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How to Finance a Counter-Reformation Saint: the Alms for the Canonisation of Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand III, 1592–1688

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2023

EDUARDO ÁNGEL CRUZ
EDUARDO ÁNGEL CRUZ*
Affiliation:
Università de Teramo - KY Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21, box 3307, Leuven, BE 3000, Belgium
*
E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

The paths to sainthood of the cults of Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand III exhibit a unique phenomenon of collaboration across the Spanish empire for the canonisation of multiple Counter-Reformation saints. An analysis of their financial records may reveal a network of alliances that could account for the overwhelming number of Iberian saints canonised in the seventeenth century. The role of Spanish America in the construction of a renewed imperial identity is also examined, demonstrating that it capitalised on the urgency of these devotions to advance its own cults while arguing for the centrality of their territories to the expansion of Catholicism.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 74 , Issue 4 , October 2023 , pp. 753 - 773
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press.

In 1599, Pope Clement viii (p. 1592–1605) was urged by the Spanish ambassador Antonio Fernández de Córdoba to appeal for the canonisation of a Madrilenian farmer, Isidore Agricola. He was one of twelve candidates for whom, at the time, that honour was being pursued. The pope, however, was not pleased with the exchange. Since the start of his papacy, he had been receiving numerous petitions by Spanish envoys, both in person and in writing, with identical objectives. For this reason, he ironically inquired of the ambassador: ‘do you intend to canonise all the saints from Spain?’, to which the latter replied: ‘because he [Isidore] was such a great saint and belonged to the court of Spain, it should take place’.Footnote 1

Despite early scepticism, the new Pope Gregory xv (p. 1621–3) canonised Isidore and another four pious candidates in 1622. In an unprecedented event, Ignatius Loyola, Francis Xavier, Teresa of Ávila, Philip Neri and Isidore Agricola became universal saints at the same time. This led to multiple celebrations throughout the globe, from Italy to Mexico City and India.Footnote 2 Still, many expressed their dislike for the disproportionate number of Spanish saints in the Eternal City, as attested by the popular contemporary quip: ‘four Spaniards and one saint have been canonised’.Footnote 3

In the past decades, Spanish and the Italian scholarship has attempted to explain the overwhelming preponderance of Iberian saints canonised in the seventeenth century. From 1600 to 1699, at least 266 trials were opened and discussed in the Congregation of Rites. Of them 137 were Italian, sixty Spanish and only nine were French. Despite the predominance of Italian candidates, the Holy See's favourites belonged to the different territories of the Spanish empire. Of thirty-five canonisations, nearly 60 per cent were backed by the Hispanic monarchy.Footnote 4 The most compelling arguments regarding this papal preference have focused on two main ideas: the Spanish empire's intense diplomacy and the papacy's lack of prestige after the Protestant Reformation. The first considers the negotiations between the pope and the king to have been the central force behind this preference. The second, mainly espoused by Italian historiography, has argued that the high number of Iberian saints responded to a general trend that placed the powers of the pope beneath the interests of the Spanish empire in the wars of religion.Footnote 5

Although diplomacy and the balance of papal and monarchic power are undeniably relevant, the academic literature has tended to underplay the financial aspects of canonisation. Under this lens, the role of the American continent in the consolidation of Iberian saints comes into question. The Latin American scholarship has also elided this phenomenon because, in its quest to find the roots of a ‘creole identity’, it has considered the relatively small number of American saints in the Counter-Reformation era a sign of religious subordination, while regarding it as a seminal cultural element in the independence movements of the nineteenth century.Footnote 6 By contrast, the vital role of the American alms in the canonisation of Spanish saints has been set aside because it did not fit these narratives.

This article introduces into the academic discussion a set of sources that offer a new reading of the saint-making phenomenon across Spain, Italy and the Americas. These are the books of alms and internal correspondence on the canonisation causes of Isidore Agricola (1592–1623) and Ferdinand iii of Castille (1623–88). In both cases, not only have these unique records been preserved – a rare feat in and of itselfFootnote 7 – but they also allow us to observe that American financial support was indispensable in securing apostolical sanction for their cults in a century of European crisis.Footnote 8

What is mainly argued is that the collaboration of American elites was vigorous and had a distinct purpose: to insist on their centrality in the global dynamics of the Counter-Reformation. This then paved the way to their own canonisation initiatives, albeit with varying degrees of success. Thus, the American canonisations stood not as an early sign of ‘national identity’ but as a symbolic proposition that tried to argue that the future of the Catholic faith could start transitioning from Europe to the New World. Thus a new Catholic identity was being formed across a developing cultural frontier in the Mediterranean and southern Atlantic, using sanctity as a means to affirm the authority of the Spanish regime through one of the most personal connections of the faithful – their interactions with God and the hereafter through the cult of the saints.

A challenging endeavour

Although hagiographies have been some of the most fertile sources for the study of sainthood, by nature the ‘Lives of saints’ do not account for the struggles or even failures of canonical causes. Because these narratives were constructed to be edifying for the faithful, the conflicts that took place during the early phases of cults are usually avoided.Footnote 9 Hence the focus in this analysis is not on hagiographies but on correspondence and books of alms. These records are of extraordinary value because they reveal the complexity behind the establishment and expansion of a cult in the Counter-Reformation era. Even though at first glance it might be assumed that starting a canonisation process required strong finances a priori, in the cases of both Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand iii the records show that substantial pious investments and a series of complex monetary operations were required. Furthermore, both cases demonstrate that canonisation initiatives could represent a deeply challenging endeavour from an economic and political point of view.

Isidore Agricola was a poor medieval farmer of morisco origin,Footnote 10 competing against Counter-Reformation icons at a time when founders of wealthy religious orders were preferred.Footnote 11 In 1561, after being designated the seat of the royal court by Philip ii (r. 1556–98), Madrid reinvented the devotion and encouraged the canonisation of Isidore, among other things because it served as a symbol of its political centrality.Footnote 12 In the 1590s the town council decided to invest large sums of money in collecting information about the life of Isidore while also visiting neighbouring villages and rebuilding their churches. This campaign was key in the dissemination of his devotion throughout the rest of the Castilian region since the material thus collected helped construct his hagiography and led to the publication of a famous poem, in 1592 and 1599, which elucidated many of the gaps and contradictions in Isidore's life story.Footnote 13 Moreover, as observed in the account book of Domingo de Mendoza, a Dominican friar who played a decisive role in the construction of the cult,Footnote 14 the main source of income for these multiple pious operations was the alms offered in wills and in life by wealthy benefactors, and especially by the sponsor institutions of the cult, in this case the confraternity of St Andrew and the town council of Madrid.Footnote 15

The cult of Isidore faced an important political and financial crisis as the town council of Madrid lost the favour of the king before the start of the apostolic process. In 1601, the new king, Philip iii (r. 1598–1621), ordered the transfer of his court to Valladolid. This had a devastating effect on Madrid, perhaps best captured in the first lines of the poem of Eugenio Salazar, written after the announcement (1600): ‘Madrid, I see signs of your fall.’Footnote 16 After forty years of transforming what had been a humble village into what could have become the capital of the biggest empire of the modern world, in less than a year the town lost close to half of its population and almost all its previous geopolitical relevance. Thus, the council decided to focus all its efforts on recovering its position as the seat of the court, which implied that the canonical process of Isidore Agricola, reportedly very advanced at the Congregation of Rites, had to be put on hold for almost two decades.

