María Judith Feliciano Chaves-Mudejarismo in Its Colonial Context

MUDEJAR1SMO IN ITS COLONIAL CONTEXT:
IBERIAN CULTURAL DISPLAY, VICEREGAL LUXURY CONSUMPTION,

AND THE NEGOTIATION OF IDENTITIES IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY NEW SPAIN
Maria Judith Feliciano Chaves
A DISSERTATION
History of Art
Presented to the Faculties of the University of

Pennsylvania
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

of Doctor of Philosophy
2004
Supervisor of Dissertation
14i, a,4 A A
y § v/
u
Graduate Group Chairperson
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.
UMI Number: 3152020
Copyright 2004 by
Feliciano Chaves, Maria Judith
All rights reserved.
INFORMATION TO USERS
The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy
submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and
photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper
alignment can adversely affect reproduction.
In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript
and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized
copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
UMI
UMI Microform 3152020
Copyright 2005 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company.
All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against
unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code.
ProQuest Information and Learning Company

300 North Zeeb Road
P.O. Box 1346
Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346
COPYRIGHT
2004
Acknowledgements
This dissertation is the culmination of nine and a half years of graduate work,
archival research, and writing. It is the product of an incredible intellectual journey that
simply could not have been undertaken without the support of a great many people and
institutions. If, as the saying goes, “no ha vivido mas el que mas ha visto, sino el que
mas recuerdos tiene,” then my graduate career has made me a privileged woman, indeed,
for it has filled my life with an extraordinary wealth of unforgettable sights and
experiences.
I owe a karmic debt of gratitude to my advisors and committee members, who
have counseled me on academic matters, but whose presence in my life has enriched it at
a deeply personal level. Above all, Dr. Renata Holod embraced my topic with
enthusiasm and guided me through the project’s completion with fearlessness, a hawk’s
eye, and infinite patience. Dr. Gridley McKim-Smith stimulated my interest in the study
of cloth, clothing, and the body and encouraged me to think critically about the
intellectual history of the study of Iberian art. Dr. Antonio Feros kept my own historical
perspective in check and repeatedly asked me to question my own formulations of such
important concepts as “empire,” “state,” and “monarchy.” Dr. Diana Fane provided the
keen perspective of a colonial art historian and anchored my inquiry in New Spain’s
visual culture. She never tired of reminding me that mine was, above all, an art historical
endeavor. Lastly, Dr. Nancy Farriss introduced me to the practice of ethnohistory and
provided me with invaluable advice that guided my methodological perspective. Every
student should be as fortunate as I have been to count on a veritable advisory Dream
Team. I can only hope to repay such endless kindness, generosity, and wisdom
within the next ten lifetimes.
On my second semester of graduate work, Dr. Clara Bargellini introduced me to
the Mudejar presence in viceregal architecture. Not only was she the Celestina to my
intellectual love affair, but also my official hostess at the Instituto de Investigaciones
Esteticas of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico during the Fulbright-Garcia
Robles grant period that produced most of the documentary evidence used in this study.
To her I extend my deepest gratitude.
My graduate work and dissertation research were funded by generous grants from
the Fontaine Society and the School of Arts and Sciences of the University of
Pennsylvania, the Fulbright-Garcia Robles (COMEXUS) Commission, the Samuel H.
Kress Foundation, and the Society of Architectural Historians.
During the past year, the following colleagues read drafts of my work: Luisa
Elena Alcala, Miriam Basilio, Ilona Katzew, Maria Teresa Narvaez, Cynthia Robinson,
Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza and Yanna Yannakakis. Their remarkable range of knowledge
and methodological perspectives significantly enriched the final product.
A number of archives, libraries and academic institutions, whose helpful staff and
faculty members were indispensable to my work, also deserve my most heartfelt thanks.
In Mexico, the research staff at the Archivo General de la Nacion, Archivo General de
Notarias de la Ciudad de Mexico, Archivo Historico del Cabildo de la Ciudad de Puebla,
Archivo de Notarias de Jalisco, Archivo Historico en Micropelicula (Museo Nacional de
Antropologia e Historia, Mexico, D.F.), Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa (Oaxaca), and
the Centro para la Historia de Mexico y Archivo CONDUMEX graciously made the
V
documentary work possible. Direct access to works of art was granted thanks to the
generosity and expertise of Agustin Garcia-Real de los Rios at the Museo Franz Mayer,
Patricia Acuna at the Museo Amparo, the staff at the Museo Bello, and Irma Coballasi
and Beatriz Beamdt at the Museo Nacional de Arte. Additionally, Dr. Pilar Gonzalbo
Aizpuru at the Centro de Estudios Historicos of the Colegio de Mexico granted me access
COLMEX’ library. The library staff at the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas
(UNAM), Museo Franz Mayer, Biblioteca Burgoa, and CONDUMEX not only made the
secondary research possible, but also expeditious and enjoyable.
In Spain, the staff at the Archivo General de Indias, Biblioteca Nacional de
Espana, Biblioteca del Centro de Estudios Arabes (CSIC, Madrid), Biblioteca del Museo
Arqueologico Nacional, Biblioteca de la Fundacion Lazaro Galdeano, and the Biblioteca
Colombina assisted me in my research. Access to important visual collections was
granted by the staff at the Museo de Artes Decorativas and the Museo Arqueologico
Provincial de Sevilla. I would like to offer a special word of thanks to Cristina
Partearroyo Lacaba, Director of the Instituto de Valencia de Don Juan, for her time and
generosity. Similarly, Dr. Gonzalo Borras Gualis (Universidad de Zaragoza) and
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal (Insituto de Filologia, Centro de Estudios Arabes, CSIC-
Madrid) offered helpful advice and facilitated contacts throughout Spain.
In Philadelphia, the staff at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fischer Fine Arts
Library, Van Pelt Library and the University Museum Library, as well as the Fine Arts
Visual Collection facilitated a great deal of my secondary research. For nine and a half
years, Darlene Jackson, Administrative Coordinator of the History of Art Department,
cared for every detail of my academic life. I simply could not thank her enough.
VI
In New York, I have been most fortunate to enjoy access to The Hispanic
Society of America, one of the world’s most renowned research centers for Iberian art. I
am particularly indebted to Margaret Connors McQuade, Assitant Curator of Ceramics
and Furniture, for granting me access to the HSA’s collection and library and for sharing
many a midnight cheerleading email session during the final stages of writing and
editing. Constancio del Alamo, Curator of Textiles and Sculpture, has courteously given
me more than a bit of his time and opened the storage rooms for my examination of
sixteenth century materials (and more). Finally, John O’Neil, Curator of Rare Books and
Manuscripts, provided invaluable bibliographic information and research help. Edwin
Rolan, the Reading Room’s librarian, always facilitated my research with smile. The
staff at the New York Public Library, New York University’s Bobst Library and the
Metropolitan Museum’s Watson Library, Goldwater Library, and The Ratti Textile
Center have been tremendously supportive.
This dissertation is also the product of endless conversations and debates with
colleagues and friends from various fields of study. My thanks to Israel Burshatin,
Rafael Comez, Heather Ecker, Miguel Falomir Faus, Antonio Gimenez Reillo, Ana
Gomez Carmona, Ignacio Henares Cuellar, Eduardo de Jesus Douglas, Luce Lopez-
Baralt, Rafael Lopez Guzman, Mark McDonald, Barbara Mundy, Manolo Peregrina,
Leyla Rouhi, Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza, Erica Segre, Ronald Surtz, Juan Carlos Villaverde
Amieva, and Gerard Wiegers.
A special word of thanks to my dear friends Asmaa Bouharass, Patricia Diaz
Cayeros, Deborah Roldan and Yanna Yannakakis, who took time from their own research
to provide long-distance archival and library research.
vii
“The Inchworms” Heather Grossman, Thomas Morton, Tamara Sears, Anne
Delaney Pushkal, Carmen Lamas, and Alison Mackenzie Shah constituted the perfect
Dissertation Writing Workshop. We began our careers together and oftentimes almost
comically pushed each other to the finish line. And we crossed it!
Irma Patricia Diaz Cayeros and Maribel Arteaga Alarcon have had a
tremendously meaningful presence in my life and in my work. They are, quite literally,
the sisters that I always wanted, and the reasons why Mexico and Spain feel like home to
me. For every “overnight” stay, warm meal, load of clean laundry, comfortable bed, late-
night discussion, road trip and, above all, for your friendship, receive all my love and my
deepest thanks.
Lastly, I thank my family, to whom I dedicate this work. I am forever grateful to
my husband Ross, who has loved and supported me since well before my life as a
graduate student began and whose intelligence and tenacity continue to inspire me. To
my daughter Celeste, who during the past two years has provided the most inspirational
learning model. To my parents, who nurtured my life and my intellect and allowed me to
leave the nest very early in pursuit of academic and emotional growth. I also dedicate
this work to the memory of my grandfather, Marcos Feliciano Crespo, whose devotion to
humanistic learning and the pursuit of knowledge continues to lives in me, and to the
memory of my friend Sergio Iglesias, because if he had been given more time, he would
have finished a dissertation masterpiece.
viii
ABSTRACT
MUDEJARISMO IN ITS COLONIAL CONTEXT:

IBERIAN CULTURAL DISPLAY, VICEREGAL LUXURY CONSUMPTION,
AND THE NEGOTIATION OF IDENTITIES IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY NEW SPAIN
Dr. Renata Holod

Supervisor of Dissertation
This dissertation examines the uses and meanings of the so-called Mudejar
aesthetic in sixteenth century New Spain (colonial Mexico). Its focus on the luxury arts,
especially on cloth, clothing, and ceramics, offers a shift from the traditional focus on
architectural history to a wider lens that incorporates the study of material culture.
Throughout the sixteenth century, when the consolidation of the Hapsburg state and its
rise as a world power saw a converse decline of Andalusi culture, Mudejar objects were
employed in distinct ways by members of Iberian society. In the colonial context,
Mudejar goods were both visible signifiers of Iberian-ness and common tools in the
acculturating process of the local population, which began immediately after the
conquest. This trend suggests that the currency of the Mudejar aesthetic during such an
embattled period, and especially in the viceregal environment, indicates a radical
disconnection from anything traditionally considered Islamic. It also highlights
Mudejarismo as a wholly Iberian aesthetic choice, unambiguously laden with Iberian
cultural value. In this work, I offer a new approach to the study of Mudejarismo in the
early colonial period; one that acknowledges the uniqueness of the colonial situation as a
fertile ground for the production of new meanings out of old forms, but that also brings
together Iberian and viceregal histories of the sixteenth century. I employ a cross-
disciplinary ethnohistoric approach that combines the interpretation of historical
documentation, literary sources, and visual culture through a comparative lens that keeps
Spain and New Spain, the imperial and the colonial, in perspective. This method
emphasizes the objects’ cultural value in New Spain during the sixteenth century. It also
incorporates the American Mudejar in a discussion of colonial power relations and
cultural formation. In doing so, the Mudejar emerges not as a popular expression of
Iberian art, but rather as a visual tool employed at all social levels and in multiple
geographies.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements iii
Abstract viii
Table of Contents x
List of Illustrations xi
Preface xiv
Introduction. Beyond the “Artesonado”: “Mudejarismo” and

Material Culture in Early Colonial New Spain 1
1. The Myth of the Moriscos in the New World: The Physical

Absence and Spiritual Presence of Muslims in Historical Thought
and Art Historical Scholarship 29
2. Lujo Indiano or Iberian Practice? Sartorial Display,

Sumptuary Consumption andthe Negotiation of Identities
in Sixteenth-Century New Spain 81
3. On Silk Turbans and Frayed Jubones, or the Changing Function of

“Morisco” Clothing in the Iberian World 127
4. Sixteenth-Century Viceregal Ceramics and the Creation

of a Mudejar Myth in New Spain 187
Conclusion. Mudejarismo, a Historical Paradox? 223
Appendices
Appendix 1 Edicto contra herejes. AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 159

(Cajas), Legajo 24, ff. lr-2v 228
Appendix 2 « Secta de Mahoma » in Edicto contra herejes.
AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 89, Exp. 16, ff. 57v-58 234
Appendix 3 Reiacion de lo comprado en Mexico para el
regalo que S. M. mando hacer al Rey de la China.
AGI Contaduria 801, N. 1, R. 4, lr-44v 236
Appendix 4 A Historiographic Review of the Study
of « Talavera Poblana » 258
Bibliography 278
xi
List of Illustrations
1. Artesonado. Church of San Francisco, Tlaxcala (ca. 1660’s). 1
2. Artesonado. Church of San Diego de Alcala, Huexotzingo (ca. 1660’s) 8
3. Monastery of San Miguel, Huexotzingo (1544-1570) 11
4. Encomenderos Don Francisco and Don Gonzalo de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca.
1550’s) 83
5. Detail, Codex Tlatelolco o Manuscrito de Xochipilla (ca. 1562). Biblioteca Nacional

de Antropologia e Historia, Mexico. 84
6. Detail, Reiacion de Michoacdn (ca. 1541). Real Biblioteca del Escorial, El

Escorial. 84
7. Detail, Codex Kingsborough o Memorial de los Indios de Tepetlaoztoc (ca. 1554).

British Library, London. 84
8. Detail. Don Francisco de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca. 1550’s) 88
9. Cristobal de Morales. Don Sebastian de Portugal (1565). Monasterio de las Descalzas

Reales, Madrid. 88
10. Detail. Don Gonzalo de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca. 1550’s) 90
11. Anonymous. Don Gonzalo Chacon (1550-60). Coleccion Duques de Alba,

Madrid. 90
12. Don Francisco de las Casas and the Cacique of Yanhuitlan. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca.
1550’s) 121
13. Diego Munoz Camargo. How the Natives Dressed at the Behest of the Friars.
Description de la ciudady provincial de Tlaxcala (1585). Glasgow University Library,
MS Hunter 242 (U.3.15) 123
14. Detail, Don Gonzalo de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca. 1550’s). 129
15. Christoph Weiditz. Morisco Dance. Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz von
seine Reisen nach Spanien (1529) und den Niederlanden (1531-1532). Germanic
Museum Library, Nuremberg, Hs. 22474.4 145
xii
16. Christoph Weiditz. Morisco Traveling with Wife and Child in the Kingdom of
Granada. Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz von seine Reisen nach Spanien (1529)
und den Niederlanden (1531-1532). Germanic Museum Library, Nuremberg,
Hs. 22474.4 145
17. Felipe Bigamy. Baptism o f the Male Mudejares. Main Altarpiece, Capilla Real,
Granada. (1519) 166
18. Felipe Bigamy. Baptism o f the Female Mudejares. Main Altarpiece, Capilla Real,
Granada. (1519) 166
19. Felipe Bigamy, Diego de Siloe, Jacobo Florentino, et. al. Altar Mayor, Capilla Real,
Granada. (1519) 167
20. Felipe Bigamy. Triumphal entry o f the Catholic Kings to Granada. Main Altarpiece,
Capilla Real, Granada. (1519) 168
21. Felipe Bigamy. Boabdil Surrenders the Keys to Granada. Main Altarpiece, Capilla
Real, Granada. (1519) 168
22. Diego Munoz Camargo. Baptism of the Four Lords of Tlaxcala Who Wished to
become Christians. Descripcion de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala (1580-85).
Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter 242 (U.3.15) 171
23. Diego Munoz Camargo. The Natives’ General Baptism and Conversion, Descripcion
de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala (1580-85). Glasgow University Library, MS Hunter
242 (U.3.15) 171
24. Diego Munoz Camargo. Bonfire of the Clothes, Books, and Adornments of the
Idolatrous Priests, Descripcion de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala (1580-85). Glasgow
University Library, MS Hunter 242 (U.3.15) 177
25. Christoph Weiditz. Castilian Peasant. Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz von
seine Reisen nach Spanien (1529) und den Niederlanden (1531-1532). Germanic
Museum Library, Nuremberg, Hs. 22474.4 182
26. Guaman Poma de Ayala. The Mestizo Sons of the Priest. Nueva coronica i buen
gobierno. (ca.1613-1615) Copenhagen Royal Library, MS GkS 2232 4°. 182
27. Lusterware plate with the armorial shield of Maria de Castilla, (ca. 1430’s-50’s).
Manises, Valencia. Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum 201
28. Lusterware bowl with Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile’s coat of arms.
(1468-1492) Manises, Valencia. Collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. 202
xiii
29 Lusterware sgraffito plates. Sixteenth century. Manises, Valencia. Collection of
the Victoria and Albert Museum. 203
30. Lusterware plate, (ca. 1400-1430) Manises, Valencia. Collection of the Hispanic
Society of America. Reads: “Ave Maria Gra[tia] plena” 203
31. Lusterware plates. Sixteenth century. Manises, Valencia. Collection of the Victoria
and Albert Museum. 203
32. Lusterware basinIlebrillo. (ca. 1425-50) Manises, Valencia. Collection of the

