40 lnterpretatio Isaiae, I, fols. 369rv.
41 Phelan, op. cit., pp. 55 ff.
42 We have shortened considerably the tortuous arguments followed by Tenorio in arriving at the above conclusion. The whole argument can be seen in Paradisus Restitutus, fols. 33 ff.
43 Clavis regia, fol. 444.
44 Fructus immac., fols. 632–633v; Paratus immac., fols. 639f.
45 Partus immac., fols. 523 f.
46 Psalmi immac., I, fol. 489rv.
47 In Partus immac. fol. 572v. he states: “… ideo forte a finibus terrae nos contemptibiles et infirmos elegit Altissimus ad hoc tam arduum opus ut omnibus notum sit ibi quoque (in Indiis) solem justitiae et lunam Mariam abundantissime suos sapientiae reliquarumque virtutum difudisse radios. Ibique tanquam Stellas firmamenti posuisse Doctores.” See also Unum Christi ovile, fol. 656; Fructus immac., fol. 230v; Psalmi immac., I, fol. 450v., etc.
48 Clavis regia, vols. 47–62.