The cause of the medieval king Ferdinand iii of Castille had a more promising start. He was the first Spanish monarch for whom canonisation had been sought,Footnote 17 and for this reason Philip iv (r. 1621–65) heavily favoured his cult in Seville, the city promoting his cause.Footnote 18 Although we do not have a comparable report on the alms for the start of his process (c. 1623–9), from the correspondence of the Sevillian agent in Rome Bernardo de Toro and the religious historian Fray Juan de Pineda we know that between 1629 and 1633 the costs of starting the legal process were on a comparable level to those for the cult of Isidore.Footnote 19 Because the first decades of the seventeenth century were ones of relative economic stability for Seville, it initially appeared that canonical expenses, the cost of the pious images and the new compilations of Ferdinand's Life and miracles would be readily covered by wealthy members of the ecclesiastical chapter of the cathedral, including the archbishop, Diego de Guzmán (1625–31), jointly with Seville's city council.

However, despite early progress, which was prematurely celebrated in 1630, the arrival of Ferdinand's cause in Rome coincided with a change in canonical procedures inside the Congregation of Rites and increased tension in diplomatic relations between the pope and the king. First, a decree issued by the Holy Office on 13 March 1625 and the papal brief Coelestis Ierusalem cives of 1634 ordered stricter compliance with the ordinances of the Council of Trent for the approval of new cults.Footnote 20 One point of emphasis was that potential holy candidates should not have enjoyed an illicit cult prior to the approval of their cause, in other words, a popular devotion not approved by the Congregation of Rites.Footnote 21 Since the cult of Ferdinand iii started, precisely, as part of a popular belief that had transformed the memory of a great king to that of a Catholic saint,Footnote 22 his case was rejected in 1634. Second, reports from Sevillian agents in Rome warned that Pope Urban viii (p. 1623–44) was significantly less favourable to causes backed by the monarchy, especially once the differences between him and the Spanish cardinal and ambassador (1616–19) Gaspar de Borja led to a verbal altercation and an unseemly brawl on 8 March 1632.Footnote 23

Although Isidore's canonical pause took place in 1601 and Ferdinand's in 1634, the seventeenth century was a time of profound economic, political and religious crisis for both Madrid and Seville. Disease was endemic in these towns and resources were scarce compared to the sixteenth century. As a result of the early struggles many co-sponsors of the devotions decided to abandon their causes. For example, the royal court of Madrid shifted its original interest from Isidore to the causes of bishops Raymond of Penyafort (canonised in 1601) and Charles Borromeo (canonised in 1610), while the city council of Seville preferred to employ its resources on the city's immediate necessities. Such strains on original sources of funding partially explain why, despite the time difference, both causes had to resort to extraordinary resources in order to survive their respective religious and economic crises.

However, this century was not a period of stagnation for every Spanish kingdom. By contrast, as Carlos S. Assadourian has suggested, several American metropoles consolidated their internal markets and, with the continuous revenues from silver mining, thrived financially.Footnote 24 At the time it was widely known in the royal chambers that the Americas were the most dynamic economic force in the empire, even to the degree of causing some concern. As Baltasar Álamo de Barrientos warned in 1598: ‘if they [the American subjects] come to know their power and that the power of this monarchy depends on theirs, they could issue laws instead of receiving them’.Footnote 25 Furthermore, at the level of government, their copious resources were used by the authorities of the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru to fund the military defence of other geopolitically relevant territories, without ever reaching the Iberian peninsula.Footnote 26 For this reason, at a religious level, the Americas would also be seen as a force that could rejuvenate struggling canonical enterprises in Rome. But the colonies’ collaboration would not be automatic. The sponsors of both canonisation initiatives had to resort to a series of negotiations, conducted by crucial mediators whose interventions allowed them to reconcile local American interests and the imperial necessities of Iberian elites.

‘They are saints, they will help each other’

In 1599 and 1634, two royal decrees were issued to all civil and religious authorities in the Americas. In them, Philip iii and Philip iv asked their American subjects to collect alms for the canonisation of Isidore Agricola and of Ferdinand iii, respectively, because they considered these pious enterprises of great interest to the empire.Footnote 27 Nevertheless, as so often happens, the publication of a decree did not automatically lead to compliance. In the Hispanic monarchy, the medieval principles ‘obey but do not enforce’ and ‘what concerns all shall be approved by all’ were still in vigour and they were not considered a form of royal contempt. As Rafael Valladares has shown, this meant that local displays of loyalty in Spanish America were often a response to internal political realities, not to a simple display of unequal power relations between the centre and the periphery.Footnote 28

In the cases of both Isidore and Ferdinand negotiation and mediation were key components in securing overseas economic and religious support. One previously unstudied Spanish-American mediator emerges as a crucial linchpin in Isidore's cause. Diego de Salas Barbadillo was a Madrid courtier who professed a strong devotion to Isidore. At an early age, he travelled to the Americas and established a series of powerful connections that led to him being one of the legal representatives of the council of Mexico City in the court when he returned to Madrid.Footnote 29 When the crisis of Isidore's canonisation emerged, he used his unique knowledge of local political affairs and rivalries in Spanish America to benefit his interests.

Sent by Diego de Salas to New Spain, the first royal decree arrived in 1600 not in Mexico City, but in Puebla de los Ángeles. Possibly, the Madrilenian agent knew that representatives of the latter city were challenging the former as the new capital of the kingdom.Footnote 30 Hence, in its desire to appeal for the king's favour, the council of Puebla could potentially mobilise a considerable amount of alms for the canonisation of Isidore. What Salas did not know was that, almost simultaneously, the Puebla city council would also start pursuing the canonisation of their own saint, Sebastián de Aparicio (†1600), a Spanish merchant and later Franciscan friar whose pious life shared many of the characteristics of that of Isidore.Footnote 31

Both circumstances were highly favourable for pious collections and possibly illustrate why other American cities also contributed with vigour to this ‘foreign’ cause. Between 1600 and 1603, Puebla became the first city in Spanish America to collect and send alms for the canonisation of Isidore Agricola. Instead of exhausting their own corporation's resources, the city council decided to foment his devotion at a local level, following on with the pious collections of alms on different occasions, through which they gathered the impressive amount of 5,213 reales, of which they sent 4,104 to the Iberian Peninsula. Their example was later followed and greatly exceeded by other metropolises such as Potosí, Popayán and Guatemala which together sent over 97,114 reales between 1603 and 1611, as shown in the account book of the royal collector of the Casa de la Contratación.Footnote 32 The symbolic appropriation of the cult played a key role in the collection process and can also explain why Puebla celebrated Isidore's beatification and canonisation as its own triumph. As observed in the Actas de cabildo of 1629, their representatives made sure to remember that they had been the first to support this cause in the Americas.Footnote 33

In the case of Ferdinand iii, the collection of alms was also conducted by an American city that was vying for political power. However, it appears that the wealth and political influence of an individual played a more dominant role than the collective participation of a corporation. In 1635, the royal decree to collect alms arrived in Arequipa, a city of the viceroyalty of Peru that, at the time, had its own political and religious disputes. In this case, it was the bishop of Arequipa, Pedro de Villagómez (1632–40), who between 1634 and 1636 decided to support the cause promoted by Seville's cathedral, in no small part because he had been its doctoral canon before becoming bishop of Arequipa.