Hispanic Society of America. 205
33. BasinIlebrillo with inscription “SOY PARA LABAR LOS PURYFYCADORES Y

NO MAS”, (ca. 1650) Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico. Collection of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art. 205
34. Fifteenth century blue and white plates. Seville. Collection of the Victoria and
Albert Museum. 207
35. Sixteenth-century blue and white plates. Seville. Collection of the Victoria and
Albert Museum. 209
36. Sixteenth-century cuerda seca ceramics. Seville. Collection of the Victoria and
Albert Museum. 209
37. Sample of sixteenth-century shards recovered from archaeological contexts in

Mexico City. Collection of INAH, Mexico City. 209
38. Chocolate Jar. Eighteenth century. Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico. Museum of
Intemacional Fol. Art, Santa Fe. 275
39. Wan-li plate. Late sixteenth century. Collection Casa Museu Dr. Anastacio
Gonsalves, Lisbon 275
40. BasinIlebrillo. Eighteenth century. Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico. Collection of the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. 275
xiv
Preface
This investigation explores the aesthetic phenomenon called Mudejarismo since
the late nineteenth century. In 1859, Jose Amador de los Rios effectively transformed the
way in which we look at artistic creation in Iberia during the medieval and early modem
periods. His influential and celebrated acceptance speech at the Real Academia de las
Bellas Artes de San Fernando coined the term “Mudejar” as a stylistic designation.1 It
also gave rise to a field of study that became increasingly relevant throughout the
9 •
twentieth century. Initially, the Mudejar was defined as the artistic products of
conquered Muslim artisans working and living under Christian rule. These ranged from
ceramics, carpentry, and textile weaving, among others, to (above all) architecture and
architectural decoration. In fact, the selection of the term mudejar, a hispanized form of
the Arabic word muddayyan, defined in the nineteenth century as “tributary,” responds
•a
directly to this early interpretation. In other words, Mudejarismo was understood as the
product of the Christian conquest of Andalusi territories, whereby the Islamic population
1 Jose Amador de los Rios, E l eslilo mudejar en la arquitectura. Madrid: Imprenta de Manuel Tello, 1872.
2 For historiographic reviews on the subject o f Mudejarismo in both Iberia and the Americas, see Gonzalo
Borras Gualis, El arte mudejar. Teruel: Insituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1990; Maria Elena Diez Jorge, El
arte mudejar: Expresion estetica de una convivencia. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2001; Rafael
Lopez Guzman, Arquitectura mudejar. Del sincretismo medieval a las alternativas hispanoamericanas.
Madrid: Catedra, 2000; Ana Pacios Lozano. Bibliografia de arquitecturay techumbres mudejares. 1857-
1991. Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1993.
3 As Gerard Weigers maintains, Reinart Dozy and Isidro de las Cagigas, arrived at the definition “tributary”
based on the use o f the word in Castilian medieval sources. Derived from the Arabic root dal-djlm-nun and
used to designate a domesticated animal, the word dadjan probably meant “submissiveness” instead.
Wiegers differentiates the use in Muslim and Castilian sources as follows, “Muslim writers in particular
used the term for those who had willingly accepted domination o f the Unbelievers, but not for those who
stayed there under duress, such as captives and slaves... Arabic sources only used the word dadjn to apply
to Muslim communities living in territory where non-Islamic law became dominant.” See Gerard Weigers,
Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado. Yea o f Segovia, His Antecedents and Succesors, 1450.
Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, 1993, pp. 3-4.
XV
was made to work for the Christian reconstruction of urban spaces and the
redefinition of cultural paradigms.4
More recently, a new definition of the Mudejar, which characterizes it as the
“Islamic aesthetic in Christian art,” has sought to move away from earlier understandings
of subordination and conquest and into the realm of aesthetic practice, reception, and
patronage.5 It is evident by these labels that Islam and Muslims are largely understood to
be the locus of Mudejar artistic creation. Recent contributions to the field, however,
suggest a new interpretive model that recognizes Mudejarismo as evidence of a pan-
Iberian aesthetic that existed in a constant state of flux (much like Iberian society itself)
since the early medieval period.6
Building on these important contributions, I broaden the definition of
Mudejarismo. I propose that from its early-medieval origin as a mediatory practice that
helped to ensure the cultural survival of a multi-ethnic society, Mudejar art (comprised of
objects, structures, building techniques, and even modes and manners) traveled
unrestricted through Iberian social and cultural geographies. As a result, each group’s
manipulation of the Mudejar aesthetic produced different meanings (ranging from regal,
4 Throughout the text, I make use o f the term “Andalusi” to designate the cultural and political presence of
al-Andalus in Iberia. I use this term as an alternative to the more common “Islamic” and “Hispano-
Muslim” in order to avoid inaccurate religious implications given the unequivocally secular nature o f the
objects in question.
5 See Gonzalo Borras Gualis, “Introduccidn historica y artistica” in El Arte Mudejar. La estetica islamica
en el arte cristiano, ed. Eva Schubert. Madrid: Electa and Museo Sin Fronteras, pp. 35-61.
6 See Diez Jorge, “El arte mudejar;” Jerrilynn Dodds, “Mudejar Traditions and the Sinagogues o f Medieval
Spain: Cultural Identity and Cultural Hegemony” in Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in
Medieval Spain, ed. Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn Dodds. New York: George Braziller
and The Jewish Museum, 1992, pp. 113-132; Cynthia Robinson, “Mudejar Revisited: A Prolegomena to
the Reconstruction o f Perception, Devotion and Experience at the Mudejar Convent o f Clarisas,
Tordesillas, Spain (14th Century A D )” in Res 43 (Spring 2003), pp. 51-77; Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza,
"Castilla versus Al-Andalus: Arquitecturas aljamiadas y otros grados de asimilacion" in Anuario del
Departamento de Historia y Teorla del Arte de la Universidad Autonoma de M adrid (forthcoming 2004-
2005).
xvi
Castilian and Catholic to Andalusi, Islamic, Sephardic, and Jewish, etc.) and
facilitated different lifestyles (from contemplative monasticism and regal performance to
rural dwelling and manual labor). Based on the long development of its patterns of use,
therefore, the notion of Mudejarismo as a “survival” of an Islamic past seems an

