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Franciscan Missionary Scholars in Colonial Central America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

France V. Scholes
France V. Scholes*
Affiliation:
University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
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Extract

Last summer, during a vacation in Mexico City, I received a letter from Father Wyse inviting me to speak at this Annual Convocation of the Academy of American Franciscan History. The invitation did me great honor, and in view of the many courtesies extended to me by the Academy since its founding more than seven years ago, including election to corresponding membership, I also regarded it as a command. It gives me pleasure and satisfaction to participate once more in the academic exercises of the Academy and to renew association with old friends and comrades in the field of Franciscan studies. To Father Wyse, Father Wheeler and their associates I offer congratulations for their splendid contributions to historical scholarship relating to the Americas and best wishes for continued success in the enterprise to which they are dedicated.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , April 1952 , pp. 391 - 416
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1952

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Footnotes

*

An address given at the Annual Convocation of the Academy of American Franciscan History, December 10, 1951. The author wishes to express his debt to Dr. Ralph L. Roys, Corresponding Member of the Academy, for many ideas and suggestions received over a period of many years, which have been incorporated in the text of the address.

References

1 The principal sources of information concerning the Franciscan scholars of Central America are the works of Fray Francisco Vázquez, Fray Bernardo de Lizana, Fray Diego López de Cogolludo, Domingo Juarros and Francisco Antonio de Fuentes y Guzmán. Lázaro Lamadrid, O.F.M., has summarized the history of Franciscan scholarship in Guatemala in an article entitled “Estudios franciscanos en la Antigua Guatemala,” Anales de la Soc. de Geog. e Hist., Guatemala, XVIII (1942), 279-305. The first part of “A Bio-bibliography of Franciscan Authors in Colonial Central America,” by E. B. Adams appears in this issue of THE AMERICAS.

2 For a detailed account of Ordóñez’ career, see Vázquez, Francisco, Crónica de la Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Guatemala (2nd ed.; Guatemala, 1937–1944), II, 109–149 Google Scholar.

3 Vázquez, II, 316-321.

4 Vázquez, III, 122-150.

5 Lamadrid, p. 289.

6 Juarros, D., Compendio de la historia de la ciudad de Guatemala (3d ed.; Guatemala, 1936), I, 205–206;Google Scholar Souza, J. M. Beristain de, Biblioteca Hispano Americana Septentrional (3rd ed.; Mexico, [1947]); Lamadrid, pp. 285–286 Google Scholar.

7 Lamadrid, pp. 295-296.

8 For a more extensive discussion of this work, see Miss Adams’s comments in her bibliographical essay.

9 Several lengthy manuscripts on Maya medicine written in Yucatan have come down to us from colonial times. These texts form the basis of Roys’ work, R. L., The Ethno-Botany of the Maya (New Orleans, 1931)Google Scholar.

10 Cogolludo, D. López de, Historia de Yucatán (3d ed.; Mérida, 1867–1868), II, 625 Google Scholar.

11 Historia de Yucatán. Devocionario de Ntra. Sra. de Izmal (Valladolid, 1633; 2nd ed.; Mexico, 1893).

12 Historia de Yucatán (Madrid, 1688; 2nd ed.; 2 vols-, Campeche, Mérida, 1842-1845; 3d ed.; 2 vols., Mérida, 1867-1868).

13 Crónica de la Provincia del Santísimo Nombre de Jesús de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1714-1716; 2nd ed.; Biblioteca “Goathemala,” vols. 14-17, Guatemala, 1937-1944).

14 Beristain, V, 16-17; de-Torquemada, Juan, Monorchia Indiana (Madrid, 1723)Google Scholar, lib. 20, cap. 18.

15 Roys, R. L., The Indian Background of Colonial Yucatan (Washington, 1943), p. 175 Google Scholar.

16 Vázquez, I, 124-125.

17 Flores, I. J., Arte de la Lengua Metropolitana (Guatemala, 1753)Google Scholar, [f. 3v].

18 Bourbourg, C. E. Brasseur de, Histoire des nations civilisées du Mexique et de l’Amérique-Centrale (Paris, 1857–1859), I, lxxxvii;Google Scholar Flores, Arte, [f. 19v].

19 Cf. note 17. Another colonial grammar attributed to Fray Carlos Rosales was printed in Guatemala City by a modern Franciscan linguist, García, Daniel Sánchez O.F.M., Gramática del idioma Cachiquel. 1148. (Guatemala, [1919])Google Scholar.

20 Flores, Arte, p. 13.

21 López de Cogolludo, II, 237-238.

22 For further comment on Ciudad Real and the Motul Dictionary, see the article by R. L. Roys and the bio-bibliography of E. B. Adams in this issue of THE AMERICAS.

23 Original in the Library of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; photograph in the Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.

24 Johnson, Samuel, A Dictionary of the English Language (London, 1755)Google Scholar, Preface.

25 Sahagún, Bernardino de, Historia general de las cosas de Nueva España (Mexico, 1938), I, 5–6 Google Scholar.

26 Ricard, R., La conquista espiritual de México (Mexico, 1947), p. 127 Google Scholar.

27 An incomplete translation of this report has been published in Means, P. A., History of the Spanish Conquest of Yucatan and of the Itzas (Cambridge, Mass., 1917)Google Scholar.

28 Landa’s Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan: A Translation, edited with notes by Alfred M. Tozzer (Cambridge, 1941). This is the eighth edition of this work.

29 Testimony from the 1562 trials has been published in Scholes, France V. and Adams, Eleanor B., Don Diego Quijada, Alcalde Mayor de Yucatán, 1561-1565 (2 vols.; Mexico, 1938)Google Scholar.

30 Horace Odes iii. 30.