Arequipa was initially hesitant to offer much to the Sevillian cause because it had recently suffered a disastrous earthquake and was one of the poorest bishoprics in the region.Footnote 34 According to a letter sent by Villagómez in April 1636, he had to lead by example, especially among his ecclesiastical colleagues. For that reason, he offered 8,000 reales from his personal savings. After this, he managed to obtain another 4,560 reales from members of his ecclesiastical chapter with a promise of obtaining more resources once the city council started to collect alms from the inhabitants of Arequipa and its diocese.Footnote 35

Villagómez sought to support his political and religious interests by establishing a political alliance with the Seville cathedral and by appealing to the king's favour. This explains why he followed his pious offering with a request to Philip iv asking to be promoted to the archiepiscopal curia of Lima, from which he promised to collect even more alms for the canonisation of the first Spanish saint-king.Footnote 36 Perhaps not coincidentally, between 1633 and 1635, Bishop Villagómez also started to encourage a new cult – that of the archbishop of Lima, Toribio de Mogrovejo (†1606). In life, Toribio had been the second and perhaps most active prelate in the history of sixteenth-century Peru.Footnote 37 In this context, obtaining a universal canonisation of his cult would symbolise the enterprise that Bishop Villagómez had come to pursue – strengthening the political and economic position of American cathedrals, in particular positioning the secular clergy at the centre of the American Church, relegating the religious orders to second place.Footnote 38 Furthermore, it seems likely that once Villagómez was promoted to the archbishopric of Lima (1642–71) he coordinated a joint effort by other cathedrals to obtain more alms for the Sevillian cause, as he had promised to do. As noted in the book of alms of Seville's cathedral, in 1644 the next transatlantic supporter was the bishop of Quito, Pedro de Oviedo y Falcony (1628–45). As Quito was a suffragan bishopric to Lima, which Villagómez ruled as archbishop, it is not unlikely that he personally led the effort to collect more alms for Ferdinand's canonisation with the purpose of solidifying his authority together with that of the American cathedrals.Footnote 39 This could explain not only why Lima celebrated the papal bull that commemorated Ferdinand's cult in 1671 but also why, just two years later (1673), they oversaw the beatification of the Peruvian archbishop, Toribio de Mogrovejo, with the hope of canonisation to follow.

These cases show the establishment of a transatlantic network of pious, political and economic alliances for the canonisation of several Spanish saints that also served the varied interests of both the Iberian and American elites. With this in mind, the initial support offered in the Americas to a ‘foreign’ saint would be highly influenced by the idea that this could, in turn, help to obtain the canonisation of a ‘local’ saint. This is shown in the case of Isidore and Sebastián de Aparicio in Puebla, and Ferdinand iii and Toribio de Mogrovejo in Peru. This tit-for-tat disposition was perhaps best expressed by a Peruvian agent in Rome in 1688, who stated that ‘they are saints, they will help each other’.Footnote 40

‘Here, money gets things done’

In the Counter-Reformation era, canonisations were more costly and challenging than they had been in the Middle Ages. The Roman bureaucracy had expanded, and the individual dignity of the cardinals did not predispose them to be blindly loyal to the monarchy. In the seventeenth century, Roman cardinals’ favour was highly volatile and frequently depended on the negotiation capacities of agents sent to the Eternal City.Footnote 41 This increased complexity is visible in the cases of both Isidore and Ferdinand. For their canonisations, several agents were commissioned by both the king and their respective corporations to secure the support of the cardinals.

To ensure the success of their pious enterprises, Spanish agents were compelled to use any tool available to them. Of course, arguing in favour of the miracles and virtues of their would-be saints inside the Congregation of Rites was essential. But since there were at the time dozens of holy candidates with similar appeal, in order to stand out it was critical to cajole the Roman elites with expensive gifts and offers for their servants and nephews. The sentiment was expressed by Gil Jiménez, an attorney for the council of Madrid, in a letter to the council (1599): ‘I often remember and laugh at the fact that Your Majesties used to say: “let's send the process by post”, as if it were a finished business … But you should know and understand, as they say, that here [in Rome] … they negotiate with work and with a lot of money … Because here, money gets things done.’Footnote 42

Other testimonies confirm this idea. Juan Belda, who at the time was promoting the cause of Tomás de Villanueva (canonised 1658), lamented in a letter that money was such a key element inside the Congregation of Rites. He argued that it was precisely a dearth of funds that had marginalised his candidate in 1622: ‘Our saint has been left out because he was poor. In his lifetime, he left all to the poor … and now, on this good occasion, when the pope wanted to canonise him … he was left out for lack of money.’Footnote 43 Starting in January 1634 Pedro de Arteaga, a Sevillian agent sent to Rome for the canonisation of Ferdinand iii, begged the ecclesiastical chapter in numerous letters to send him 11,000 reales to continue the negotiations. He mentioned that the previous agent, Bernardo de Toro, was financially exhausted and that he could not find any reliable loans in the Eternal City. Even worse, at the time a Peruvian Franciscan had arrived and had plenty of money to spare for the negotiation of ‘their saint’ – most likely Fray Francis Solano (†1610). The agent ended with the warning that ‘the foreigners who reside here [in Rome] are watching what Seville does in this cause, which is of our favour and honour. I would not like them to insult us by affronting us with our carelessness’.Footnote 44

Despite the use of hyperbole, these testimonies show that alms were an extraordinary asset in the negotiation of seventeenth-century canonisations. What is not yet clear is the extent to which transcontinental alms influenced the success of Iberian candidates. However, an approximation is possible. Firstly, the account book of Diego de Barrionuevo, a Madrilenian agent in Rome for Isidore Agricola, shows that during the years 1615 to 1623 the town gave 312,021 reales in luxurious presents offered to the Roman cardinals and for the festivity of the beatification (1619) and canonisation (1622) of their saint. If we consider the amount of money collected in New Spain, Peru and Guatemala between 1600 and 1619 (108,911 reales), we observe that 34.9 per cent of the total alms for the cause would have come directly from the Americas.Footnote 45

However, alms were used for different purposes and at different phases of the canonisation process. In the case of Isidore Agricola, the account book hints at the existence of two stages – negotiation and celebration. Thus, if we deduct the money spent on festivities, that is, after Isidore's first declaration of sainthood, we observe that Madrid had spent in Rome for the negotiations that led to his beatification (1615–19) only 48,970 reales of silver. This would imply that the arrival of American alms – which coincided chronologically with the crisis that Madrid faced in the 1600s – would have entirely financed the negotiations for Isidore's beatification while offering a surplus (59,941 reales) to continue the promotion of his cult toward canonisation. In other words, American alms appear to be the driving income for the most crucial phase of Isidore's trial, which would imply that Madrid heavily invested in Isidore's cause only after he had already secured sainthood, allocating over 263,050 reales of silver to the celebration of his beatification and the advancement of his canonisation (1619–22). Furthermore, according to Barrionuevo's balance, a considerable amount of money (26,306 reales) was returned to Madrid in 1623, which means that not all alms sent to Rome were spent on Isidore's canonisation. Thus, it can be estimated that American alms amounted to roughly 38.1 per cent of the total expenses.Footnote 46

However, because of the fluctuating nature of this data, a comparative perspective becomes even more relevant. For our second case, Ferdinand's cause, between 1635–88, according to the account book of Seville cathedral, the support of the Americas amounted to around 56 per cent of the total income. If the same criteria as with Isidore are applied and alms for the celebrations (1671–88) are deducted, that is, once his cult was apostolically authorised for veneration with the canonical exception of non cultu (equivalent to beatification), we note that the percentage of American alms remains consistent – 56 per cent of the income during the negotiations.Footnote 47 In other words, the American alms helped substantially and consistently to secure apostolic approval of Ferdinand's cult.Footnote 48

Although these numbers are remarkable in themselves, the moment at which the alms were collected was crucial. For Isidore Agricola and the council of Madrid, the American alms covered the costs of keeping the cause open in the Congregation despite initial struggles. It is likely that his cause would otherwise have been rejected, just as many others were in the 1610s. In the case of Ferdinand iii, the role of American alms was even more decisive, as they allowed the promoters to finance new apostolic dossiers – per viam cultus and in genere (1648–52) and super virtutibus et miraculis in specie (1664–8). These dossiers helped declare him exempt from the previous prohibitions of Urban viii, which had been the main cause behind failure in 1634. However, further analysis is still necessary in order to continue assessing the impact of transcontinental alms for these and other imperial saints in the Counter-Reformation era.