n
inaccurate interpretation. Instead, this investigation stresses its currency in the
experience of the sixteenth century in both Iberia and the viceroyalty of New Spain.8
I posit that the Mudejar was never a product of purely “Islamic” manufacture.
Instead, Northern Iberian socio-religious institutions participated actively in its creation,
as well as in the changes that it underwent over time. Still, the reality of its endurance,
even after the long process of cultural decline of the Andalusi population, remains tied to
Moriscos and Islam in contemporary scholarship. But the fact remains that in the
viceregal (Iberian colonial) context new cultural groups in a distant continent also made
use of the so-called Mudejar aesthetic. The uniqueness of the American setting—not just
in its racial and geographic diversity but also in its distinct socio-political situation—
complicates any attempt at an explanation of the uses of Mudejar forms in the nascent
viceregal societies of the sixteenth century.
Nine years ago, the viceregal Mudejar carpentry tradition provided my
introduction to the field of Mudejar studies. The topic gripped me at a moment of intense
7 The Mexican scholar Guadalupe Avilez Moreno presupposed a fundamental exclusion o f “Christian”
labor in the creation o f Mudejar works o f art. This led him to propose a theory o f “survival” to explain its
forms in the New World as follows. In his words, “lo consideramos mas correcto hablar de supervivencias
de elementos arquitectonicos o decorativos mudejares en el arte novohispano, que de un arte propiamente
mudejar que no se did, pues esto ultimo encierra un contenido historico y artistico de un periodo muy
concreto.” See Guadalupe Avilez Moreno, “Mudejar en Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI” in IISim posio
Internacional de Mudejarismo. Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1982, p. 335.
8 Throughout the text, the use o f the terms “Iberia” and “Iberian” implies the multiplicity o f contexts
(cultural, linguistic, and socio-political) characteristic o f the Iberian Peninsula. This choice offers an
alternative to the more traditional terms “Spain” and “Spanish,” which are suggestive o f a thoroughly
integrated cultural unit.
xvii
academic production on the theme of Mudejarismo. It is fitting, then, that
artesonados (wooden ceilings, also called alfarjes, armaduras, or techumbres mudejares)
also should provide the introduction to this investigation.9 My interest in the subject
developed from the complexity and multiplicity of the cultural questions that the Mudejar
as an aesthetic phenomenon raises—especially in its early colonial context. But it also
resulted from my dissatisfaction with the narrow treatment and limited focus on a single
expression (carpentry) of an aesthetic practice that undoubtedly was much farther
reaching. More importantly, at the time of New Spain’s conquest and colonization in the
sixteenth century, Mudejar forms and objects were laden with Iberian cultural meanings
and thus were efficient and transferable carriers of unambiguously Iberian cultural
information. Yet, because wooden ceilings present an ostensibly “direct” visual
connection to the Andalusi tradition (or rather, their ornamentation can be traced easily,
though not accurately, to an Andalusi past), their analysis remains wedged in their formal
attributes.
The discourse on the American Mudejar which developed fully soon after the
publication of Manuel Toussaint’s influential work El arte mudejar en America (1946)
rests chiefly on the stylistic analysis of artesonados.10 Toussaint’s perspective was
9 While I realize the complexity o f the technical nomenclature o f Mudejar carpentry, especially where
ceilings are concerned, I use the term artesonado to designate Mudejar wooden ceilings in the general
sense. I do so following the Grove Dictionary o f Art’s definition, “Spanish term for an intricately joined
wooden ceiling in which supplementary laths are interlaced into the rafters, supporting the roof to form
decorative geometric patterns.” Basilio Pavon Maldonado, “Artesonado” in Grove Dictionary o f Art, Vol.
2, ed. Jane Turner. New York: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 528. For technical information on the various types
o f Mudejar wooden ceilings, their nomenclature, and structural details, see Enrique Nuere Matauco, La
carpinteria de armar espanola. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura, Instituto de Conservation y Restauracion de
Bienes Culturales, 1989; Ibid, La carpinteria de lazo: Lectura dibujada del manuscrito de Fray Andres de
San Miguel. Malaga: Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Andalucia Oriental, 1990.
10 Toussaint, Manuel. El arte mudejar en America. Mexico: Porrua, 1946. O f course, Toussaint’s work
followed important publications on the subject such as Manuel Revilla’s, who already in 1893 suggested,
"en los edificios de Puebla se nota el gusto arabe y el mudejar en el uso frecuente de los azulejos y en los
xviii
shaded by an Orientalist perception that understood Mudejarismo to be essentially
an Islamic derivation and, ultimately, a foreign addition to the Iberian visual repertoire.
Because artesonados survive in consistent, though not in considerable, numbers across
the Spanish Americas, their study developed steadily during the second half of the
twentieth century.11
Almost fifty years later, a number of publications produced in 1992 pertaining to
the histories and significance of the “Discovery” of the New World and the conquest of
the Kingdom of Granada in 1492 included an important resurgence of the study of
Mudejarismo in the Spanish viceroyalties.12 Here, artesonados still remained the most
emblematic case study of the American Mudejar. The last ten years also have witnessed
an increasing interest in the study of the Mudejar aesthetic phenomenon, but its
scholarship remains closely tied to the description and identification of wooden ceilings,
carpentry techniques, and their sources of inspiration.13 Indeed, in the Spanish colonial
antepechos calados del genero de los de la casa de Pilatos de Sevilla, efecto probable o de la venida de
algunos alarifes o de las constantes relaciones mantenidas con esta ciudad." See Manuel Revilla, El arte en
Mexico en la epoca antiguay durante el gobierno virreinal. Mexico: Oficina Tipografica de la Secretaria
de Fomento, 1893, pp.42-43. See also Diego Angulo Iniguez, “The Mudejar in Mexico” in Ars fslamica
11:2 (1935), pp. 225-230 and Francisco Diez Barroso, E l arte en la Nueva Espana. Mexico: F. Diez
Barroso, 1921.
11 See, for example, Graziano Gasparini, La arquitectura colonial en Venezuela. Caracas: Armitano, 1961;
Ibid, Templos coloniales de Venezuela. Caracas: Armitano, 1976; Santiago Sebastian, Techumbres
mudejares de la Nueva Granada. Cali: Universidad del Valle, 1965; Joaquin Weiss, La arquitectura
colonial cubana (siglos XVI-XVII). La Habana: Ediciones Arte y Sociedad, 1972; Ibid, Techos coloniales
cubanos. La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1972. More recently, the following works constitute
geographical surveys o f M udejar carpentry in Spain and the Americas: Mudejar iberoamericano: Una
expression cultural de dos mundos, eds. Ignacio Henares Cuellar and Rafael Lopez Guzman. Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 1993; E l mudejar iberoamericano: D el Islam al Nuevo Mundo, ed. Rafael Lopez
Guzman. Barcelona: Lunwerg and El Legado Andalusi, 1995; E l Arte Mudejar, ed. Gonzalo Borras Gualis.
Zaragoza: UNESCO, 1996; Rafael Lopez Guzman, “Arquitectura mudejar.”
12 The main publication in American Mudejar studies in 1992 was Arquitectura y carpinteria mudejar en
Nueva Espana, ed. Rafael L6pez Guzman. Mexico: Grupo Azabache, 1992. This edited volume was soon
followed by similar collected editions such as “M udejar iberoamericano” (1993), “El mudejar
iberoamericano” (1995) and “El Arte Mudejar” (1996).
13 El Legado Andalusi’s recent volume on the Mudejar in Mexico exemplifies this art historical practice.
Sintesis de culturas mudejar. Itinerario cultural del mudejar en Mexico, ed. Rafael Lopez Guzman
xix
context, the term Mudejar immediately, and almost exclusively, conjures
artesonados and sometimes their closest relative, decorative inlay carpentry {taracea)}4
The taste for Mudejar works of art is commonly understood as a medieval
survival rather than as an active practice characteristic of sixteenth-century Iberian
culture that flourished on both shores of the Atlantic (with distinct purposes and in
particular contexts). The excerption of Mudejarismo from its historical moment in the
sixteenth century has altered our perception of the contemporary use and meaning of
Mudejar arts in the early colonial Americas. Because scholarship has not recognized the
Mudejar as an expression of its time, it has devalued its potential to express
contemporary socio-cultural values at the local and imperial levels. And yet,
Mudejarismo provided but a single element in an otherwise broad aesthetic repertoire or,
more specifically, it belonged in a continuum of established Iberian artistic practices
(subject, of course, to the same system of transmission). Its isolated study has thus
overstated its relevance as well as its staying power.15 This dissertation, then, offers a
Granada: El Legado Andalusi, 2002. The latest two-volume publication o f the journal Artes de Mexico
devoted to the Mudejar phenomenon from the colonial period to the twentieth century is particularly
problematic. Using geometric decoration and the examples provided by surviving techumbres as a thread,
everything from contemporary folkloric expressions (“Moros y Cristianos” festivals in Northern Mexico) to
viceregal ceramic architectural revetment, and even neo-Orientalist postulations is freely tied to
Mudejarismo. See, Arte Mudejar: Exploraciones in Artes de Mexico 54 (2001) and Arte Mudejar:
Variaciones in Artes de Mexico 55 (2001).
14 See Le6n Zahar, Taracea islam icay mudejar. Mexico: Museo Franz Mayer and Artes de Mexico, 2000.
In this exhibition catalogue, as in the exhibition itself, seventeenth and eighteenth-century Iberian wooden
objects (boxes, chairs, desks, armoires, etc.) are presented alongside nineteenth and twentieth century
Egyptian and Levantine decorative items (some o f obvious “Orientalist” manufacture). Also in the visual
sample are included eighteenth century China-trade inlaid boxes (carey, mother o f pearl (enconchado), and
silver). Their only obvious connections are their medium, wood, and their non-figural decoration, which is
geometric in the case o f the Iberian and Eastern Mediterranean objects and floral in that o f the far-Eastem
ones. Owing to these associations, the Iberian and Asian objects are labeled mudejar, while the later
Levantine ones provide evidence o f a presumed, uninterrupted, and direct relationship to the arts o f Islam.
15 For Sydney Markman, for example, “The mudejar building tradition is the unifying element, the constant
that remains unchanged. ..o f all the stylistic determinants o f America, the mudejar is the strongest and most
prevailing.” Sydney Markman, Hispano-American Colonial Architecture: Social, Historical, Stylistic
Determinants with Special Reference to Mexico and Guatemala. Louisville: University o f Louisville, 1984,
XX
new approach to the study of Mudejarismo in the early colonial period; one that
acknowledges the uniqueness of the colonial situation as a fertile ground for the
production of new meanings out of old forms, but that also brings together Iberian and
viceregal histories of the sixteenth century. It also proposes a shift from the traditional
focus on architectural history to a wider lens that incorporates the study of material
culture.
Unquestionably, my work is informed primarily by my training and perspective as
an Islamic art historian (although, admittedly, one that considers herself an Iberian
cultural historian in the broadest sense). Nevertheless, my approach has been shaped in
profound ways by my “adopted” field of study, that of Iberian imperial—especially
colonial—history. With one (proverbial) foot in the Atlantic and the other in the
Mediterranean, I have been left to consider just how “Islamic” are Mudejar forms, and
perhaps most significantly, how “Islamic” were its uses. Even as I have confronted the
question of the innate aesthetic and functional Iberian-ness of the Mudejar style, the
implicitly accepted concept of a monolithic “Iberia” has appeared ever more
problematic.16 Indeed, this issue is central to my analysis and has motivated me to
p. 5. More recently, Alberto Ruy-Sanchez offered a hyper-romantic, not to mention ahistorical, perspective
on the cultural value o f the Mudejar in Mexico. In his words, “Es tan claro que lo mudejar es la marca
profunda de Espana que el espafiol mismo, nuestra lengua, tiene un cuarenta porciento de palabras de
origen arabe...el espafiol es entonces m udejar...Lo mudejar es la marca, la formula practica de Espana que
llega a construir a America: una tecnica mestiza de hacer las cosas...de ahi que hasta los textiles actuales
de los indigenas de Chiapas, que una mitologia contemporanea quiere pensar como cien por ciento mayas,
se encuentren evidentes motivos de los textiles bereberes del Norte de A frica...asi que los textiles
indigenas son mudejares. A su manera lo son ciertas ceramicas y otras artesanias como las que se hacen con
hojalatay madera. Especialmente las obras de taracea...El componente mudejar esta presente en gran parte
de las artesanias americanas y en un descuido hasta en el caracter laberintico de nuestros pueblos. Pero es
tan extenso e innombrado como el origen y la proporcion arabigo andaluza de nuestra lengua.” Alberto
Ruy-Sanchez, “El viaje hasta nuestra geografla profunda” in Sintesis de cidturas mudejar. Itinerario
cultural del mudejar en Mexico. Granada: El Legado Andalusi, 2002, pp. 9-13.
16 The issue o f the cultural, political, and social plurality o f the Iberian peninsula has been undertaken by
many scholars. See, among others, Pierre Bonnasie, Marie-Claude Gerbet, and Pierre Guichard, Las
■xxi
develop a localized history of Mudejarismo in sixteenth-century New Spain using
the luxury arts, together with the very concept of luxury, as case studies.17 In questioning
the value of the Mudejar in Iberian conquest culture and, comparatively, in sixteenth-
century Iberian society, the greater question remains: where does Mudejarismo, as an
aesthetic practice, belong in the greater history of Islamic art?
For this answer, I have turned to an assessment of “use” and “practice.” Here, the
sixteenth century provides a fertile ground for interpretation. During this period, when
the consolidation of the Hapsburg state and its rise as a world power saw a converse (and
drastic) decline of Andalusi culture (called “Morisco” during this late phase),18 Mudejar
objects were employed in distinct ways by members of Iberian society. In the colonial
context, Mudejar goods were common tools in the acculturating process of the local
population, which began immediately after the conquest period. This trend suggests that
the currency of the Mudejar aesthetic during such an embattled period, and especially in
the viceregal environment, indicates a radical disconnection from anything traditionally
considered Islamic. This severance occurred at an unprecedented large social scale and it
Espanas medievales. Barcelona: Editorial Critica, 2001; Luis Gonzalez Anton, Espana y las Espanas.
Barcelona: Alianza Editorial, 1997; Julian Marias, Espana inteligible: La Razon Historico de las Espanas.
Barcelona: Alianza Editorial, 1998; Bernard F. Reilly, The Medieval Spains. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1993.
17 Throughout the text, the use o f the term “luxury arts” offers a departure from the more conventional
“decorative,” “industrial,” or even “minor” arts, which generally designate material objects in opposition to
the more noble “Fine Arts.” For the ground-breaking discussion o f earlier Andalusi luxury arts in socio
cultural context, see Renata Holod, “Luxury Arts o f the Caliphal Period” in “Al-Andalus,” pp. 41-47.
18 Moriscos were the “new Christians” forcibly converted to Catholicism in 1501 (Castile) and 1525
(Aragon). The Moriscos’ cultural life became an increasingly thorny problem for the Hapsburg hegemonic
efforts: Throughout the sixteenth century (and during the first decade o f the seventeenth) the crown and the
church simultaneously promoted the Moriscos’ process o f conversion and acculturation into the Iberian
Catholic mainstream, although both institutions were fundamentally mistrustful o f the Moriscos’ ability
(commitment) to assimilate.
xxii
coincided with a moment of institutionalized, state-sponsored, anti-Morisco
sentiment.19 The detachment of the pervasive taste for so-called Mudejar objects (to the
extent that they became visual aids in the formulation of empire) from the repudiation of
the remaining human and cultural vestiges of Al-Andalus motivated me to seek answers
outside of the physical confines of the objects.
In order to arrive at a broader understanding of the use and meaning of so-called
Mudejar objects in sixteenth century viceregal life, I turned to an ethnohistorical
methodology that combines the interpretation of historical documentation, literary
sources, and visual culture through a comparative lens that keeps Spain and New Spain,
the imperial and the colonial, in perspective. This investigation is the result of three
years of archival work in Mexican and Spanish institutions, where I concentrated my
research on three main types of documentary evidence: inquisitorial, testamentary (also
wedding dowries), and commercial and shipping logs. Inquisitorial documentation
allowed me to assess important questions: At the policy level, the activity of the Holy
Office is fundamental to understand the relationship between the supposed presence of
Moriscos in the New World and the Imperial concern for religious purity within its
realms. As a self-supporting institution, the Holy Office depended largely on the income
generated by the sale of goods that it confiscated from the households and businesses of
its victims. Inquisitorial documentation offers the most detailed accounts of the contents
19 A fact that also coincides with the rise o f the so-called “literatura maurofila” o f the sixteenth century. For
detailed information on the development o f “the Moorish novel,” see Maria Soledad Carrasco Urgoiti, El
moro de Granada en la literatura (del sig lo X V a lX X ). Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1956; Luce Lopez-
Baralt, Huellas del Islam en la literatura espahola: de Juan Ruiz a Juan Goytisolo. Madrid: Hiperion,
1989; Francisco Marquez Villanueva, E lproblem a morisco (desde otras laderas). Madrid: Prodhufi, 1998.
xxiii
of viceregal homes across the socio-economic scale and proved very useful in my
effort to construct a cultural map of viceregal consumer goods.
In contrast, the analysis of wedding dowries and testamentary practices added a
layer of “selectivity” that is missing from the Inquisition’s comprehensive lists. That is,
they helped me to identify the kinds of objects that viceregal citizens chose to pass on to
the next generations. Reviewing testaments and dowries from different geographical
locations (I consulted archives in Mexico City, Puebla and Guadalajara and benefited
from the extant documentation from multiple urban and rural locations currently housed
in the Archivo Historico Nacional (Mexico, D.F.), the Archivo Historico en
Micropelicula (MNAH, Mexico), and the Archivo General de Indias (Seville) as well as
socio-economic and ethnic backgrounds opened my eyes to different patterns of
consumption and manipulation of meaning in luxury objects.
Commercial and shipping logs, on the other hand, provide evidence of the wealth
of items available to the viceregal consumer, both imported and locally-produced.
Contemporary literary sources, such as moralistic writings and satirical poetry, provide
evidence of the shifting and often contradictory social value placed on luxury items and
consumption patterns. But they also highlight the facility with which luxury objects
navigated through social spaces and produced distinct meanings according to those who
displayed them and those who could only consume them visually.
This work, therefore, constitutes an effort to expand the interpretative models of
the study of Mudejarismo. It moves away from a formalist methodology, employing
instead a cross-disciplinary ethnohistoric approach that highlights the objects’ cultural
value in New Spain during the sixteenth century. Lastly, it incorporates the American
xxiv
Mudejar in a discussion of colonial power relations and cultural formation. In
doing so, the Mudejar emerges not as a popular expression of Iberian art, but rather as a
visual tool employed (to various degrees) at all social levels and in multiple
geographies.20
20 The Mudejar often is relegated to the realm o f the popular arts and is reduced to simple patterns o f
building and decorative replication. Yet, at the same time, its endurance and dissemination are touted as
fundamental elements o f both European and Islamic art. The following statement by Ignacio Henares
Cuellar illustrates this position, “La arquitectura mudejar constituye una de las mas importantes tradiciones
tecnicas, constructivas y decorativas del mundo islamico y de occidente. No es todo nuestro arte popular,
pero si representa su capitulo mas peculiar y extenso.” Ignacio Henares Cuellar, “Mudejar: Sintesis de
culturas” in “Sintesis de culturas muddjar,” p. 15.
1
Introduction
Beyond the “Artesonado”:

“Mudejarismo” and Material Culture
in Early Colonial New Spain
“ [Tlaxcala’s] convent’s interior preserves some of

its lost grandeur; the carved wooden ceiling is an
Arab or Mauritanian-style artesonado, some altars
show pretty and well-crafted salomonic columns,
some paintings are good for their time. ,.”1
Antonio Penafiel, Ciudades coloniales y capitales
de la Republica Mexicana, 1914.
The celebrated Mexican scholar Antonio Penafiel regarded the ceiling of the
church of San Francisco in Tlaxcala [Fig. 1] as a mark of its past splendor. In his
description, which was influenced by a tum-of-the-century Orientalist perspective, the
artesonado was an exotic and noteworthy architectural component of great aesthetic
Figure 1
Artesonado, Church o f San Francisco
Tlaxcala
1 “El interior del convento conserva algo de su antigua grandeza; el techo de maderas labradas es un
artesonado de estilo arabe o mauritanio, algunos altares con bonitas y bien trabajadas column as
salomonicas. algunas pinturas buenas para su tiempo...” Antonio Penafiel, Ciudades coloniales y capitales
de la Republica Mexicana. Vol. 2. Tlaxcala. Mexico: Secretaria de Fomento, 1914, p. 197.
value. Despite its perceived foreign origin (“Arab/Mauritanian”), the artesonado
crowned Penafiel’s list of decorative elements of a quality high enough to betray the
building’s early construction in 1537.
Each decorative aspect of the church—the Islamic, the Baroque, or “solomonic,”
and the otherwise undefined paintings — also spoke of Mexico’s own grandeur, past and
present. In the context of Mexico’s socio-cultural climate during the first decades of the
twentieth century, Penafiel’s description was a small element in a greater effort of
rediscovery and promotion of Mexico’s cultural treasures.2 In 1915, for instance, the
prominent architect Federico Mariscal openly recognized the aesthetic value of viceregal
architecture as a vital expression of the earliest manifestation of a Mexican nationalist