Even though only two canonisation processes have been examined in this article, it is likely that Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand iii were not exceptions but rather part of the general procedure on how to finance a struggling Counter-Reformation candidate. There is evidence of transcontinental alms for the canonisation of Teresa of Ávila, John of Sahagún, John of God, Peter of Alcántara, María de la Cabeza and Toribio de Mogrovejo. Furthermore, it appears that the Spanish monarchy mobilised alms for other candidates who did not reach sainthood, like the Mexican anchorite Gregorio López or Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza.

From the two cases observed, we can begin to comprehend some of the reasons why American ‘locals’ might have supported the canonisation of ‘foreign’ saints. Instead of simply exploiting the resources of the colonies, a complex phenomenon of entangled pious and political negotiation which allowed for the establishment of a network for the transfer of pious resources across Spain, Italy and the Americas was in evidence. In the cases of Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand iii, American elites came to the rescue partly because of their desire for local saints to be canonised. Thus, shortly after supporting Isidore, Puebla began its initiative to canonise Fray Sebastián de Aparicio, sending petitions and agents to the royal and papal courts in 1617. Likewise, the bishop of Arequipa and later archbishop of Lima, Pedro de Villagómez, favoured the cause of Ferdinand iii in 1635 partially because he was simultaneously encouraging the cult of Archbishop Toribio de Mogrovejo. In both cases it is likely that the connections and legal experience obtained after their initial support helped participants ensure the success of their respective cults: Toribio was beatified in 1679 and canonised in 1726;Footnote 49 Fray Sebastián was beatified in 1789.Footnote 50

Another reason behind the support of imperial cults and the pursuit of local canonisations was that many kingdoms throughout the globe, including the Americas, wanted to acquire the symbolic role of being the new leader of the Catholic faith in the Counter-Reformation era. As Jonathan Israel and Alfredo Ávila have suggested, even at times of imperial crisis the creole population in America did not aim at insurgency when affirming their local identities. Instead, they considered the prosperity of their continent an opportunity for developing them into the new anchor point of Catholicism.Footnote 51 As the production of hagiographies published in Spain increased exponentially, it seems that the desire to symbolically lead the Catholic Reformation also grew across the Spanish empire.Footnote 52 It was precisely the strong ideals of Catholic defence, exemplified here in transcontinental support for canonisation processes, that encouraged the formation of a renewed Spanish imperial identity in the seventeenth century.Footnote 53

Because the crown actually had limited powers over the various jurisdictions involved, it had to articulate a cultural discourse aimed at fostering obedience.Footnote 54 This discourse was based on a providential belief, imposed initially by brutal displays of force, which considered that Christianity would triumph at the end of time. As Domingo Chimalpáhin Quauhtlehuanitzin, a cacique Chalca of New Spain, stated between 1606 and 1631, the world had a clear ‘capital’– not Madrid, but Rome; and a ‘universal lord’– the king of Spain. And yet, for him, the true centre of Catholicism was not Europe nor America but the water of the oceans which, as the ‘true faith’, irrigated the four parts of the world.Footnote 55

Though romanticised, this complex providential belief can be felt in the language used for the promotion of Spanish and American saints. In 1640, Puebla continued its requests to the king to favour the canonisation of Fray Sebastián de Aparicio. Among their arguments, they mentioned that having ‘a canonised vassal in the new orb’ could serve as ‘a celestial medal, a saint who asks God for the expansion of the empire’.Footnote 56 Canonising an American saint served to argue that the evangelisation of the Americas had been a providential sign, part of an even bigger project: the continuous expansion of the Catholic faith. There are numerous allusions to these imperialistic ideals not only in the arguments for the canonisation of Iberian saints but also in the narratives of even the most ‘creole’ devotions of Spanish America, such as Rose of Lima and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Before becoming the symbols of the new Mexican and Peruvian nations, both were deemed miraculous icons of the success of evangelisation and of the Catholic monarchy. According to Pope Clement ix (p. 1667–9), the divine fragrance of Rose served to please and protect European cities against the dangers of ‘heresy’.Footnote 57 Likewise, the Virgin of Guadalupe of Mexico was frequently represented as a fountain on top of the mare clausum, which served to strengthen the union between ‘the two Spains’.Footnote 58

The question of how to finance a Counter-Reformation saint reveals an interesting experience of entangled sainthood, exemplified in the two cases examined. Although canonisations are often analysed individually,Footnote 59 in recent years scholars have started to explore how one canonisation affected others in what has been described as a competition for reformed sanctity.Footnote 60 This article provides evidence not only that rivalry among early modern canonisations existed, but also that financial collaboration between sponsors and benefactors influenced or could even trigger the invention of new saints in other parts of the world. The cases of Isidore Agricola and Sebastián de Aparicio in Madrid and Puebla, and of Ferdinand iii and Toribio de Mogrovejo in Seville and Arequipa, call for a global perspective and an emphasis on a new set of sources for the study of Catholic devotions. By examining the books of alms of these cults we have been able to question traditional narratives proposed by studies based primarily on hagiographies, namely that canonisations stood as affirmations of local or even national identities. In fact, when analysing these devotions, it has been difficult to characterise them as either only ‘Spanish’ or ‘American’. When Isidore and Ferdinand were promoted in the Americas, they were symbolically adopted to serve within many pious and political contexts. In the process, the faithful also assigned them multiple meanings that fitted their expectations and needs, among others that they also wanted to participate in this race for Counter-Reformation holiness.

Footnotes

All translations are the author's own.

Archival research in Seville, Madrid and Lima was funded by the University of Teramo as part of my doctoral project, started in October 2020. My affiliation with KU Leuven started in July 2021 as part of a joint PhD agreement. A grant from the COST Action 18140 ‘People in Motion: Entangled Histories of Displacement across the Mediterranean (1492–1923)’ partially financed work at the Maurits Sabbe Library of KU Leuven, while research in Mexico City and Puebla was funded by the Centre for Economic Research and Teaching. I express my gratitude to Franziska Kleybolte, Felipe Álvarez de Toledo and Stephanie Rivadeneira for their suggestions on early drafts of this article.

References

1 ‘Tutti gli santi di Spagna volete canonizzare?… por ser tan santo y estar en la corte de España, se había de dar lugar’: Gil Jiménez to Madrid, 18 Oct 1599, AVM, ms 2–285–2 (emphasis mine).

2 Anselmi, A., ‘Roma celebra la monarchia spagnola: il teatro per la canonizzazione di Isidoro Agricola, Ignazio di Loyola, Francesco Saverio, Teresa di Gesù e Filippo Neri’, in Colomer, J. (ed.), Arte y diplomacia de la monarquía hispánica en el siglo XVII, Madrid 2003, 221–46Google Scholar; Alberro, S., ‘Las cuatro partes del mundo en las fiestas virreinales peruanas y novohispanas’, in O'Phelan, S. and Salazar-Soler, C. (eds), Passeurs, mediadores culturales y agentes de la primera globalización en el mundo ibérico, siglos XVII-XIX, Lima 2005, 147–61Google Scholar; I. Arellano, ‘Vive le roy! El poder y la gloria en fiestas hagiográficas francesas (canonización de San Ignacio y San Francisco Javier, 1622)’, in I. Arellano, C. Strosetzki and E. Williamson (eds), Autoridad y poder en el siglo de oro, Madrid 2009, 9–34.

3 ‘Oggi il Papa ha canonizzato quattro spagnoli e un santo’: Biblioteca Nacional de España, ms 2232, fo. 81, also cited in Gotor, M., ‘Le canonizzazioni dei santi spagnoli nella Roma barocca’, in Sánchez, C. Hernando (ed.), Roma y España: un crisol de la cultura europea en la edad moderna, ii, Madrid 2007, 639Google Scholar.

4 Figures provided by J. Armogathe, ‘La fábrica de los santos: causas españolas y procesos romanos de Urbano viii a Benedicto xiv (siglos xvii–xviii)’, in M. Vitse (ed.), Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro: la hagiografía entre historia y literatura en la España de la edad media y del siglo de oro, Madrid 2005, 149–68. On the canonisation of Spanish saints see also C. Copeland, ‘Spanish saints in Counter-Reformation Italy’, in P. Baker-Bates and M. Pattenden (eds), The Spanish presence in sixteenth-century Italy: images of Iberia, Farnham–Burlington, Vt 2016, 117–38. On the canonisation policies of the Counter-Reformation Church see P. Delooz, Sociologie et canonisations, Liege 1969; Burke, P., ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’, in his The historical anthropology of early modern Italy: essays on perception and communication, Cambridge 1987, 48–62Google Scholar; and Ditchfield, S., ‘How not to be a Counter-Reformation saint: the attempted canonization of Pope Gregory x, 1622–45’, Papers of the British School at Rome lx (1992), 379–422CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Gotor, ‘Le canonizzazioni’, 622–3; Levin, M., Agents of empire: Spanish ambassadors in sixteenth-century Italy, Ithaca, NY 2005CrossRefGoogle Scholar; P. Broggio, ‘Rome and the “Spanish theology”: Spanish monarchy, doctrinal controversies and the defence of papal prerogatives from Clement viii to Urban viii’, in Baker-Bates and Pattenden, The Spanish presence, 99–116.

6 Cf. Hampe, T., Santidad e identidad criolla: proceso de canonización de Santa Rosa, Cuzco 1998Google Scholar; Rubial, A., La santidad controvertida: hagiografía y conciencia criolla alrededor de los venerables no canonizados de Nueva España, Mexico City 1999Google Scholar; and Sánchez-Concha, R., Santos y santidad en el Perú Virreinal, Lima 2003Google Scholar.

7 P. Delooz has offered an explanation on why studying the role of finances in any canonisation cause is challenging: ‘Le Vatican … ne publie pas ses comptes comme les autres États et il faut donc chercher des informations auprès des contribuables, c'est-à-dire, en l'occurence, auprès des postulateurs … Dans plusieurs cas, d'ailleurs, les postulateurs ne savent pas eux-mêmes ce qu'une cause a coûté, notamment lorsqu'elle s’étire sur plusieurs siècles’: Sociologie et canonisation, 435, 437–8.

8 The authors who have offered a detailed analysis on the canonisations of Isidore Agricola and Ferdinand iii are M. Río Barredo and A. Wunder. However, both dismiss the financial support of the Americas and in their analysis consider these devotions of only local interests: A. Wunder, ‘Search for sanctity in Baroque Seville: the canonization of San Fernando and the making of Golden-Age culture, 1624–1729’, unpubl. PhD diss. Princeton 2002, and Baroque Seville: sacred art in a century of crisis, Philadelphia 2017; M. Río Barredo, ‘San Isidro y la crónica de una capital incierta (1590–1620)’, in Madrid, urbs regia: la capital ceremonial de la monarquía católica, Madrid 2000, 93–118.

9 P. Geary, Living with the dead in the Middle Ages, Ithaca, NY–London 1994, 21–2. In the case of Isidore, only recently have authors started to favour the analysis of diplomatic correspondence. The early results of such studies accentuate the struggles of the cult: Barredo, M. Río, ‘Canonizar a un santo medieval en la Roma de la Contrarreforma: Isidro Labrador, patrón de Madrid’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia xxix (2020), 127–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 M. Fernández Montes argues that the earliest preserved vita of Isidore Agricola has evidence of tradition exchanges between Muslim and Christian communities in the wider context of La Reconquista. This signals to the popularity of his cult among conversos or suggests, as C. Segura Graíño affirms, that Isidore had converso or even morisco origins himself. Although Segura Graíño has not elaborated on the argument, in other works she indicates that a majority of the agricultural population of Madrid at this time was of Muslim or converso origin. See Montes, Fernández, ‘San Isidro, de labrador medieval a patrón renacentista y barroco en la Villa y Corte’, Disparidades lvi/1 (2001), 41–95Google Scholar, esp. p. 20; C. Segura Graíño, ‘El origen islámico de Madrid y las relaciones con los reinos cristianos’, in A. Turina Gómez, A. Pérez Navarro and S. Quero Castro (eds), Testimonios del Madrid medieval: el Madrid musulmán, Madrid 2004, 19–41; interview with C. Segura Graíño by R. Fraguas, ‘Historiadores medievales indagan sobre el origen musulmán de San Isidro’, El País, 19 May 2008, at <https://elpais.com/diario/2008/05/19/madrid/1211196267_850215.html>, accessed 12 Sept. 2019; and L. Montes, Zozaya, ‘Construcciones para una canonización: reflexiones sobre los lugares de memoria y de culto en honor a San Isidro Labrador’, Tiempos Modernos vii/22 (2011), 2–25Google Scholar, esp. p. 6. The legend of Isidore Agricola was not exclusive to Madrid but shared across the region of New Castille. Yet questions regarding his unknown origin in the sixteenth century forced authors such as Lope de Vega to provide him with an invented Christian genealogy, one that could also clarify the problematic origin of his name. Vega suggested that the name Isidore was an homage to St Isidore of Seville and served as proof that his parents were not conversos but Old Christians, a requisite for canonisation. See J. Portús, ‘La intervención de Lope de Vega y de Gómez de Mora en las fiestas de canonización de San Isidro’, Villa de Madrid xxvi/95 (1988), 30–41, and R. Saez, ‘El culto a San Isidro Labrador o la invención y triunfo de una amplia operación político-religiosa (1580–1622)’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 1033–45. It should be noted that according to C. Segura Graíño the name Isidore (Isidro), which in sources varies between Ysidre and Esidre, must have originated from the Arabic name Driss and later adapted to Castilian, for which reason he is rarely called Isidorus in medieval sources. My argument here, however, is not whether he was of Old Christian or converso origin but that his cult and life story had to be reinvented in the early modern era to adjust to the changes of the Counter-Reformation.

11 Burke, ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’, 55–6.

12 During the reinvention of the cult of Isidore in the sixteenth century, the legend of his miracles, shared across the region of New Castille, was linked to a Madrilenian genealogy of newcomers who tried to create a pious lineage for themselves and their families during the establishment of the royal court in their town: Fernández Montes, ‘San Isidro’, 41–95; Montes, L. Zozaya, ‘Pesquisas documentales para narrar la historia de San Isidro: gestiones para una canonización iniciada en 1562’, Prisma Social iv (2010), 1–35Google Scholar.

13 Alonso de Villegas, ‘Vida de Isidro Labrador (1592)’, ed. Leahy, C., Lemir xix (2015), 897–930Google Scholar; de Vega, Lope, Isidro: poema castellano, Madrid 1599Google Scholar.

14 Barredo, M. Río, ‘Fray Domingo de Mendoza, artífice de fiestas religiosas en el Madrid de la Contrarreforma’, Chronica Nova xxxix (2013), 47–73Google Scholar. He was also crucial in the construction of the cult of Isidro's wife, María de la Cabeza: Cobo, M. Argulló y, ‘Declaraciones de escritores del siglo xvii en el proceso de beatificación de Santa María de la Cabeza’, Revista de Literatura xiii/25 (1958), 173–87Google Scholar.

15 AVM, ms 2–285–1. The amount of alms received for the purpose of gathering historical information for his three ordinary processes was 1,260 reales and the money spent accounted for 1,734 reales. According to Mendoza, he had to cover for the difference (474 reales), for which reason he filed this report to the council of Madrid.