• 3
conscience. The inclusion of artesonados in an emergent nationalist rhetoric that was
keenly aware of the role of architecture as a vehicle of its agenda gave rise to a discourse
on Mudejarismo that touted it as a unique and distinctive contribution to Mexico’s
characteristic cultural richness. Nearly a century later, the Mudejar aesthetic tradition
remains a recognized, but not a carefully considered, component of viceregal art.
For instance, in the chapter “Arte de mudej ares/Arte para moriscos” Fernando
Marias labeled the study of Mudejar artistic production “a complicated trap for the
2 Bom in 1831, Antonio Penafiel was a trained physician who became a prominent humanist in Mexico’s
academic circles. Until his death in 1922, he was actively engaged in Mexican politics and education, as
well as in the international diffusion o f Mexican culture and folklore. In 1886, he gained membership to the
American Philosophical Society and in 1889 collaborated with Antonio Anza in the design o f M exico’s
pavilion for the Paris Exposition. In 1895, he directed Mexico’s first general census. He authored many
works on Mexican history and culture, which ranged from studies o f pre-Hispanic languages to
architectural guides o f colonial cities.
3 See Federico Mariscal, L a p a tria y la arquitectura nacional. Mexico: Imprenta Stephen y Torres, 1915.
For a survey o f the multiple layers o f nationalist influences on early twentieth-century Latin American art
and architecture, see Rodrigo Gutierrez Vifluales, “El hispanismo como factor de mestizaje en el arte
americano (1900-1930)” in Iberoamerica mestizo: Encuentro de pueblos y culturas. Madrid: Fundacidn
Santillana/SEACE, 2003, pp. 167-186.
historian.”4 Marfas goes on to suggest that, in order to avoid entrapment, art historians
must look beyond the seeming homogeneity of the Mudejar, interpret it in its multiplicity
of contexts, and apply a wider range of interpretive tools.5 Despite such sensible advice,
however, Marias’ own approach to the subject of the Mudejar architectural legacy
focused on the level of participation of Mudejares and Moriscos in the Iberian
construction and ornamental campaigns of the sixteenth-century. For the author,
Mudejarismo was simply the expression of a religious minority, at once suitable for the
acculturating interests of the budding imperial state and convenient for the cultural
survival of Mudejares and Moriscos. Its scope of influence, consequently, was limited
and did not impact the mainstream significantly.6 Thus, Marias seems to have fallen into
to the very “Mudejar” trap against which he so adamantly cautioned his readers.
This dissertation examines the American Mudejar phenomenon using a wider
range of intellectual and material tools. Fundamentally, it seeks to integrate three fields
of study and three methodological approaches that have developed separately. Iberian,
Iberian colonial, and Andalusi histories and art histories of the sixteenth century have
produced parallel, but seldom intersecting, narratives about the Mudejar phenomenon.
The purpose of weaving them together is to assign Mudejar forms a place in time—the
sixteenth century—and space—New Spain. In this manner, New Spain’s early colonial
cultural world, from its consumer culture to its patterns of identity formation, informs the
assessment of the cultural value and currency of Mudejar arts.
4 In his words, “El analisis de la production mudejar constituye una complicada trampa para el
historiador...” Fernando Marias. El largo sigloXVI. Los usos artisticos del renacimiento espanol. Madrid:
Taurus, 1989, p. 181.
5 Ibid, p. 181.
6 Marias, “El largo siglo XVI,” p. 200.
4
Another important objective of this investigation is to reorient the discourse
away from the use of the artesonado as the archetype of the American Mudejar. Instead,
I focus on a different group of objects that are considered to be of Mudejar derivation but
are seldom examined in detail, such as clothing, decorative textiles, and ceramics. In their
American colonial environment, these objects, like so many other Iberian and locally-
produced goods, were subject to manipulation and transformation by different socio
cultural groups. In this work, I stress the relevance of the process of adaptation and
reformulation of meaning that took place around Mudejar objects and that, up to now, has
been analyzed from the perspective of form and decoration. To a great extent, therefore,
this investigation also constitutes an effort to highlight the usefulness of the luxury arts as
effective tools of art historical inquiry.
The overriding attention to form and style has given way to the academic isolation
that characterizes art historical work on the subject of Mudejarismo. As the field has
privileged a strictly visual approach, it has generated a largely a-historical discourse. The
object-centered methodology restricts the types of questions raised, as the search for
information and meaning seldom extends beyond the physical confines of the object
itself.7 Although sixteenth-century Mudejar works of art may look “purely,” or at least,
7 In the colonial context, the most extreme example o f this type o f art historical work is John F. M offitt’s
correlation o f the “estlpite”-baroque faqade o f Tepozotlan’s Jesuit Iglesia de San Francisco Javier (ca.
1762) with the Mosque o f Cordoba’s famed Gate o f Al-Hakam II (ca. 960-75). Heavily influenced by
Fernando Chueca Goitla’s work, Moffitt’s formalist methodology linked the geometric composition o f the
facade’s basic structure and a surviving “horror vacui” (both “revived” from the Andalusi past) to the
ornamental program o f Cordoba’s mosque. Moffit accounts for the 800-year discrepancy between the
structures by alluding to an underlying presence o f Andalusi aesthetics which reaches late into the
eighteenth century. See John F. Moffitt, “Tepozotlan: £el islam latente en America? Qbservaciones en
tomo a la portada esculpida hispanica” in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas X V :57 (1986),
pp. 101-112. See also Fernando Chueca Goitia, Invariantes castizos de la arquitectura espanola. Madrid:
Dossat, 1979.
“directly” Islamic, there is no doubt that they evolved out of distinctly Iberian contexts
and within varied local frames of awareness unified by Hapsburg political control.8
Thus far, it has sufficed to provide and reiterate, often by the same authors,
survey-like descriptions noting the structural details, decorative program and
geographical distribution of the artesonados. This approach has been valuable as a
survey of the topic, but it has had limited application and a partial impact upon our
understanding of their use and meaning in viceregal civic, religious and private settings.
The dominant role of artesonados in art historical scholarship also has resulted in the
exclusion of other meaningful media from the study of the American Mudejar. The
characteristic methodological focus on formalism has promoted a system of visual
dissection, whereby on the sole basis of stylistic differences the ceilings are studied in
almost complete isolation from the buildings that support them and the rituals that take
place just beneath. That is, the ceiling may be “Mudejar,” but the church is “Franciscan.”
Inexplicably, outside of the colonial environment, in the Iberian context, the pattern is
inverted and the monuments are, indeed, “Mudejar churches.”9 The relegation of
Mudejar forms to a superficial level of ornamentation, a deep-rooted problem of Mudejar
art historical research in general, strips the objects of the most accessible layers of
meaning, and thus of interpretative possibilities.10
8 Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic
Books, 1983, p. 12.
9 The central role o f the building work carried out by the mendicant orders in sixteenth-century New Spain
may account for the fact that the early churches are identified as the products o f each commissioning order,
rather than as architectural units o f diverse aesthetic significance.
101 call it superficial because it lacks interpretation, even in its designated role as “decoration.” I have
argued that the traditional approach to the study o f Mudejar architectural and decorative elements and its
disconnection from the study o f material culture “does not render the style a sum o f its parts.” See Maria
Judith Feliciano, “Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? A Reassessment o f Andalusi Textiles in
Thirteenth-Century Castilian Life and Ritual” in Under the Influence: Re-Thinking the Comparative in
The widespread and long-evolving presence of so-called Mudejar luxury objects
can only be clarified by taking into account manifest patterns of selection from a wide
range of aesthetic choices, use—in specific, but varied, local contexts, and elimination—
also resulting from choices, as well as from the development of new tastes and identities,
and social transformation. Indeed, the portability and manipulability of luxury objects,
unlike the fixed presence of ceilings in architectural settings, made them available to a
much wider array of consumers throughout the viceregal geography. In this manner,
Mudejar goods competed for consumer attention in New Spain’s luxury markets and
furthered the dissemination of Iberian lifestyles as they simultaneously aided in the
production of distinctively viceregal identities.
Until now, the well-known use of Mudejar wooden ceilings throughout viceregal
geographies has been explained in terms of imperial Hapsburg politics and the
acculturating power of the built environment.11 While this approach is more
comprehensive than a strictly aesthetic methodology and, indeed, has contributed to the
field with a much-needed layer of interpretative analysis, it falls short of providing
nuanced interpretations of how these structures furthered the imperial agenda and the
process of colonial expansion. In fact, there is no move beyond the statement-of-fact in
order to explore the relevance of the “imperial argument,” or to analyze its limitations.
This critical constraint is comprehensible, given the very few socio-historic connections
Medieval Iberia, eds. Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi. Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, p. 108.
Borras Gualis also argues for a synthetic approach to the study o f the various Mudejar aesthetic
expressions. See Borras Gualis, “Introduction histdrica y artistica,” p. 41.
11 Lopez Guzman defines the use o f Mudejar ceilings as tools o f empire in broad terms as follows, “En este
periodo la politica espanola tendra como objetivos prioritarios la aculturacion de los distintos grupos
indigenas con diversos grados de civilization y la ocupacion territorial. Para ello el urbanismo y la
arquitectura institucional seran dos de los mecanismos mejor utilizados para la creation de la nueva imagen
del territorio americano.” Rafael Lopez Guzman, “Arquitectura mudejar,” p. 420.
made in traditional studies and perhaps because most works on Mudejar ceilings follow
a survey-like model. But it is mostly the product of a lack of crystal-clear historical
documentation on their construction—and the required interpretation of this documentary
void—together with a decidedly a-historical focus on the ceilings as the defining features
of each monument.
The Churches of San Francisco in Tlaxcala [Fig. 1] and San Diego in
Fluexotzingo [Fig. 2] house the most emblematic artesonados of New Spain. In his
survey of Mexican colonial architecture, Diego Angulo described San Francisco’s
wooden ceiling as “the richest” in Mexico.12 The construction and ornamentation
histories of these monuments, starting at the onset of the colonial process and lasting well
into the seventeenth century, follow a series of rebuilding phases that complicate the
study of their celebrated ceilings.13 The protracted construction histories also illustrate
the complexity of the study of Mudejar architectural units. Ceilings of the remarkable
quality and aesthetic value such as those at Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo are prisoners of
their splendor, their discourse locked within the churches’ doors. Consequently, there
has been no effort to link the ceilings with the social stimuli that prompted their
construction in the first place.
12 “El alfarje mas rico al parecer ya del siglo XVII es el de San Francisco de Tlaxcala. El artesonado de la
nave presenta faldones lisos, mientras que el del almizate se encuentra cubierto de lacerias con estrellas de
a ocho en la labor ataujerada. Los tirantes se revisten tambien de lazos, en tanto que la decoration del
arrocabe, y de los canes es ya de tipo clasico.” Diego Angulo Iniguez and Enrique Marco Dorta, Historia
del arte hispano-americano Vol. I. Barcelona: Salvat, 1945, p. 311. This sentiment is shared by the vast
majority o f architectural historians o f the early colonial period. Silvester Baxter, George Kubler, James
Early and Robert I. Mullen, to name a few, agree that San Francisco is the “most notable surviving
example” o f Mudejar carpentry in Mexico. See, Silvester Baxter, Spanish-Colonial Architecture in
Mexico. Boston: J.B. Millet, 1902, p. 147; James Early, The Colonial Architecture o f Mexico. Albuquerque:
University o f New Mexico Press, 1994, p. 75; George Kubler, Mexican Architecture o f the Sixteenth
Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948, p. 270; Robert J. Mullen, Architecture and its Sculpture
in Viceregal Mexico. Austin: University o f Texas Press, 1997, p. 7.
13 Already in 1524, there was a strong and permanent Franciscan presence in Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo and
the building plans for both convents were well in progress.
8
Figure 2
Artesonado, Church of San Diego
Huexotzingo
The building histories of these two Franciscan churches suggest that the choice to
build, re-build, and destroy artesonados had little to do with the establishment of Iberian
authority and the expansion of empire. The sweeping idea of the Mudejar as an
acculturating tool employed only in an empire-building context simply does not explain
its currency well after the initial building campaigns of the sixteenth century. After all,
the ceilings at Tlaxcala and Huexotzingo were incorporated (and subsequently
transformed) into architectural units during the late seventeenth century, at a time when
Iberian colonial cultural implantation was well-established.
The Church of San Francisco in Tlaxcala not only was built several times, but it
changed location once. The first monastery, finished and dedicated in 1527, was built on
the site of the defeated Mexicatzin’s palace, although the following year the church was
moved to a new site in the town of San Francisco Cuitlixco.14 The church saw its most
refined architectural development during the 1530’s, with the construction of a vaulted
14 Mexicatzin was one o f the four lords o f Tlaxcala at the time o f the conquest. Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in
the Sixteenth Century. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967, p. 44.
9
chapel, which was already in place by 1539, and a teaching chapel in 1548.15 Liturgical
implements and decoration were added during the 1550s and 1560s, when a series of
retablos and an organ were ordered.16 Finally, the year 1564 saw the construction of the
Capilla Mayor. By 1646, however, the church appears to have been in disrepair. In that
year, the native population requested permission to maintain the burial chapel of their
17
nobility, which was built by their ancestors during the church’s early history. Writing
in 1662, Fray Agustin de Vetancourt recorded the evolution of the Church of San
Francisco until its renovation in the year 1640,
In this city, there is a monastery of Franciscan brothers dedicated to Our

Lady of the Assumption. It was originally located in Tlaxcala, where the
ruins of its original foundation remain. The convent was moved to a site
on a high hill by the Zahuapan River, from where one can admire the
entire City. There is a well of fresh water in the garden and that is where
Spaniards and natives were served until renovations began in the year
1640.18
Most relevant to this investigation is the fact that Vetancourt described the church
as “de tijera,”19 a direct reference to its Mudejar wooden ceiling, which had been
renovated during his time. However, it is difficult to establish if the Church of San
Francisco was covered with a Mudejar ceiling from its earliest stages. The chronicler is
clearer in his description of the Chapel of the Third Order of Tlaxcala, also located within
15 Gibson, “Tlaxcala,” p.44.

16 Ibid. p.44.
17 Patricia Nettel. “Cosmovision y cultura material franciscana en los pueblos de indios de Nueva Espana
segun Fray Diego de Valades” en Franciscanos y el mundo religioso en Mexico. Mexico: UN AM, 1993, p.
44.
18 “En esta pues Ciudad esta un Convento de Religiosos de S. Francisco, dedicado a la Asuncibn de Nuestra
Seflora, cuyo sitio fue primero en Texcalan, y alii estan las rainas de su primera fundacion; mudada la
Ciudad al plan por donde passa el rio de Zahuapan en un alto repecho de donde se divisa toda la Ciudad y
esta en la huerta un hojo de agua fria, se fundo el Convento...en el se administraron espanoles y naturales
hasta el afto 640 que file el despojo.” Fray Agustin de Vetancourt, Teatro Mexicano. Description de los
sucesos ejemplares, historicos y religiosos del Nuevo Mundo de las Indias. Cronica de la Provincia del
Santo Evangelio de Mexico. Menologio Franciscano, 4 Part, Vol. II. Primera edition Facsimilar. Mexico:
Editorial Porrua, 1971, p. 53
19 “La iglesia es de tijera con retablos muy costosos.” Ibid, p. 54
10
the church, and mentions a certain Don Diego de Tapia, “who recovered the Church,”
suggesting that the patron replaced an already existing ceiling of unknown style.20 Efrain
Castro Morales has unearthed evidence that dates the main ceiling to the year 1662, and
attributes its authorship to the workshop of Jose and Juan de Mora.21 Still, there is no
indication of the existence of a previous artesonado in earlier literature. For instance, in
1585, Diego Munoz Camargo (fl. 1580’s), Tlaxcala’s earliest and most celebrated
viceregal chronicler, makes no reference of a wooden ceiling or to any trace of Mudejar
carpentry in the Church of San Francisco. Rather, he remarked on the architectural
“modesty” of the building.22
The lack of a detailed description of the church’s artesonado suggests that its
peculiarity is the product of a modem academic construction, since it was not until the
twentieth century that such a response emerged with exclusive regards to the ceilings. In
1697, for instance, the Italian traveler Giovanni Francesco Gemelli Carreri deemed the
convent, as an architectural unit, worthy of note. Yet, when he stated that there was
“nothing in Tlaxcala more notable than a Franciscan convent,”23 the new artesonado was
already in place. The convent, not its ceiling, impressed Gemelli Carreri. Neither
travelers nor clergymen separated the ceiling from its structure. Instead, they described it
only at the time of repairs, as was the case with Vetancourt. This suggests that, in
seventeenth-century Tlaxcala, a Mudejar ceiling served to define a “Christian” space.
20 “D. Diego de Tapia...el bienitechor que cubrio de nuevo la Iglesia...” Vetancourt, “Teatro Mexicano,” p.
54.
21Castro, Efrain. “Arquitectura de los siglos XVII y XVIII en la region de Puebla, Tlaxcala y Veracruz, in
Historia del Arte Mexicano, Tomo V. Mexico: SEP-INBA, 1982, p. 58.
22 As cited in Tlaxcala: Textos de su historia. Vol. 8. Tlaxcala, eds., Andrea Martinez Barcas and Carl
Sempat Assadourian. Tlaxcala: Gobiemo del Estado de Tlaxcala, 1991, pp. 490-508.
23 “No habiendo nada en Tlaxcala...cosa notable mas que un convento Franciscano.” See Cronica de
Puebla de los Angeles segun el testimonio de algunos viajeros que la visitaron entre los aiios 1540 y 1960,
ed. Ignacio Ibarra Mazari. Puebla: Gobiemo del Estado de Puebla, 1992, p. 45.
11
The ceiling and the church were not regarded separately and the church was defined by
both its decoration and structure.
The history of the Church of San Diego de Alcala in Huexotzingo does not differ
greatly from that of the church of San Francisco in Tlaxcala. Vetancourt, for instance,
offers a general description of the larger complex of San Miguel de Huexotzingo, the
impressive Franciscan monastery located nearby [Fig. 3]. About the church of San Diego
de Alcala, however, he offers limited information, stating that, “what stands out the most
in the convent is the shrine and well of San Diego.”24 The church was built in 1598 to
venerate the site where, as legend has it, the miraculous intervention of San Diego saved
a small child from drowning in a deep well. Indeed, most contemporary accounts show
great concern for the story of the miracle and its well, not for its ornate wooden ceiling.
No surviving account describes the remarkable ceiling that covers the church’s sacristy.
Figure 3
Franciscan monastery of San M iguel
Huexotzingo
24 “La que mas ilustra a aquel convento es la ermita y poso de San Diego milagroso por el caso del nino
Alonso.” Vetancourt, “Teatro Mexicano,” p. 58. It seems evident that the Church o f San Diego originally
was a shrine built on the grounds o f the monastery. Nowdays, the church has been incorporated into the
urban fabric o f Huexotzingo and exists separated from the gate to the monastic grounds.
12
This is not surprising, given that visitors entered the church (a commemorative
chapel) seeking the well, the site of the miracle, which is displayed prominently before
the altar and vividly depicted in large paintings. Also, as is the case with the Church of
San Francisco in Tlaxcala, the Church of San Diego underwent structural changes during
the seventeenth century. Garcia Granados and MacGregor, like Diego Angulo, have
identified the church’s initial building phase as a single-nave structure without a
crossing.25 As the shrine’s popularity grew, the ceiling in the sacristy was partially
destroyed to enlarge the space. They suggest that the extant ceiling in the sacristy is the
remainder of this second phase of construction, when a crossing was added by destroying
part of the sacristy and, as a consequence, a part of the artesonado^ Though its process
of expansion remains undocumented, it seems to have resulted from the increased
popularity of the site during the late seventeenth- and throughout the eighteenth
century.27 If the formal relationship (linking the makers of the ceiling in Tlaxcala to San
Diego de Alcala’s based on evident similarities in technique and decoration) advocated
by several scholars is correct, Huexotzingo’s ceiling was likely to have been built in the
late seventeenth century. This supposition, in turn, may indicate an eighteenth century
reconstruction (and partial destruction of the ceiling). Though inconclusive for lack of
solid evidence, such a chronology does seem probable since it coincides with
Huexotzingo’s status as an alcaldia mayor in 1786. Interestingly, however, neither
25 Angulo Iniguez,” Historia del arte,” p. 312; Rafael Garcia Granado and Luis MacGregor, Huejotzingo:
La ciudady el convento franciscano. Mexico: Talleres Graficos de la Nacion, 1934, p. 285-286.
26 Their observations are based on structural analysis. The dates remain unkown, as the documentation on
the construction program o f San Diego has yet to be located. Garcia Granado and MacGregor,
“Huejotzingo” p. 71.
27 Citing Enrique Juan Palacios’ earlier work Puebla: Sus territories y sus habitantes (1917), Garcia
Granados and McGregor state, “era corregimiento de la Audiencia de Mexico en 1646; y en 1786 foe una
de las alcaldias mayores de la Intendencia de Puebla.” Ibid, p. 13.
13
seventeenth nor eighteenth century accounts present any descriptions of San Diego de
Alcala’s ceiling, even at a time when the church became increasingly important in a town
whose political prominence also was on the rise.
It is clear from the available evidence that neither structure was ever separated
from—or overshadowed by— its ceiling. Vetancourt’s simple description of the ceiling in
San Francisco as “la iglesia es de tijera,” implies a unified view of the church and its
decoration. In his account, the ceiling’s beauty was worthy of praise, especially since it
had recently been restored, but it was not regarded as a separate artistic unit. The ceiling,
as much as the church’s retablos, belonged in and contributed to the overall architectural
experience and use(s) of the building. Huexotzingo, on the other hand, presents the
problem of a ceiling destroyed in order to enlarge the church space to facilitate its
increasing use. Yet, it does provide relevant information regarding those aspects of a
church that were truly striking to its visitors. Thus, the well of San Diego’s miracle and
the retablo that told its story were the devotional locus of the church, indicating that the
wooden ceiling atop its sacristy was never regarded as the most noteworthy aspect.
Nonetheless, as a conscious choice attesting to its aesthetic value, the ceiling in fact was
partly preserved during an intensive rebuilding campaign.
Evidently, then, the architectural transformations that took place in Tlaxcala and
Huexotzingo responded to the strength of local labor and artisanal traditions and to their
ability to supply the building demand of the growing local population and its rituals.
Certainly, much work remains to be carried out in order to ascertain the motivation(s) to
14
28
construct new ceilings in Huexotzingo and Tlaxcala during the seventeenth century.
But it is clear that a context-specific perspective that is rooted in the interpretation of
local histories must replace the traditional approach to the study of the American
Mudejar.
The multiplicity of contexts (and thus opportunities) for the manipulation of
Mudejar forms in the colonial environment remains largely unexplored. To date, the only
comparative connection links the building program of the Kingdom of Granada and that
of the American viceroyalties.29 Following the above-mentioned “empire-making”
discourse, some scholars have equated the use of Mudejar forms in the two conquered
territories (Granada and New Spain) by establishing a juxtaposition of forms.
This formal comparison is taken to a functional level, when the Mudejar is
acknowledged rightfully to be one of “new visual symbols” in the occupation and
acculturation processes that developed on both shores of the Atlantic.30 In this view, the
success of the Mudejar building techniques (“fast, cheap, and aesthetically pleasing”) in
promoting Habsburg control over the Kingdom of Granada made them an obvious choice
28 Certainly, the construction o f masonry structures on M exico’s geologically active soil required refined
technical knowledge. Diego Angulo, citing Viceroy Luis de Velasco (second Viceroy o f New Spain, 1550-
1564), argues that seismic activity and technical inexperience often resulted in multiple structural changes
to a single building. Angulo also posits that, while wooden ceilings were favored initially, the aesthetic
criteria changed as the technical know-how became increasingly sophisticated and thus, “en los templos
coloniales de Nueva Espana termino triunfando la boveda sobre la cubierta de madera.” Angulo Iniguez, p.
311. Joaquin Berchez adds that the flexibility o f wooden carpentry to incorporate newer aesthetic models
also allowed it to stay current. “La inestabilidad del suelo prolongo el uso, pero tambidn su puesta al dia de
presupuestos modemos, tanto de una vertiente estilistica como tecnica.” Joaquin Berchez, Arquitectura
mexicana de los siglosXVII-XVIII. Mexico: Azabache, 1992, p. 35.
29 See Rafael Lopez Guzman, “Arquitectura Mudejar,” p. 61. Although, more recently, Borras Gualis has
begun to consider Sevilla, the administrative and commercial center o f the Americas, as the more accurate
aesthetic connection. For a brief introductory overview o f this new line o f inquiry, see Gonzalo Borras
Gualis, “Granada, Canarias y America. Las pervivencias artisticas mudejares en la Edad Modema” in A etas
del IXSim posio Internacional de Mudejarismo: Mudejares y moriscos. Cambios socialesy culturales.
Teruel: Centro de Estudios Mudejares, 2004, pp. 231-241.
30 Rafael Lopez Guzman, “Arquitectura mudejar,” p. 61.
15
for “transplantation” into the American territories.31 “Identical” problems of
acculturation and administration on both conquered realms also aided in this apparently
seamless transfer. Although this position acknowledges a social utility of the Mudejar
during the early colonial period, it effectively equates the receptiveness to Mudejar forms
of the conquered Granadan Muslims to that of the conquered Amerindians and thus lacks
a clear historical perspective.
Certainly, the response of Granadan Muslims to the Mudejar aesthetic must have
differed greatly from that of Native Americans. Unlike the Muslim population, which
had been exposed for centuries to both Andalusi traditions and to Castilian power
symbols, the indigenous condition as the ultimate unknown “Other” made all Iberian
visual displays “new.” 33 Historical and literary texts underscore the extent of cultural
awareness across the Nasrid-Castilian frontier, not only as a result of violent encounters,
but also of trade and geographical mobility. Historically in Iberia, and especially during
the fifteenth century, the boundary itself was porous and, as Rachel Arie describes it,
largely “imaginary.” In contrast, visual displays of all forms (from churches and
administrative buildings, to urban planning and public rituals) were not only new to the
conquered indigenous populations of New Spain, they were saturated with the imprint of
31 Rafael Lopez Guzman, “Lo mudejar en la arquitectura mexicana” in “Mudejar Iberoamericano,” p. 193.
32 Ibid, p. 193.
j3 See, Rachel Arie, “Sobre la vida socio-cultural en la frontera oriental nazari: El ambiente humano y la
irradiation intellectual” in Actas del Congreso La Frontera Oriental Nazari como Sujeto Historico (s. XIII-
XVI), ed. Pedro Segura Artero. Almeria: Institute de Estudios Almerienses, 1997, pp. 501-513; Angus
Mackay, “Los romances fronterizos como fuente historica” in Relaciones exterior es del Reino de Granada.
IV Coloquio de historia medieval andaluza, ed. C. Segura. Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses,
1988, pp. 273-288; J. de Mata Carriazo, “La vida en la frontera de Granada” in Actas del I Congreso de
Historia de Andalucia, Vol. II. Cordoba: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de Cordoba, 1976, pp. 277-
302; Fatima Roldan Castro, “La frontera oriental nazari (s. XIII-XVI). El concepto de alteridad a partir de
las fuentes de la epoca” in Actas del Congreso La Frontera Oriental N azari Como Sujeto Historico (s. XIII-
XVI) Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1997, pp. 563-569.
16
Iberian power.34 Thus, the extent of each group’s recognition of an imperial agenda in
Mudejar forms must be evaluated carefully.35
While, on the one hand, we have a loosely formulated Granadan, or more
accurately “Reconquest,” rationalization of the American Mudejar phenomenon, on the
other we have a general disinterest in looking beyond forms to incorporate historical
interpretation and documentary sources. With this problematic background, specialists of
the American Mudejar have painted an inaccurate portrait of the role of Moriscos-and, by
extension, of Mudejarismo— in the culture and arts of the early viceregal period. Taking
Morisco immigration to the New World for granted, scholars have sought to explain the
Mudejar by looking outside of its sixteenth-century historical context.36 Those who
recognize the likely absence of this ethnic element from the colonial American territories
limit their comments to a simple assertion of the “fact,” very often parenthetically.
Generally, there is no in-depth analysis of the complexities of what in reality was a
process of cultural reproduction and transformation.37
34 See Valerie Frazer, The Architecture o f Conquest: Building the Viceroyalty o f Peru, 1535-1635.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Serge Gruzinski, The Conquest o f Mexico. The
Incorporation o f Indian Societies into the Western World, 16th-18th Centuries, transl. Eileen Corrigan.
Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996; Patricia Seed, Ceremonies o f Possession in E urope’s Conquest o f the New
World., 1492-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
35 This topic is the subject o f a future study by the author.
36 Thomas da Costa Kauffman’s recent work epitomizes this practice. Reproducing earlier views and
examples on the subject o f the American Mudejar, Kaufrnann sees Mudejarismo as the product o f
unchanging mentalities, rather than as result o f the experience o f the sixteenth-century in the Americas.
See Thomas DaCosta Kaufrnann, “Islam, Art, and the Architecture o f the Americas: Some Considerations
o f Colonial Latin America” in Res 43 (2003), pp. 42-50.
37 Rafael Lopez Guzman has taken an unambiguous stance on the subject, but has not endeavored to
expound on the details o f such a deeply ingrained misconception. He states, “Ya hemos referido, por otra
parte, la presencia de maestros espanoles en las realizaciones del periodo inicial. Habria que resenar, en su
ascendencia, que estos no eran moriscos. Algunos autores han querido ver en el origen etnico de estos
primeros artistas la razon del desarrollo del mudejar en America. Esto es totalmente incierto.” Rafael Lopez
Guzman, “Arquitectura mudejar,” p. 423. More problematically, Leon Zahar acknowledges the absence o f
Morisco culture in N ew Spain, but abstains from providing any type o f interpretation on the subject of
cultural transference. Instead, he reduces the mode o f transmission to “folklore, gastronomy, and art” by
way o f Southern Spain (Andalucia). This simplistic take on a centuries-long process o f acculturation is also
17
Traditional scholarship has not acknowledged fully the active role of
“Christian” Spaniards in the production, and not just in the consumption, of Mudejar
visual forms and cultural practices.38 On the other hand, what has been espoused is the
belief in the continuation of late-medieval “Reconquest” mentalities in sixteenth-century
colonial life that simultaneously fueled anti-Morisco legislations and heightened
Inquisitorial zeal while still allowing for the wide-spread use of so-called Mudejar goods
in the colonies. The taste for Mudejar works of art, like the nature of anti-Morisco
writings in the colonies, is understood as a medieval survival rather than as an active
practice characteristic of sixteenth-century Iberian culture.
In this investigation, I seek to replace the assumption of the actual physical
presence of Moriscos (or their direct involvement in the creation of works of art now
called “Mudejar”) with a context-specific examination of the aesthetic value of Mudejar
visual arts in the Spanish Empire. In this new picture, Spanish colonizers imported,
created, bought, and sold a wide array of objects, those currently called “Mudejar” among
them, in keeping with current Iberian taste and notions of cultural propriety, but also in
direct connection with a greater Mediterranean tradition of consumer behavior and a
penchant for luxury goods. This investigation, therefore, treats Mudejar luxury goods as
limited in its perspective, which excludes the cross-cultural experience ofNorthem Iberian kingdoms
(indeed, the ones with a longer history o f inter-cultural relations). In his words, “No puede hablarse
propiamente de una influencia arabe, musulmana y ni siquiera morisca en America pues no llegaron aqui ni
el elemento etnico, ni el linguistico, ni el religioso. En todo caso, puede tratarse de una particular herencia
cultural andaluza, por derecho propio, expresada en folclor, gastronomia y arte.” Leon R. Zahar,
“Presencias y ausencias mudejares” in Artes de Mexico 54 (2001), p. 48.
38 This position has begun to change. Specifically, Maria Elena Diez Jorge has argued for an essentially
mediatory function o f Mudejarismo throughout the medieval Christian conquest period. Implicit in her
narrative is the full participation o f all members o f society in forging an aesthetic vocabulary to be shared
in the midst o f conflict and violence, but also in the interest o f coexistence. See Maria Elena Diez Jorge,
“El arte Mudejar,” p. 119-200. Nonetheless, this provocative interpretation has yet to be fully absorbed,
especially by scholars o f the American Mudejar phenomenon.
18
nothing other than a group of objects that navigated in a veritable sea of luxury items,
entering the ports and homes of New Spain as the material embodiment of Iberian
culture, and that helped to shape the viceregal cultural map accordingly.39 In the process,
the objects’ meanings changed as well. As a result, the presence of Moriscos in the
Americas not only becomes unnecessary for the continuation of the Mudejar aesthetic
across the Atlantic, but ultimately a historically inaccurate supposition.
Methodologically, then, this investigation is structured as an inverted pyramid. Its
overarching concern is to place the use of Mudejar forms in early viceregal society in a
decidedly contemporary, sixteenth-century context. To do so, it incorporates historical
documentation and visual evidence that links it to the greater patterns of consumer
culture. It also takes into account the force of transatlantic luxury markets, Iberian
cultural practices and the history of the Morisco question (in as much as it impacted
viceregal legislations and social practices). The focus on material culture— and the
luxury arts in particular—rather than on architectural features, such as artesonados,
allows the analysis to delve deeper into the nature of the uses of Mudejar luxury goods in
the realms of private consumption and public display. In this manner, I open up the