16 ‘Ya amada Madrid mía / de tu caída veo señales’: E. Salazar, ‘Llanto sobre la muy noble, muy leal, lustrosa, cortesana e insigne villa de Madrid en la mudança de la corte real’, in A. Ezquerra, Los tras lados de corte de 1601 y 1606, Madrid 2006, 215–19.

17 C. Vincent-Cassy notes that the sponsors of the cult of Elizabeth of Portugal also used this rhetorical argument to advance her cause at the court of the Spanish king, who at the time was king of Portugal as well. G. Fatás and S. Muneroni argue that Ermenegildo incarnated one of the first stories of Spanish saint-kings and protomartyrs in the late sixteenth century. However, in contrast to Ermenegildo, Ferdinand iii was seen by contemporaries as a direct ancestor of the Spanish king and thus the first who could symbolically stand against other consolidated saint-kings, for example, Louis of France: Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘Quand les Reines étaient saintes: la canonisation de sainte Élisabeth de Portugal (1271–1336) et la monarchie espagnole au xviie siècle’, Faces de Eva vii (2002), 127–44Google Scholar, and ‘“Sangre real, raríssima hermosura …”: la santidad coronada en la España de los Austrias menores’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 1127–50; G. Fatás, ‘La santidad y sus antecedentes: santos antiguos y santos anómalos’, Revista de historia Jerónimo Zurita lxxxv (2010), 13–38; S. Muneroni, Hermenegildo and the Jesuits: staging sainthood in the early modern period, Cham 2017.

18 A. Álvarez-Ossorio, ‘Santo y rey: la corte de Felipe iv y la canonización de Fernando iii’, in Homenaje a Henri Guerreiro, 243–60; Gómez, J. Calvo, ‘La creación intelectual de la monarquía católica: la canonización equipolente de Fernando iii (1201– 1252) y la investigación eclesiástica sobre su culto inmemorial en el siglo xvii’, Anuario de Derecho Canónico vii (2018), 109–59Google Scholar.

19 ACS, Fondo Capitular, ms VIII–33–10735, fos 235, 236; Biblioteca Capitular de Sevilla, ms 58–5–39, fos 101–2.

20 G. Papa, Le cause di canonizzazione nel primo periodo della Congregazione dei riti: 1588-1634, Rome 2001, 5; S. Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine worship and the cult of saints’, in R. Po-Chia Hsia (ed.), The Cambridge history of Christianity, VI: Reform and expansion, 1500–1660, Cambridge 2007, 201–24, esp. pp. 213–16.

21 This was a measure specifically designed to contain the proliferation of the so-called ‘new blessed’ (‘beati moderni’). See Wunder, ‘Search for sanctity in Baroque Seville’, 22–3, and C. Copeland, Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi: the making of a Counter-Reformation saint, Oxford–New York 2016, 69.

22 C. Chamberlin, ‘“Unless the pen writes as it should”: the proto-cult of Saint Fernando iii in Seville in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, in M. González Jiménez (ed.), Sevilla 1248: Congreso internacional conmemorativo del 750 aniversario de la conquista de la ciudad de Sevilla por Fernando III, rey de Castilla y León, Seville 2000, 389–417.

23 Ditchfield, ‘Introduction’ to The Spanish presence, 15; Gómez, J. A. Calvo, ‘El proceso remisorial apostólico para la canonización de Fernando iii, el Santo (1201–1252)’, Anuario de Derecho Canónico x (2021), 138Google Scholar.

24 Although it is undeniable that in the seventeenth century diseases and natural catastrophes severely decimated important population centres, the general trend suggested by economic historians paints an overall favourable picture for the American continent: C. Assadourian, El sistema de la economía colonial: mercado interno, regiones y espacio económico, Lima 1982; R. Romano, Coyunturas opuestas: la crisis del siglo XVII en Europa e Hispanoamérica, Mexico City 1993.

25 ‘Si llegan a conocer su poder y que el de esta monarquía depende del suyo, y que podrían dar leyes en lugar de recibirlas’: B. Álamos de Barrientos, Discurso político al rey Felipe III al comienzo de su reinado (1598), ed. M. Santos, Barcelona 1990, 14.

26 Y. Celaya Nández, Alcabalas y situados: puebla en el sistema fiscal imperial, 1638 –1742, Mexico City 2010, 112–13; C. Marichal and J. Grafenstein (eds), El secreto del imperio español: los situados coloniales en el siglo XVIII, Mexico City 2012.

27 In both decrees, Philip ii and Philip iii addressed how these pious enterprises stood as a symbol of ‘good and Christian governance’ of the monarchy. This can also be identified in the multiple letters written to the pope to support both canonisations: Archivo General de Indias, Indiferente, 427, l. 30, fos 477v–478r.

28 R. Valladares, Católico yugo: la idea de obediencia en la España de los Austrias, 1500–1700, Madrid 2021, 54–7.

29 Actas de cabildo de la ciudad de México, viii, Mexico City 1893, 427–8.

30 The first demands of Puebla for a possible designation as seat of the viceroyalty of New Spain, which would ultimately settle in Mexico City in 1535, took place in 1534. The privileges that the city was claiming went far beyond those of a typical Spanish settlement: J. Hirschberg, ‘La fundación de Puebla de los Ángeles: mito y realidad’, Historia Mexicana xxviii/2 (1978), 185–223; G. Albi Romero, ‘La sociedad de Puebla de los Ángeles en el siglo xvi’, Jahrbuch für Geschichte Lateinamerikas vii (1970), 76–145. The strong competition that Puebla offered to Mexico City was visible also in the control of a royal tax on trade, the ‘alcabala’, which later became crucial to finance the imperial defence system of the multiple territories of the monarchy: Celaya Nández, Alcabalas y situados, 67. The primary motivation behind the early support of the city was the participation of Diego de Salas, who had proved to be very effective as representative of Mexico City's interests inside the royal court. Still, it is likely that the council of Puebla had offered its city as a viable alternative during the heated debate over the transfer of Mexico City, or at least its central viceregal institutions, to another area, following the terrible flood of 1629: A. Musset, Ciudades nómadas del Nuevo Mundo, trans. José María Ímaz, Mexico City 2011, 284–92.

31 P. Ragon, ‘Sebastián de Aparicio: un santo mediterráneo en el altiplano mexicano’, Estudios de Historia Novohispana xxiii (2009), 17–45; N. Durán, ‘La construcción de la subjetividad en las hagiografías: un caso: Sebastián de Aparicio’, in M. Ramos Medina (ed.), Camino a la santidad: siglos XVI–XX, Mexico City 2003, 165–96.

32 To avoid confusion all amounts are shown in reales of silver, even though not all sums were collected in this currency. For example, the collection of alms in Puebla was recorded in pesos (1 peso = 8 reales of silver). As is clear from their Actas de cabildo, Puebla gathered over 651 pesos and 5 reales, of which they sent 513 pesos between 1600 and 1603, hence the amount of 4,104 reales. By contrast, the second amount is taken from the account books of the Casa de la Contratación, which registered all the different incomes in maravedís, a currency employed mostly for accounting purposes. According to the testimony of the royal collector, Diego Vergara Gaviria, excluding import fees and the alms coming from Puebla (registered as 130,092 maravedís, or roughly 3,826 reales after discounting taxes and import fees), 3,301,892 maravedís were received between 1603 and 1611 coming from different cities of the viceroyalty of Peru (1 real = 34 maravedís), thus the amount of over 97,114 reales. A separate record shows that Guatemala, which was part of the viceroyalty of New Spain, also participated in the collection of alms but their collection of over 1,411 pesos, equivalent to 11,295 reales, sent to the Iberian Peninsula in 1613, was not considered by the royal collector until 1617, which was fully handed to Madrid's collectors by 1622. See E. Angel Cruz, ‘Santidad imperial: empresas de canonización, agentes mediadores y limosnas en la Monarquía Católica, 1599–1622’, in B. Bravo Rubio and A. Miranda Guardiola (eds), Cinco siglos de la Iglesia Católica en México: reflexiones en torno a la conquista, evangelización e independencia de México, 1521–2021, Mexico City 2021, 325–49.