discourse to include a careful examination of Peninsular and ethnic (Amerindians and
mixed-race) colonial re-interpretations of Mudejarismo. The incorporation of newly-
presented archival and literary documentation informs the arguments with contextual
’9 They did this, o f course, in a manner consistent with the Iberian desire to create a perfect Iberian,
Catholic, Renaissance society, and herein lies the paradox. While the urbanistic, educational, and
architectural programs o f the sixteenth century in New Spain are often described in terms o f Renaissance
ideals, not so the patterns o f consumption o f luxury items, or even the practices o f private life, which are
still viewed as “medieval.” For detailed information on the “utopian” principles that helped to shape
viceregal urbanism, see Richard L. Kagan, Urban Images o f the Hispanic World, 1493-1793. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 2000; Mario Sartor, A rquitecturay urbanismo en Nueva Espaha, siglo XVI. Mexico:
Azabache, 1992.
19
specificity and further defines the proposed focus on issues of daily life and self-
fashioning.
The four chapters that comprise the body of this work explore distinct aspects of
the uses, meanings, and interpretations of luxury goods in early colonial New Spain in the
form of case studies. These are the very objects that have been called “Mudejar” by
present-day scholarship. Each investigation addresses historical, aesthetic, and
conceptual issues produced during the modem period. Through a careful and systematic
comparative analysis and the dissection of new archival documentation, I suggest new
interpretive directions that aim to define Mudejarismo not only as a tool of empire, but
also as an aid in the crystallization of New Spain’s colonial culture. My proposed
reconsideration of the Mudejar is planted in a keen awareness of the transatlantic nature
of this aesthetic phenomenon, and it is concerned with the context-specific nuances and
shifts in its use and significance at the local level.
I approach each case study from two different perspectives. First, I explore the
material in its historiographical context. A detailed assessment of the intellectual history
of each subject is of fundamental importance, because the Mudejar discourse continues to
struggle with the problems o f “seeing” imposed by its nineteenth-century origin.
Subsequently, the formalist and historically positivist constructions that have come to
define the field of American Mudejar studies are juxtaposed with the problem of “being”
in the sixteenth century. Thus, the second half of each chapter presents the historical
context that I have constmcted from Iberian and early colonial historical documentation,
material culture, and literary sources.
20
Chapter 1 deals with the presumed physical presence of Moriscos in the
viceroyalty of New Spain, but also in the colonial Americas. It not only examines
fundamental historical perspectives on the problem of Mudejarismo in the Americas, but
also sets the methodological tone of the dissertation. It presents a new interpretation of
the question of Mudejarismo by redefining it as a problem of the sixteenth century, rather
than as a survival of medieval “Reconquest” ideals.
Stressing the historical distinction between the fear of Morisco infiltration and the
presence of Moriscos in the New World, it links the sudden rise of anti-Morisco writings
in the New World, such as Edictos de Fe, inquisitorial proceedings, royal decrees and
investigations, and administrative correspondence, to a parallel experience in Spain. That
is, the currency of the Morisco problem in Iberia is patent in Hapsburg anti-Morisco
legislations and policies; for example, the resettlement of Granadan Moriscos throughout
the Castilian countryside was the product of the violent engagement at the Alpuj arras.
The socio-cultural challenges raised by the Moriscos’ uncertain religiosity resonated in
ecclesiastical literature (such as the convocation and publication in 1554 of the Sinodo de
la Diocesis de Guadixy de Baza). By putting the viceregal anti-Morisco sentiment in the
context of the Iberian historical reality, I suggest that the New World simply did not
experience a wave o f illegal Morisco immigration, as has been argued. It is not enough
to argue that anti-Morisco sentiment resulted in immigration because documentary
materials in New Spain simply do not support such a supposition.
In the end, disregarding the authenticity of the multiple expressions of
Mudejarismo in the Americas by stressing its existence due to undocumented patterns of
unlawful Muslim immigration to the Americas—or, conversely, on the basis of a lack of
21
evidence o f Muslim labor in the colonial territories—promotes an erroneous
understanding of its inherent character as a product of Iberian nostalgia.40 It also
overlooks the fact that Mudejarismo provided but a single element in an otherwise broad
aesthetic repertoire or, more specifically, that it belonged in a continuum of established
Iberian artistic practices (subject, of course, to the same system of transmission).
The second part of this chapter further dispels the myth of Morisco participation
in viceregal cultural life by presenting the reality of Morisco cultural life in sixteenth
century Iberia and thus questioning their ability to effectively transmit distinctive cultural
information to the nascent colonial society. It considers the intensity of anti-Morisco
sentiment in Spain, the system of repression that took hold of Iberian policy-making
throughout the sixteenth century, and the resulting erosion of Morisco socio-cultural
capital. For this purpose, I turn to the Moriscos’ own literary production, known as
Aljamiado literature, and especially two famous texts, Yga Gidelli’s Breviario Sunni
(1462) and the Mancebo de Arevalo’s Tafsira (ca. 1533), in order to underscore the
reality of the Morisco predicament.41 Acting as the link between the Iberian and the
viceregal material is a discussion of my recent discovery of an unknown copy of Gidelli’s
Breviario (probably of the late sixteenth century) in the Inquisition section of the Archivo
General de la Nation (Mexico). Postdating Gidelli’s first manuscript by almost one
hundred years, the Mexican Breviario was brought to the New World as a reference
40 Echoing Avilez Moreno, Santiago Sebastian wrote that, “los espanoles aportaron al medio Americano un
legado de formas vigentes en Espafia, en las que lo mudejar paso ya como una supervivencia popular, un
arte puramente nostalgico.” Santiago Sebastian, “Êxiste el mudejarismo en Hispanoamerica?” in Mudejar
Hispanoamericano: Del Islam al Nuevo Mundo. Madrid: Ludweig Editores, 1995, p. 46.
41 Aljamiado, also known as Aljamia, is Spanish literature written with Arabic script. Although “Spanish
Muslims did not distinguish in their terminology if a text was written in Arabic or Latin,” Wiegers prefers
the term Islamic Spanish literature to designate the literary production o f Mudejares and Moriscos which
used the Latin script. See Wiegers, “Islamic Literature,” p. 1.
22
guide to help inquisitors identify heretical behavior, rather than as a ritual guide to
conduct Muslim practices (its intended purpose). This transformation illustrates a
continuing Iberian colonial paranoia of the danger of Morisco infiltration in a social
milieu whose last generations had never seen a Morisco. Thus, I posit that the Morisco
issue straddled Atlantic and Mediterranean histories in the form of institutionalized '
anxiety rather than being enacted through human presence.
Chapter 2 examines conceptual and practical questions regarding the nature and
use of luxury in sixteenth-century New Spain and the role of Mudejar goods therein.
This chapter offers a re-evaluation of the established discourse, which espouses the idea
of luxury as an exclusive or, at best, distinct feature of viceregal society. I posit instead
that New Spain’s patterns of luxury consumption were a logical and contemporary
continuation of European, but especially Iberian, consumer practices. By extension,
Mudejar goods fall squarely within that context.
Standing in direct opposition to the traditional approach on the subject, which
repetitively makes use of limited and often unreliable sources, this chapter incorporates a
variety of documentary, literary, and visual evidence in order to paint a new picture of
viceregal consumer culture. Moving beyond Thomas Gage’s seventeenth-century travel
accounts, I explore contemporary moralistic, legislative, and satirical works on the theme
of luxury in both New Spain and Iberia. In this comparative context, luxury emerges not
as a monolithic and exclusively viceregal argument, but rather as a concept whose
manipulation reflected the interests of colonial social control and economic development
of the Catholic Church and the Hapsburg state. The examination of the historical
documentation pertaining to the public auction in Mexico City’s central square of the
23
contents of Phillip II’s unsent diplomatic gift to the “King of China” highlights the
conflicting interests of the crown. While the monarchy’s position regarding luxury had
been made clear repeatedly by means of countless sumptuary legislations, Phillip II
reconsidered his position (though informally, as the legislations were not amended). He
sought to recoup his own monetary expense by selling a most luxurious collection of
textiles, clothing and decorative items to commoners in New Spain.
The second part of this chapter is founded on the premise that as New Spain’s
cultural identity matured, the ubiquitous presence of luxurious objects, especially textiles,
took on new meanings that were specific to its multiple social realities. While its
pervasive pattern of consumption fits an early modem European model, the multiple
patterns of intention in New Spain’s consumer behavior were unique to the viceroyalty
and its new colonial situation. Namely, the role of textiles as negotiators of (new or
changing) ethnic and cultural identities aided the process of social stratification but also
allowed for transgression. Here, a close reading of the sartorial vocabulary encoded in the
images of the encomenderos and the cacique of Yanhuitlan, found in the Codex
Yanhuitian (ca. 1530’s), positions luxury items at work in the context of the legitimizing
struggle of conquerors and conquered alike. With the focus on the cultural tug-of-war
waged in the Oaxacan Mixteca, I argue that meaning in the word “luxury” resides at a
context-specific level. Similarly, I posit that Mudejar luxury items helped to define a
colonial sense of “Iberian-ness” at the same time that they aided in the articulation of
distinctly colonial identities.
Chapter 3 focuses on the continued use of items of so-called Morisco clothing
throughout the sixteenth century in New Spain. I suggest that this practice was related
24
directly to the history and practice of sartorial display in sixteenth-century Spain,
which derived from a centuries-long tradition of use of Andalusi textiles across the
Iberian frontier. Indeed, items of Morisco clothing were standard components of the
greater Iberian (and, by extension, also of the viceregal) visual language of the sixteenth
century.
The image of Don Gonzalo de las Casas, a detail of the depiction of the
encomenderos in the Codex Yanhuitlan (ca. 1530’s), and his prominent turban especially,
provides the visual focus of this chapter. A discussion of the socio-historical debate that
took place around Morisco cultural life, and costume in particular, during the sixteenth
century contextualizes this seemingly exotic depiction. Specifically, it highlights the
precarious place of costume in the increasingly intense anti-Morisco legislations. Yet, it
also recognizes that not all Morisco clothing was the same and that its meanings were
formulated in relationship to the social qualities of the bodies that wore them. That is,
Morisco clothing worn by a Morisco had an ominous meaning that simply was missing
from the use of similar items by an “old Christian.” Similarly, the ability of Morisco
clothing to travel through myriad Iberian social spaces also depended on the cultural
contexts in which it was employed. As such, sartorial items commonly called “Morisco,”
“Moorish,” or “Hispano-Muslim” oscillated between the realms of Iberian clothing (daily
wear) and costume (theatrical, performance-oriented), depending on the wearers, the
circumstances and their intended audience.
Visual, literary, and historical sources indicate an unambiguous meaning of
Spanish-ness in items of clothing (and hence public displays) that traditionally have been
understood as foreign by modem scholarship. Supported by historical documentation
25
that highlights the widespread use of tocas (headwraps, commonly called “turbans” in
English) across the Iberian world as characteristic components of Spanish clothing and
visual identity, the chapter further contextualizes the presence of such sartorial items in
colonial inventories and visual representations.
Chapter 4 makes use of sixteenth-century viceregal ceramics as a case study of
the production of a Mudejar myth in the field of Spanish colonial art history.42
Positioned vis-a-vis the contemporary map of Iberian ceramic consumption, viceregal
ceramics emerge not as a survival of taste for Mudejar objects, but rather as an expression
of a thoroughly Iberian practice that facilitated Iberian lifestyles and, thus, projected
European identities. An important element of this discussion is the examination of the
inter-ethnic composition of most Iberian ceramic workshops. In this manner, I highlight
the inherent disconnection between the formal elements that earn some vessels the labels
“Mudejar” and “Morisco” and the ethnicity of the potters. Once again, the Iberian
character of Valencian, Toledano and Sevilian wares of the sixteenth century emerges
clearly.
In the second part of this chapter, I take a drastically different approach from the
formalist methodology that characterizes the field of ceramic studies and focus, instead,
on historical documentation. I suggest that ceramics did not belong in the realm of
sumptuous consumption but that, instead, viceregal wares were common objects of daily
use, present in any home that could afford them. Indeed, fine ceramics were imported in
42 This chapter deals exclusively with ceramic items o f home consumption. The subject o f azulejos, or
ceramic architectural revetment, falls outside o f its scope. Beyond the obvious and only similarities of
medium and technique, the study o f azulejos raises complex issues related to urbanism, public/civic
displays, and the development o f a localized architectural vernacular that must be undertaken separately
and in depth. I will undertake the subject o f azulejerla in a forthcoming project.
26
great numbers and were actively produced in the colonies. Although they were
routinely mentioned and included in commercial shipping logs, they were rarely declared
in testaments or included in the lists of goods confiscated by the Holy Office, a fact that
seems odd only vis-a-vis the idea of exclusivity granted to decorated/glazed ceramics by
the art historical (museological) tradition of the twentieth century. While I recognize
their market popularity and desirability, I question their recently conferred social
distinction and luxury status. 43
To elucidate such seemingly contradictory evidence, I position viceregal wares in
terms of Kopitoff s theory of “terminal commoditization,” suggesting that their
desirability as commodities ended at the moment of purchase. Thereafter, viceregal
ceramics (whether imported or locally produced) became utilitarian objects, almost
completely devoid of resale value. An exhaustive comparative study of the testamentary
practices of members of viceregal society, from Heman Cortes’ own inventory of
household goods, to the inventories of members of the bourgeoisie, and even to
Indigenous testaments, shows a remarkable absence of ceramic goods as anything
exceptional across the viceregal social landscape.
Their decorative repertoire, whether of Mudejar, Northern Renaissance or Italian
inspiration seems to have been relatively inconsequential in the big picture of luxury
consumption in New Spain, which favored other media (especially silver) as valuable
43 A historiographic essay included in the Appendix presents the creation o f “Mexican Maiolica” studies,
also known as “Talavera Poblana,” at the hands o f prominent American and European collectors, curators,
and industrial ceramists o f the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of special importance is the
creation o f the academic discourse at the heart o f the nascent American art collections o f New York and
Philadelphia. Indeed, the development o f the field o f viceregal ceramic studies has remained so closely
associated with museum collections that scholars continue to reproduce an essentially “Orientalist”
argument developed almost a century ago. Among its many suppositions is the belief in the direct
involvement o f Moriscos in the establishment o f the viceregal ceramics trade.
27
investments. That is, in the documents, there is no distinction made between a
“Mudejar” plate and a “Renaissance” one, though the place of origin was carefully
identified (i.e., “platos de sevilla,” “loza de china,” etc.) As a rule, however, the rituals of
daily life that warranted the need for silver or ceramic plates, bowls, and cups were
embedded with greater meaning among the members of viceregal society.
Throughout this work, I emphasize the usefulness of the luxury arts and
Mudejarismo in the study of cultural change and identity formation during the early
colonial period in New Spain. I am particularly interested in the ability of material
culture to negotiate complex power relations within a colonial context. Because of the
obvious connection between sumptuous goods and the highest echelons of viceregal and
Peninsular society, this discussion focuses on the relationship of the luxury arts to the
formulation and enactment of power, as well as to the ways in which it was challenged
throughout the sixteenth century.
I recognize, of course, the multivalent nature of sumptuous display, whether
sartorial or material, and benefit greatly from the methodologies employed in its study.
The manipulation of luxurious items commonly called Mudejar or Morisco does not
highlight socio-political developments exclusively. Just as importantly, it also
underscores the intensely complex and varied exchanges of meaning that resulted from
the act of display. The theoretical arsenal developed by the specialists in the field of
costume studies, therefore, is particularly relevant to the study of sumptuous goods as
well. While I am particularly attracted to theories of fashion as symbols of power and
28
status,441 accept the idea of cloth’s, and thus of the luxury arts’, “almost limitless
potential for communication.”45 Indeed, exploring the domain of sexuality, economics,
exoticism and memory, to name but a few fruitful alternative lines of inquiry, is certain to
expand our understanding of the role of material culture during periods of rapid social
change, such as the sixteenth century 46
But, alas, I only could write one dissertation.
44 Jane Ashelford, for example, describes fashion as “a symbol o f the power o f the monarchy, aristocracy
and the upper classes, dictated by their lifestyle and molded by their taste.” Thorstein Veblen maintained
that dress functioned as a symbol o f status, a role that was transformed by the socio-economic changes that
took place between the medieval and early modem periods. See Jane Ashelford, The A rt o f Dress. Clothes
and Society 1500-1914. London: The National Trust, 1996; Dress, Adornment and the Social Order, eds.
Mary Ellen Roach and Joanne Eicher. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973; Thorstein Veblen, The
Theory o f the Leisure Class (1899). New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
45 See Jane Schneider and Annette B. Weiner, “Introduction” in Cloth and Human Experience. Washington
D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989, pp. 1-4.
46 See, for instance, Beatrix Bastl, “Clothing the Living and the Dead: Memory, Social Identity and
Aristocratic Habit in the Early Modem Hapsburg Empire” in Fashion Theory 5:4 (2001), pp. 357-388;
Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and M aterial Life, 1400-1600. Miriam Rochan, transl. New York: Harper and
Row, 1973; Saulo B. Cwemer, “Clothes at Rest: Elements for a Sociology o f the Wardrobe” in Fashion
Theory 5:1 (2001), pp. 79-92; Anne Hollander, Sex and Suits. The Evolution o f Modern Dress. New York:
Kodan-Sha America, 1995; Virginia Postrel, The Substance o f Style. How the Rise ofAesthetic Value is
Remaking Commerce, Culture and Consciousness. New York: Harper Collins, 2003; Jules David Prown,
“Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method” in Winterthur Portfolio 17
(1982), pp. 1-19; Valerie Steele, Fashion and Eroticism. Ideas o f Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era
to the Jazz Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985; Verity Wilson, “Western Modes and Asian
Clothing: Reflections on Borrowing Other People’s Dress” in Costume 36 (2002), pp. 139-157.
29
Chapter 1
The Myth of the Moriscos in the New World:

The Physical Absence and Spiritual Presence
of Muslims in Historical Thought and Art Historical Scholarship
Regarding your question about the Moriscos free

and slaves, I have made many written inquiries all
across this realm and in neighboring ones, and as I
compiled the reports in order to prepare prison
spaces until there are ships available to return [the
Moriscos], I have been made aware that there are
very few of them.1
Gaspar de Zuniga y Acevedo, 1597
In an otherwise lengthy reply to a series of administrative queries by Philip II,
Viceroy Gaspar de Zuniga y Acevedo, Count of Monterrey, was succinct and
unequivocal on the matter of the potential threat of Morisco presence in New Spain. The
monarch’s anxiety about Morisco infiltration to the American realms, a fear that was
fueled by unprecedented and continually escalating tension between Moriscos and the
Hapsburg state, was not a shared concern for his highest administrator in New Spain.
Yet, the academic debate regarding the possible Morisco diaspora in the New World has
been unceasing and has had a great impact on early colonial history and art history.
Although the purported presence of Moriscos, whether fully Christianized or
crypto-Muslims, on American soil during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has
commanded the attention of historians and art historians alike, each area of study has
limited itself to its own realm of investigation. As a result, the issue has been alternately
1 “En razon de los moriscos libres y esclavos he hecho por cartas muchas diligencias en todo este Reyna y
los demas vezinos, y recogiendo los avisos que resultaren para proveer en la prision a tiempo que aya flota
en que enbiarlos entiendo que son muy pocos los que ay.” Carta del Virrey Conde de Monterrey (1597),
AGI, Mexico 23, N. 79, f. 3v.
30
ignored, furthered, and dispelled, while each field’s separate approach to the question
has yielded a different interpretation of the historical question. There is no consensus, for
instance, about the extent and significance of Morisco presence in the New World. While
the documentary evidence suggests that a very small amount of Morisco immigration
took place, several scholars have supported the idea of a substantial, though hypothetical,
illegal passage to the colonies. Furthermore, because each discipline’s motivations to
undertake the study of the Morisco diaspora are so disparate, the perceived impact that
the Morisco presence may have had in viceregal societies also remains an unsettled
question. Although the work of colonial historians, Mudejar studies specialists
(hereafter, “Mudej aristas”), and art historians has provided significant first steps towards
unraveling the Mudejar question, it has yet to incorporate the kind of cross-disciplinary
approach that the complexity of the American Mudejar phenomenon requires.2
This chapter investigates the actuality of the Morisco problem in sixteenth-
century Iberian and viceregal life and seeks to situate it within the context provided by
colonial and Iberian historical events and documentation. Throughout the sixteenth
century, royal and ecclesiastical policies (and their consequences) towards the Morisco
minority were actively deliberated, debated, and enforced in the Iberian Peninsula.
Spanish lawmakers transmitted their suspicions to their counterparts in the viceroyalties,
resulting in the intensification of anti-Morisco legislations in the Americas (which
sought, above all, to prevent them from traveling to and settling in the viceroyalties).
2 Seraffn Fanjul expounds on the same problem in the chapter “Los Moriscos y America” in his most recent
publication La quimera de al-Andalus. Madrid: Siglo XXI Editores, 2004, pp. 132-171. I became aware of
Fanjul’s intensely critical chapter devoted to a reassessment o f the issue o f Moriscos in the Americas late in
the process o f writing this dissertation. Although the scope o f this investigation is more comparative and
cross-disciplinary, and focused exclusively on New Spain, it shares some conclusions and bibliographical
references with Fanjul’s work. Throughout the text, further citations from Fanjul’s study will be given
specifically as is appropriate.
31
Their echo was quick to reach the New World, where concerns took root regarding a
minority whose physical presence the colonizers barely perceived. Scholars have
interpreted anti-Morisco writings in the viceroyalties as proof of illegal migration to the
New World in numbers significant enough to warrant government intervention.3 A
review of the evidence pertaining to the Morisco question in Spain and New Spain,
however, demonstrates that, far from being a response to a local immigration problem,
such writings were an extension of the Iberian anxiety that feared the spread of
heterodoxy throughout its territories.
The characteristic concern for religious purity {limpieza de sangre) of the recently
unified Iberia, where the lack of “tainted” Jewish or Muslim ancestry became tied to
honorability and socio-political legitimacy, had a strong effect on viceregal society since
its inception.4 The monarchy and the church actively sought to maintain an imperial state
of Catholic purity on two fronts. In the Americas, the effort to sustain the newly planted
Catholic religion became a constant struggle to eradicate idolatrous practices.5 In the
Iberian Peninsula, the longstanding battle against the Islamic faith and cultural practices
had a face, the Moriscos. The synthesis of the two burdens— or the potential contact of
3 See, for instance, Louis Cardaillac, “Le probleme morisque en Amerique” in Melanges de la Casa de
Velasquez, Tome XII (1976), pp. 291, 294; Peter Dressendorfer, “Cripto-musulmanes en la Nueva Espana”
in A d a s del Coloquio Internacional sobre Literatura A ljam iaday Morisca, ed. Alvaro Galmes de Fuentes.
Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1972, p. 477; Rafael Guevara Bazan, “Muslim Immigration to Spanish America”
in The Muslim World Vol. LVI, No. 3 (1966), pp. 173-187.
4 The classic study on the subject is Albert A. Sicroff, Les controverses des statuts de "purete de sang" en
Espagne du 15e au 1 7e siecle. Paris: Didier, 1960. For New Spain, the most up-to-date work is Maria Elena
Martinez, “The Spanish Concept o f limpieza de sangre and the Emergence o f the ‘Race/Caste System’ in
the Viceroyalty o f N ew Spain.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago, 2001.
5 See, among others, Fernando Cervantes, The D evil in the New World. The lm p a d o f diabolism in the New
World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994; Serge Gruzinski, La colonizacion de lo imaginario.
Sociedades indlgenas y occidentalizacion en el Mexico colonial. Siglos XVI-XVIII, transl. Jorge Ferreiro.
Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1991, pp. 149-202; Serge Gruzinski and Carmen Bemand, De la
idolatria : una arqueologia de las ciencias religiosas, transl. Diana Sanchez. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Economica, 1992.
32
one heterodox group with another—implied a complete undermining of Imperial
authority. The struggle against heterodoxy was, above all, a struggle for power.
This chapter also examines historical events and mentalities that offer relevant
comparative material for understanding the context of viceregal anti-Morisco writings in
relation to the taste for Mudejar works of art. Specifically, it explores two meaningful
historical events that had an impact on the Iberian imperial mindset: The convocation of
the Smodo de la Diocesis de Guadixy de Baza (1554), an ecclesiastical assembly that
sought to formulate an answer to the Morisco problem in a remote Granadan region, and
the aftermath of the Uprising of the Alpujarras (1568-1571), a Morisco armed revolt,
which created a veritable Morisco crisis for the Crown after its decision to relocate
Granadan Moriscos throughout Castilian provinces. The socio-political consequences of
both events in the Iberian Peninsula reverberated clearly in the New World in the form of
anti-Morisco writings and should be examined vis-a-vis the evident anti-Morisco
sentiment in New Spain.
A review of contemporary Iberian and colonial historical documentation, as well
as a simultaneous reading of their correlations regarding the Morisco question, presents a
strikingly different picture than the one presented by earlier studies on the impact of the
Morisco diaspora on the cultural life of New Spain. These conflicting conclusions result
from the fact that, to date, there has been tittle cross-disciplinary dialogue between
colonial historians and art historians, and specialists in Mudejar and Morisco art and
history. In fact, no investigation has incorporated information from all the
methodological approaches relevant to the study of Mudejarismo. Art historians have
maintained their focus on formal qualities, while historians have kept to the archival
33
documentation, just as colonial and Iberian historians generally have focused narrowly
on their respective geographies. Integrating these disconnected lines of inquiry, however,
at once reveals information that puts the Mudejar question in socio-cultural context.
Recognizing the basis of Iberian mentalities of the sixteenth century is fundamental in the
effort to position the American anti-Morisco attitude in historical perspective.
The discourse generated by specialists in Morisco studies (hereafter
“Mudejaristas”) has failed to examine early colonial and sixteenth century Iberian
histories simultaneously, and in detail. This approach has resulted in the disconnection of
the American Mudejar from its roots in early-Renaissance Spanish mentalities.
Ultimately, this polarized view has rendered the Mudejar phenomenon in the New World
a historical singularity defined, at best, as anachronistic for its time and place. The
traditional objective of the Mudejaristas interested in the American question has been to
find and highlight any evidence of Morisco presence in the Spanish colonies. Befitting
this agenda, the historical search for Moriscos is usually limited to crypto-Muslim
immigrants and seldom incorporates practicing Catholic, and therefore fully-acculturated,
converts.6 The Mudejaristas’ inadequate knowledge of colonial institutions and historical
processes has led them to overlook the obvious scarcity of crypto-Muslims in viceregal
documentation. Instead, they have sought an affirmation of Morisco immigration
throughout the early colonial period. Because most of the (few) documentary sources
attesting to the threat of the passage of Moriscos to the New World are Inquisitorial
6 The difference between a resistant Muslim, perceived as an open challenge to the status quo and believed
to be culturally distinctive and, therefore, likely to pass on equally distinguishing cultural traits, and a fully
assimilated New Christian, one that could pass unnoticed and certainly unreported, is perhaps one o f the
most problematic o f distinctions. The notion that resistance to religious change meant the same for cultural
practices has been proven inaccurate by the work o f Aljamiado literature experts, above all. See the
discussion on the subject o f thecontent o f the Mancebo de Arevalo’s Tafsira and Y?a Gidelli’s Breviario
Sunni later in this chapter.
34
(proceedings, such as edicts of the faith or Bulas de la Santa Cruzada), the
Mudejaristas’ methodology has continued to focus on a narrow group of proceedings
rather than on the whole of Inquisitorial history in New Spain.
As a result of this process of “picking-and-choosing,” Mudejaristas have gained
little perspective on the relatively small place of anti-heterodox activity (and the even
smaller position of anti-Morisco persecution therein) in the otherwise wide expanse of
religious control during the colonial period.7 This methodology also has presupposed a
survival of late-Medieval ideals of Reconquest, rather than fears and values prevailing in
the sixteenth century, as the motivations for anti-Morisco (instead of anti-heterodox)
activities of the Holy Office. Thus, surveys in this field of inquiry have taken the
physical presence of Moriscos in the Americas for a fact, have overstated its influence,
and have centered on limited archival sources.8
Perhaps the most ingrained idea among Mudejaristas of the colonial period is the
presumption that a great amount of illegal, and therefore undocumented, migration of
Moriscos to the New World took place during the sixteenth and early seventeenth
centuries. This belief has been present in the historiography as a result of the literal
interpretation of historical documentation regarding the prohibition of passage of
Moriscos to the colonies. An example of this model is Rafael Guevara Bazan’s analysis
of such legislations as follows,
7 Indeed, during the colonial period, there were more Inquisitorial proceedings against “curas solicitantes,”
or even bigamy and polygamy, than there were actions taken against heterodox activities. The force o f the
viceregal Inquisition focused on “bad” Christians, rather than on “new” ones. Solange Alberro, Inquisition
y sociedad en Mexico. 1571-1700. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1988, pp. 168-171.
8 In Serafin Fanjul’s words, this approach has favored “a mythical image above everything else." Fanjul,
“La quimera,” p. 145.
35
A whole body of laws and regulations (of greater or lesser efficacy) was
created by Spain to build up a wall of defense against Muslim infiltration.
Nevertheless, in spite of these provisions, it is evident that some Muslims,
whose numbers it is impossible to establish, succeeded in entering
surreptitiously the new continent as slaves, merchants, or sailors.9
Rather than placing the Moriscos within the long list of heterodox
practices that customarily accompanied the prohibitions, statements such as Guevara
Bazan’s have taken the Morisco problem out of historical context. This practice, in turn,
has constructed a reality out of the presumed experience of an undocumented minority in
New Spain, if not in all the colonial Spanish Americas.10 The notion that the only and
greatest immigration danger to the American colonies was the possible presence of
Moriscos, is proven inaccurate by the historical documentation. After all, the standard
wording of publicly decreed Edicts of the Faith (“Edictos sobre herejes”) emphasizes the
threat of all forms of heterodoxy to the purity of the Catholic faith. A typical document
contains the following list of heterodox practices,
We the Inquisitors declare ourselves against heretical depravity and

apostasy in the City of Mexico and the provinces of New Spain.. .to each
and every person, whether man or woman, of any state and condition... if
anybody sees said people, or knows, hears or sees anybody alive or dead,
present or absent, do or say anything that stands against our Holy Catholic
Faith. ..especially those that did or said anything against the articles of the
faith, the commandments of the law of the church, or the holy sacraments,
or if anybody did or said anything in favor of the dead law of Moses of the
Jews, or performed its ceremonies, or of the evil sect of Muhammed, or of
the sect of Martin Luther and his henchmen, or the Qur’an and other books
9 Guevara Bazan, “Muslim Immigration,” p. 175.