33 Archivo Histórico Municipal de Puebla, actas de cabildo, vol. 17, fos 169–70.

34 L. Cabrera Valdés, Documentos primitivos del cabildo, Arequipa 1924, 142; B. Lavallé, Miedos terrenales, angustias escatológicas y pánicos en Arequipa a comienzos del siglo XVII, Arequipa 2012, 8–13; M. Meza Bazán and V. Condori, Historia mínima de Arequipa: desde los primeros pobladores hasta el presente, Lima 2018, 77.

35 ACS, fondo capitular, ms VII–37–10739, sig. 8, unnumbered. As is clear from this letter, the total amount sent to Spain by the bishop of Arequipa was 1,570 pesos. Pedro de Villagómez offered 1,000 pesos or 8,000 reales, then he convinced members of his ecclesiastical chapter and other local authorities and benefactors to collaborate, thus collecting another 570 pesos or 4,560 reales of silver.

36 On 13 April 1636 he affirmed that if he had been appointed archbishop of Lima, and not bishop of the poor diocese of Arequipa, he would have offered much more money for the canonisation of Ferdinand iii: ‘si como me hallo retirado en esta ciudad asistiera en la de Lima pudiera ser de más importancia mi diligencia’: ibid.

37 Mogrovejo's work as archbishop of Lima was instrumental because he tried to limit the powers of the religious orders, especially those of St Dominic, St Francis and St Augustine, in order to consolidate the fragile jurisdiction of the secular clergy in Peru: Sánchez-Concha, R., ‘La santa contemporaneidad: Toribio Alfonso de Mogrovejo y los santos y bienaventurados del Perú virreinal’, in Toribio de Mogrovejo: misionero, santo y pastor: actas del Congreso académico internacional realizado en Lima del 24 al 28 de abril de 2006, Lima 2007, 170–80Google Scholar; López, C. Lamerain, ‘Toribio de Mogrovejo, Roma y la creación de un esquema de gobierno diocesano en Sudamérica’, Allpanchis xlviii/87 (2021), 117–53Google Scholar.

38 After the conquest, the different indigenous populations of Spanish America were declared exempt from tithes. As they were considered direct vassals of the king of Spain, they only had to pay an annual contribution, ‘tribute’, either in kind, labour or cash. In turn, the king would finance the doctrines, and only those that directly or indirectly conducted mercantile operations with ‘Spanish products’ would pay tithes. Although in theory the cathedrals were hierarchically superior to the religious orders, the latter held a greater de facto power in part because the Spanish population was smaller, making the income of the former disproportionately scarcer. Hence, the religious orders refused to pay tithes to the cathedrals using methods such as commuting indigenous labour and buying land, claiming it necessary for the conversion of Indians and thus exempt from tithes. This legal dispute lasted for more than a century: Ó. Mazín, Gestores de la Real Justicia: procuradores y agentes de las catedrales hispanas nuevas en la corte de Madrid, I: El ciclo de México: 1568–1640; II: El ciclo de las Indias: 1632–1666, Mexico City 2007, 2017.

39 This is especially the case since he had already worked very closely with the Mexican archdiocese to solidify the jurisdiction of the secular clergy. In 1658 Villagómez financially supported the trial led by Íñigo de Fuentes, archdeacon of Mexico City, against the religious orders for the tithes of the cathedrals: Archivo Histórico de la Catedral Metropolitana de Lima, libro de cédulas reales y otros papeles, no. 2, fo. 102r–v.

40 ‘Ellos son santos, y se ayudarán’: Archivo Histórico del Arzobispado de Lima, papeles importantes, ms 11–41. In this case, the agent in Rome was referring to the canonisation trials of Toribio de Mogrovejo and Francis Solano.

41 Gotor, ‘Le canonizzazioni’, 627; A. Borromeo, ‘Crown and Church under Philip ii and Philip iii’, and T. Dandelet, ‘Paying for the new St Peter's: contributions to the construction of the new basilica from Spanish lands, 1506–1620’, in T. Dandelet and J. Marino (eds), Spain in Italy: politics, society, and religion, 1500-1700, Leiden 2007, 517–54, 181–95.

42 ‘Muchas veces me acuerdo y me río de que Vuestras Mercedes decían: “enviemos el proceso por el correo mayor”, como si fuera negocio acabado … Mas sepan y entiendan Vuestras Mercedes, como dicen, … que acá [en Roma] … por el escudo se hace algo’: AVM, ms 2–285–2. This document is also cited in Río Barredo, ‘Canonizar un santo medieval’, 145–6, although she does not mention this part of the reference.

43 Cited by Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘Luchar por su santo: rivalidades entre las órdenes religiosas en torno a las canonizaciones en el siglo xvii’, in Moya, J. Beltrán, Hernández, B. and Moreno, D. (eds), Identidades y fronteras culturales en el mundo ibérico en la edad moderna, Bellaterra 2016, 180Google Scholar.

44 ‘Los forasteros que aquí residen están a la mira de lo que Sevilla hace en causa tan suya y de su honor; no quisiera que nos afrentasen con nuestros descuidos’: Pedro de Arteaga to the dean and ecclesiastical chapter of Seville, 26 Jan. 1634, ACS, fondo capitular, ms VIII–35–10737, unnumbered.

45 According to the account of alms of Diego de Barrionuevo, 780,054 reales de vellón were spent for the beatification and canonisation of Isidore Agricola between 1615 and 1623. A real de vellón was equivalent to 2.5 reales of silver, hence the amount 312,021. As is clear from the account book of the royal collector Diego de Vergara Gaviria, a total of 3,341,984 maravedís of alms from New Spain and Peru for the canonisation of Isidore Agricola were handed to Madrid's collector between 1600 and 1611. Later, Guatemala sent 1,411 pesos and 7 reales of silver, or 384,030 maravedís, of which 360,990 maravedís (deducting 23,040 maravedís of import fees) were handed to Madrid's collector separately, on 2 September 1617. In total, the money received from New Spain, Peru and Guatemala was 3,702,974 maravedís, or 108,911 reales of silver: AVM, ms 2–2–4, unnumbered; Archivo General de Indias, Contaduría, ms 54-1-19, fo. 136.

46 Diego de Barrionuevo offered a list of incomes and expenses to Madrid's town council which unfortunately does not offer a clear chronology, only mentioning the type of income or expenditure conducted. Thus, I have grouped the costs considered typical for the negotiation of other canonisation trials (i.e. ‘presents’, ‘paintings’, ‘Christmas bonuses’, ‘legal and translation fees’ and so on) and those of celebratory or compensatory nature (i.e. ‘triumphal arc’, ‘tips’, ‘cost aids’ and so forth) to determine the negotiation and celebration phases. The first group amounted to roughly 48,970 reales, while the second totalled 263,050 reales. The money returned to Madrid was 26,306 reales. Thus, the total expenses for the canonisation of Isidore (1615–23) were 265,715 reales, which means that the 108,911 reales from the Americas was equivalent to 38.1% of the total expenses: AVM, ms 2–2–4, unnumbered. These figures however must be compared and discussed since they do not consider the previous donations made in Madrid and Castille in the sixteenth century.

47 ACS, fondo capitular, ms VIII–37–10739, no. 11. Here, Seville's accountants distinguished not between pesos, reales and other currencies (i.e., ‘tomines’, ‘grains of gold’), but simplified all accounts to maravedís of silver and maravedís of vellón, while maintaining the same equivalence (1=2.5). Furthermore, they also offered an invaluable chronology of incomes and expenses which allows us to distinguish clearly between stages of his canonisation trials. I situate the negotiation phase (1635–60) from the rejection of Ferdinand's cause and until he obtained an exception to Urban viii's prohibitions in 1655 and the instructions to gather a new dossier in 1657, which due to several diseases that struck Seville could not be opened until 1659. As can be seen in other documents, it became clearer after 1660 that Ferdinand iii would be able to advance his canonisation through a per viam cultus trial and the compilation of a super virtutibus et miraculis in specie dossier, for which reason the second phase is defined as from 1660 to 1688. Thus, according to the book of alms, 7,522,024 maravedís of silver and 4,017,340 maravedís of vellón were collected throughout Ferdinand's process. After conversion, this means a total of 22,822,400 accounting maravedís, or roughly 671,247 reales (34 accounting maravedís = 1 real of silver). Alms coming from the Americas totalled 12,862,178 accounting maravedís, or around 378,299 reales, giving us an estimate of 56.35% of the total income. Alms destined for the most crucial phase (1635–60), totalled 9,450,725 accounting maravedís, or roughly 277,963 reales. By contrast, the American alms received during these years were 5,863,045 accounting maravedís, or around 173,442 reales, giving us an estimate of 56.41% of the income.

48 It should be noted that he was never universally canonised, only recognised as an ‘immemorial’ cult or ‘equipollent’ saint. ‘Equipollent canonisations’ were obtained following a special apostolic trial, the ab immemoriabili, later referred also as per viam cultus. They were designed to approve the cults of medieval saints that were not included in the Roman martyrology yet whose devotions were tacitly or explicitly approved by previous popes. See Vincent-Cassy, C., ‘El rey Fernando iii el “santo” no fue canonizado’, Andalucía en la historia xxxiv (2011), 50–2Google Scholar; Ditchfield, ‘Tridentine worship’, 206, 214; Calvo Gómez, ‘El proceso remisorial apostólico’, 139; Armogathe, ‘La fábrica de los santos’, 153; and Sardón, U. Pacho, ‘Singularidad del proceso de canonización de Fernando iii El Santo’, Isidorianum xxiv/47 (2015), 227–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. pp. 232–3.

49 Toribio's canonisation also required an enormous amount of alms to ensure its success in the Congregation of Rites. According to contemporary testimonies, the costs of his beatification were excessive, if not abusive, given that the money had been collected for charitable purposes, not to offer expensive gifts to the Roman cardinals: ‘no se hallará causa de canonización hecha hasta ahora que haya consumido tanto dinero … no se comprende cómo por el solo santo Toribio se ha triplicado el dispendio. El dinero juntado para esta causa fue recogido de limosnas de fieles y destinado para la gloria del santo, la cual en nada se ha aumentado con gastarse de su patrimonio una suma tan considerable’: Archivo General de Indias, patronato ms 249-17-3, also cited in García, F. Quiles, Santidad barroca: Roma, Sevilla y América hispana, Seville 2018, 82Google Scholar.

50 The role of this pious global network for the Mexican archbishopric cannot easily be over-estimated. It could also have allowed the consecration of the cult of the Virgin of Guadalupe: Conover, C., ‘Reassessing the rise of Mexico's Virgin of Guadalupe, 1650s–1780s’, Mexican Studies xxvii/2 (2011), 251–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In a recent monograph, Conover examines the cult of Felipe de Jesús and argues that the worship of saints was a cultural linchpin of the Spanish empire in its overseas kingdoms: Pious imperialism: Spanish rule and the cult of saints in Mexico City, Albuquerque 2021, 4–7. Although I agree with the premise, the author overestimates the role of Spanish kings in choosing Catholicism as their ‘personal belief’ (p. 4) to unite the kingdoms, instead of tracing the continuities and changes between Castilian kingship and the medieval doctrine cuius regio eius religio, as highlighted by A. Rucquoi, while also contrasting it with the religious agency of monarchs individually, especially Charles v (1516–56) who, as Geoffrey Parker has shown, was indeed presented with the option of backing Protestantism: A. Rucquoi, ‘Tierra y gobierno en la Península Ibérica medieval’, in Ó. Mazín and J. Ruiz Ibáñez (eds), Las Indias occidentales: procesos de incorporación territorial a las Monarquías Ibéricas, Mexico 2012, 43–67, esp. pp. 54–6; G. Parker, Emperor: a new life of Charles V, New Haven 2019.

51 J. Israel, Razas, clases sociales y vida política en el México colonial, 1610–1670, trans. R. Gómez Ciriza, Mexico City 1999, 98; A. Ávila, ‘La crisis del patriotismo criollo: el discurso eclesiástico de José Mariano Beristáin’, in A. Mayer and E. Torre Villar (eds), Religión, poder y autoridad en la Nueva España, Mexico City 2004, 205–20.

52 Eire, C., From Madrid to purgatory: the art and craft of dying in sixteenth-century Spain, Cambridge 1995, 508Google Scholar.

53 J. Ruiz Ibáñez and G. Sabatini (eds), La Inmaculada Concepción y la monarquía hispánica, Madrid 2019, 16. This has been a recurrent theme in scholarship. The formation of a pious rhetoric of identity in the Americas in the seventeenth century, often linked to the political consolidation of the creole population, indeed found echoes in the early cults of American saints throughout the century: R. Morgan, Spanish American saints and the rhetoric of identity, 1600–1810, Tucson, Az 2002; A. Greer and J. Bilinkoff (eds), Colonial saints: discovering the holy in the Americas, 1500–1800, New York 2003. However, these studies tend to focus their arguments mainly on the formation of a singular creole ethos, which has been historically linked to the emergence of an early desire for autonomy of the Spanish empire, as shown by the temporal delimitation of most of these studies, that always conclude with the first calls for independence of the American kingdoms. By contrast, I assign a more prominent role in the invention of American saints in the seventeenth century to the creation of a renewed religious identity across the Catholic monarchy, which only started to acquire a separatist tone in the late eighteenth century.

54 Valladares, Católico yugo, 17.

55 Gruzinski, S., Las cuatro partes del mundo: historia de una mundialización, Mexico City 2010, 35, 47Google Scholar.

56 ‘Un vasallo canonizado en el nuevo orbe entre las nuevas plantas de los indios, y en el cielo una presea de un santo que ante Dios pida aumento del imperio’: the city of Puebla to Philip iv 30 May 1640, Archivo General de Indias, México, l. 340, unnumbered.

57 Archivo Histórico de la Municipalidad de Lima, libro de cédulas y provisiones, 3C, fos 54v–55v.

58 J. Cuadriello, ‘Del escudo de armas al estandarte mexicano’, in Los pinceles de la historia: de la patria criolla a la nación mexicana, 1750–1860, Mexico City 2000, 39.

59 Or, as a dichotomic tension between a community and the official approval or rejection of its cult, from which general trends have been identified: Delooz, Sociologie et canonisations; Burke, ‘How to be a Counter-Reformation saint’. Other examples are A. Vauchez, La Sainteté en occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge: d'après les procès de canonisation et les documents hagiographiques, Rome 1981; Weinstein, D. and Bell, R., Saints and society: the two worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700, Chicago 1982; and the studies contained in S. Wilson (ed.), Saints and their cults: studies in religious sociology, folklore and history, New York 1983Google Scholar.

60 Labarga, F., ‘1622 o la canonización de la Reforma Católica’, Anuario de Historia de la Iglesia xxix (2020), 73–126CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vincent-Cassy, ‘Luchar por su santo’.