10 Many historians o f the Mudejar period are guilty o f such a literal interpretation o f very insufficient facts.
Note, for example, Peter Dressendorfer’s assertion: “La literatura cientffica sobre esta supuesta emigracion
ha sido extremadamente escasa y poco fructifera, por la simple razon de la escasez de las pruebas mismas.
Por otra parte, estas pruebas son casi todas indirectas. El indicio mas citado son los edictos reiterados de la
corona y de varias instituciones civiles y eclesiasticas, prohibiendo e intentando prevenir una afluencia de
moriscos, sean bautizados o no, a las Indias.” While the author goes on to recognize the place o f Moriscos
in relation to the persecution o f other heresies in the Iberian World, he reverts to the “old model” and
engages in a discussion o f a handful o f edicts and inquisitorial proceedings against Moriscos as proof o f
their passage to New Spain. See, Peter Dressenddrfer, “Crypto-musulmanes,” p. 477.
36
of the sect of Muhammed or bibies in Romance or any other forbidden
book...11
The belief in the illegal passage of Moriscos to the Spanish colonial territories is
rooted in the overarching conviction that Reconquest ideals not only motivated the
conquest of the American lands, but continued to fuel the enterprise of colonization as
w ell.12 This principle renders the Spanish and Spanish colonial mentalities incapable of
readjusting to new needs and agendas during the passing of more than a century after the
fall of Granada (1492). Descriptions of a single culture “petrified” by unyielding valueslj
do not reflect accurately the processes of social and state transformation that took place in
the Iberian Peninsula (and, thus, in the Americas) throughout the sixteenth century. As
11 “Nos los inquisidores contra la heretica pravedad y apostasfa en la Ciudad de Mexico y provincias de la
Nueva Espafta...a todas cuaiesquiera personas asi hombres como mujeres de cualquier estado y
condicion...por tanto si hay algunas personas de ver los susodichos que sabeis y visteis e ofsteis que alguna
o algunas persona vivos o difuntos presentes o ausentes hayan hecbo o dicho alguna cosa que sea contra
nuestra Santa Fe catolica.. .especialmente los que hubieren hecho o dicho alguna cosa que sea contra los
articulos de la fe, mandamientos de la ley de la iglesia, y de los santos sacramentos o si alguno hubiere
hecho o dicho alguna cosa a favor de la ley muerta de Moises de los judios o hecho ceremonia de ella o de
la malvada secta de Mahoma o de la secta de Martin Lutero y sus secuaces o el alcoran y otros libros de la
secta de Mahoma o biblias en Romance u otros cuaiesquiera libros de los Rebrobados...” Edicto sobre
herejes (1575), AGN, Inquisition (Cajas) 159, Exp. 19. Fanjul offers a similar observation using anti-
Jewish legislations extracted from the Recopilacion de las Leyes de Indias and the Relaciones de Indias.
See Fanjul, “La quimera,” pp. 142-143.
12 See, for example, Luis Weckmann’s statement, “La evangelizacion de la Nueva Espafia tiene en las
postrimerias del Medieveo un precedente inmediato, por largo tiempo ignorado y hacia el cual ultimamente
Garrido Aranda ha llamado la atencion de los historiadores: la conquista y la conversion al cristianismo (no
enteramente voluntaria) del Reino Nazari de Granada.” Luis Weckmann, La herencia medieval de Mexico.
Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1984, p. 187. Another example o f this idea is found in the following
assertion by Mercedes Garcia Arenal, “Las bases ideologicas de la conquista de Nueva Espafia deben
mucho a la exaltation mesianica que se produjo en tomo a la conquista de Granada que concluye sueftos
de conversion universal y la perception de una lucha cosmica entre la Cristiandad y el Islam que hacia
necesario para aquella ganar a su seno los pueblos que todavia no pertenecian a una ni a otra, es decir, los
pueblos en teoria “sin religion” (lo que los textos contemporaneos 11aman “sin secta” o “sin ley).” See,
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, “Moriscos e indios. Para un estudio comparado de mtiodos de conquista y
evangelizacion” in Chronica Nova 20 (1992), p 154. See also Rafael Comez Ramos. Arquitectura y
feudalism o en Mexico. Los comienzos del arte novohispano en el siglo XVI. Mexico: UN AM, 1989. More
recently, the “spirit o f religious crusade” also was cited by Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann as a trait o f
sixteenth-century colonial mentalities. DaCosta Kaufmann, “Islam, art,” p. 43.
13 Describing the allure o f the American colonies to the oppressed Moriscos, Peter Dressendorfer wrote,
“La posibilidad de ampliar la intolerancia que habia impuesto la sociedad petrificada de la post-reconquista,
hubo de seducir necesariamente aquellas personas, victimas— si se permite la expresion— de una ideologia
implacable.” Dressendorfer, “Cripto-musulmanes,” p. 476.
37
such, the century-iong straggle to incorporate the conquered Muslim populations into
the mainstream of Iberian society was a result of the Christian conquest rather than a
continuation of a “Reconquest” mentality. The Moriscos’ process of cultural assimilation
became an intensely debated legal problem, one that was linked intrinsically to the
Hapsburg state-making agenda as well as to the protection of Iberian borders against
Ottoman threats.14 The extension of the Morisco problem to the New World, therefore,
was a result of military success, rather than a prolongation of missionary ideals. It was,
above all, an effort to promote a policy of national unification that could be supported by
secure borders and socio-religious homogeneity.
In as much as the Morisco problem in Spain lasted throughout the sixteenth
century and the first decade of the seventeenth, its socio-political significance rests on the
fact that it maintained a lasting and meaningful role as an active chapter of Iberian,
Mediterranean and Atlantic histories. The isolation of this transatlantic phenomenon into
discrete lines of inquiry has prevented the development of a comprehensive discourse that
incorporates its significance and transatlantic scope. Indeed, for the purpose of putting
the “Moriscos in America” question in perspective, it is essential to maintain a broader
geographical outlook on the Morisco problem. For instance, as stated above, reorienting
our gaze eastward upon the Mediterranean, the Morisco problem becomes closely tied to
the threat of an Ottoman invasion. Indeed, in sixteenth-century political thought (rather
than religious doctrine) the Moriscos amounted to nothing less than a serious military
14 In Gallego and Gamir’s words: “Esta situation de violencia exacerbaba de dla en diay el crecimiento del
peligro turco que la amparaba hizo que el problema Morisco no constituyese para Espafia un mero
problema de polxtica interior, sino tambien un factor mas- y muy importante- de su politica e intereses
exteriores...” Antonio Gallego y Burin and Alfonso Gamir Sandoval, Los moriscos delR eino de Granada
segun el Sinodo de Guadix de 1554. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1968, p. 151.
38
liability. As the most recent episode in the long-standing imperial straggle between
Islam and Catholicism, a series of intra-Iberian conditions that made their presence seem
increasingly treacherous also fueled the highly debated Morisco question. In addition to
the tense, and often hostile, relations between the Hapsburg and the Ottoman states,
Spain’s population decline (a result of warfare and the colonization of the Americas)
weakened its ability to resist a possible North African or Turkish attack.15 When Philip II
summoned an investigation on the subject of the Moriscos, the committee unequivocally
concluded that they posed a risk to national security.16 In a memorial written during the
first decade of the seventeenth century, Pedro de Valencia showed little doubt that, in the
event of a Turkish incursion, the Moriscos would rise as an “armed fifth column” of
“100,000 men strong.”17
Thus, the field of American Mudejar studies tends not to distinguish between the
impact on Iberian culture of the Spanish monarchy’s victory over Islam in 1492 and the
development of the Morisco problem until the first decade of the seventeenth century.
The incorporation of an entire Muslim population into a Catholic state, with all the
linguistic, socio-cultural and religious challenges that it entailed, were problems spurring
the Spanish crown’s new legislation across its provinces and dominions. Mudejaristas
have effectively adopted the sixteenth-century Spanish sentiment regarding the Moriscos’
15 Stephen Haliczer, “The Moriscos: Loyal Subjects o f His Catholic Majesty Phillip III” in Christians,
Muslims and Jews in M edieval and Early Modern Spain, eds. Mark D. Meyerson and Edward D. English.
Notre Dame: University o f Notre Dame Press, 2000, p. 267.
16 Kamen, “Philip o f Spain,” p. 132; Luis Cabrera de Cordoba, Filipe Segundo, rey de Espafia (1619), Vol.
III. Madrid: s/n, 1876, p. 610.
17 As cited by Haliczer from the manuscript Acerca de los moriscos de Espafia, BN MS 8888, ff. 85r-87v.
See also Pedro de Valencia, Tratado acerca de los moriscos de Espaha, ed. Joaquin Gil San Juan. Malaga:
Algazara, 1997. The subject o f the Morisco-Turkish threat is raised in detail in A. Hess, “The Moriscos: An
Ottoman Fifth Column in Sixteenth-Century Spain?” in American Historical Review 74 (1968), pp. 1-25.
39
dangerous activities and potential threat to the purity of the Hapsburg state.18 The field
has overlooked the important work of Aljamiado literature experts, for example, as
Mudejaristas tacitly insist on the strength of the socio-religious practice of Morisco Islam
during the sixteenth century and the actual possibility of its exportation. In reality,
however, the Moriscos’ own literary production provides evidence about the increasing
decay of Morisco religious life and culture throughout the sixteenth century.
There is perhaps no author more eloquent on the subject than the Mancebo de
Arevalo.19 Writing around 1533, the Mancebo compiled three known works: a treatise
(:Tafsira), a mystical handbook, the Sumario de la relacion y el ejercicio spiritual, and a
legal work co-authored with Baray [Ibrahim] de Reminyo, the Breve compendio de
9f)
nuestra santa ley y sunna. His works focused on religious prescriptions and cultural
practices derived from a wealth of Arabic, Latin, and ethnographic sources.21 Of
18 Above all, and tremendously consequential to the question o f the Moriscos in the Americas, is the fact
that scholarship has produced a monolithic concept o f a resistant, that is crypto-Muslim, Morisco. Amalia
Garcia Pedraza defines the problem in the following terms, “el Morisco queda definido como un moro
‘encubierto,” hereje secreto en el que sobraba cl bautismo y faltaba la fe: Pero esta aseveracion, con un
fondo de verdad que no podemos negar, se fundamenta exclusivamente en la information offecida por las
fuetnes consultadas que no han sido otras que las oficiales, las inquisitoriales y los tratados de polemica.
Hemos considerado entre los moriscos solo a la voz de los disidentes.” See Amalia Garcia Pedraza, “El otro
morisco: Algunas reflexiones sobre el estudio de la religiosidad morisca a traves de fuentes notariales” in
Sharq al-Andalus 12(1995), pp. 223-234. Mercedes Garcia Arenal also explores briefly the difficulties o f
assessing “el ser morisco” in “El problema morisco: Propuestas de discusion” in al-Qantara 13:2 (1992),
pp. 491-503. Mary Elizabeth Perry provides documentary evidence o f varying degrees o f assimilation in
“Moriscas and the Limits o f Assimilation” in “Christians, Muslims and Jews,” pp. 274-289.
19 As Maria Teresa Narvaez Cordova states, not much is known about the identity o f the Mancebo. His
name derives from an internal reference in the Tafsira, in a chapter entitled “Mancebo de Arevalo,” where
the author writes, “Cuando yo sail de Arevalo no era mi intention emprender esta breve Tafsira.” The
“Young Man from Arevalo,” thusly became his recognized nom de plume. See, Maria Teresa Narvaez
Cordoba, “Estudio preliminar” in Mancebo de Arevalo, Tratado [Tafsira], edition, traduction y notas,
Maria Teresa Narvaez Cordova. Madrid: Editorial Trota, 2003, p. 18.
20 See Mancebo de Arevalo, Relacion y ejercicio espiritual sacado y declarado por el Mancebo de Arevalo
en nuestra lengua castellana, ed. Gregorio Fonseca. Madrid: Fundacion Menendez Pidal, 2003; L. P.
Harvey, “Un manuscrito aljamiado de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Cambridge” in Al-Andalus, XXIII
(1958), pp. 49-74.
21 Narvaez Cordova convincingly proposes 1533 as the compilation date for the Tafsira. From the work o f
well-known authors such as Thomas Kemps, Ibn al-Arabi, Y fa Gidelli, and many others, in addition to his
own “native informants” the Mora de Ubeda, Yuse Banegas and Nozaita Kalderan, the young author
40
particular interest to this study are the Mancebo’s recorded interactions with older
members of Morisco society, including some who recalled the fall of Granada and the
resulting process of Morisco cultural destruction after the death of Ferdinand I. As he
traveled through the Iberian Peninsula in search o f the essence of his cultural and
religious roots, the Mancebo recorded an extraordinary effort at cultural survival, which
would prove to be ultimately unsuccessful. He sought to codify religious and social
knowledge for a community already immersed in a process of cultural disappearance.
In the Sumario survives one of the most sorrowful passages in the works of the
Mancebo de Arevalo, as the aging Yuse Banegas, the “great Arabist” and prominent
Morisco laments,
My son, I do not weep for the past, for from the past nothing returns, but I weep
for what you will see if you stay in [this] island of Spain.. .And what most hurts is
that the Muslims will imitate the Christians, and will not refuse their dress, nor
dodge [spurn] their food.. .Pray to his kindness that.. .they pay no attention with
their hearts.. 22
As in the predictions offered by Banegas, the themes of cultural erosion, shame in defeat,
and a collective sense of pessimism abound in the descriptions provided by the rest of the
Mancebo’s informants. The author’s description of the Mora de Ubeda, the ninety-three
year old Granadan lady whose pious lifestyle and prominent position as a scholarly
adviser to the Granadan royalty made her widely cited as a reliable source throughout the
Tafsira, combines her advanced age with her deep-seated feeling of resignation and
defeat in another poignant passage,
compiled a prescriptive work that also was tremendously introspective at a greater cultural level. See
Narvaez Cordova, “Estudio Preliminar,” pp. 26-31.
22 As translated in Luce Lopez Baralt, “The Moriscos” in The Literature o f Al-Andalus, eds. Maria Rosa
Menocal, et al. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 476-77. “Hijo, yo no lloro lo pasado,
pues a ello no hay retomo, pero lloro lo que tu veras si tienes viday te quedas en esta Isla de Espafia...”
Narvaez Cordova, “Estudio preliminar,” pp. 28-29; Leonard Patrick Harvey, “Yuse Banegas, un moro
noble en Granada bajo los Reyes Catolicos” in Al-Andalus 23 (1956), 297-302.
41
She did not fast during Ramadan or pray but sitting down, she did not leave her
house and, as fate had turned against the Muslims so, this Moor retreated
to the shadow of her mourning, crying over the fall of the Muslims.23
As Narvaez Cordova observes, the Mora de Ubeda’s melancholy also was the product of
her first hand experience of survival after the conquest, during which she lost nearly all
members of her family.24 She also witnessed the destruction of Granada’s literary culture
in the large-scale book burnings that took place at the behest of Cardinal Francisco
Jimenez de Cisneros in 1499. That literary tradition had been an essential feature of a
mythical Nasrid past and a patrimony for which she had cared personally as a literary
advisor to its court. The cultural devastation produced by the destruction of family units
and codified learning was coupled with the humiliation of defeat. In the Breve
Compendio, Ali Sarmiento recalled a broken community (“toda la nobleza decaida y
asolada”) brought about by the Castilian failure to uphold the Capitulaciones, or
surrender treaty.23 “For them everything was painful sorrow,” he concluded.26
23 “Ya no ayunaba en Ramadan ni hacia oracion sino sentada ni salia de su casa y como el tiempo iba tan
de cafda para los musulmanes, esta mora se retrajo a la sombra de su desdicha llorando la calda de los
musulmanes.” My translation from Narv&ez Cdrdoba’s transcription in “Estudio preliminar,” p. 53.
24 Ibid, p. 54. The Mora de Ubeda shared this experience with Yuse Banegas himself, who described the
decimation o f his own family as follows, “I lost three sons, all o f them in defense o f the religion, and I lost
two daughters and my wife, and this one daughter was left to be my consolation: she was seven months old
at the time.” As cited from the Sumario by L. P. Harvey, Islamic Spain. 1250-1500. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1990, p. 338.
25 The Capitulaciones de la Guerra de Granada, signed on January 2, 1492, guaranteed personal,
commercial, and religious freedom to the conquered Granadan population. According to the detailed
surrender treaty, the defeated Muslims who chose to remain in the kingdom as vassals o f the Castilian
crown would be allowed to practice their religion freely, to be ruled by Islamic law, have access to Islamic
jurists (qadis and muftis), and to maintain their language and customs (including dress), among others. The
Capitulaciones also protected mosques from destruction and the rituals performed therein from Christian
intrusion. For the complete text o f the Capitulaciones, see Luis del Marmol Carvajal, Historia del rebelion
y castigo de los moriscos del Reino de Granada (1600). Granada: Delegacion Provincial de la Consejeria
de Cultura, 1996, pp. 147-150.
26 “Todo les fue acibar doloroso.” As transcribed by Narvaez Cordova from L. P. Harvey, “Un manuscrito
aljamiado en la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Cambridge” in Al-Andalus 23 (1958), pp. 72-74.
42
In addition to the anthropological dimension (or “journalistic inclination,” as
Narvaez Cordova describes it) of the Mancebo de Arevalo’s work, his was primarily a
prescriptive effort. The Tafsira, above all, contains dogmatic information pertaining to
the details o f Islamic daily and ritual practice. As a (late) link in the chain of
transmission of Andalusi religious and social culture, the Mancebo wove into the Tafsira
information from earlier sources, such as the Leyes de Moros and Yqa Gidelli’s Breviario
Sunni?1 Themselves prescriptive manuals compiled as reference guides for the benefit of
Andalusi communities under Christian control, the content of the Tafsira falls squarely
within a solid Iberian tradition of cultural survival writings.28 The difference between
them, however, is a palpable sense of urgency. While the previous compilations sought to
facilitate arbitration and correct behaviors that resulted from an increasing contact with a
dominant Castilian culture, it seems evident throughout the Tafsira that, for the
persecuted Moriscos, time was running out.
Writing some forty years after the fall of Granada, in the face of socio-religious
persecution and a palpable absence of the ulema (trained religious scholars) to teach,
correct, and promote religious doctrine, the Mancebo endeavored to rescue pious
knowledge in the hope of preventing the inevitable collapse of Morisco culture. Indeed,
he describes the moment when he decided to undertake this task in the opening passage
of the Tafsira as a result of a common need for codified religious information as follows,
27 Narv&ez Cordova has found a solid correlation between the content o f the Leyes de Moros and the
Breviario Sunni, although, as she states, a thorough comparative study awaits completion. Narvaez
Cordova, “Estudio preliminar,” p. 33-34.
28 Although the Leyes de Moros was written as a reference guide for Christian judges who, in the absence
o f a Muslim judge, took charge o f inter-cultural arbitration, it was still meant to protect the juridical
tradition, and thus the rights, o f the Mudejar population. In contrast, Gidelli’s work was meant to be
utilized by Mudejares as a guide to both Andalusi ritual and cultural practice. See L. P. Harvey, “Islamic
Spain,” pp. 74-97; Pascual de Gayangos, “Leyes de Moros” in M emorial Hisidrico Espanol, V. Madrid:
Academia de la Historia, 1853, pp. 11-246; Wiegers, “Islamic Literature.”
43
The honored elders in attendance, seeing the critical situation of our religion,
pleaded that, while I awaited my departure [pilgrimage to Mecca], I
endeavored to compile a substantial part of Qur’anic commentaries in as
brief and thorough a manner as possible. I accepted this small task in order
to meet my obligation as a Muslim.29
As the product of a disjointed group, and in consequence of the process of
traveling, researching, and compiling information, the Mancebo himself underwent a
privileged (if rare for the time) deep process of (re)connection with his Andalusi roots.
He describes repeatedly the acquisition of knowledge from an already very scarce source:
the oral tradition of Morisco elders. Of Ali Sarmiento, for example, he stated that, “he
began to impart his teaching in a manner at once stimulating and admonishing, his
delivery being the most eminent and pure that I had ever heard.”30 Already in the 1530’s,
faced with a dearth of Arabic books (religious or otherwise) and of a professional class of
religious scholars, a young Morisco embarked on an extensive tour of the Iberian (or,
more specifically, Morisco) geography to build—covertly—a store of severely limited
cultural and religious information.
A fundamental aspect of the Mancebo’s existence, and of every crypto-Muslim of
the period, was the fact that they lead Islamic spiritual lives under the guise of
Catholicism.31 Aided by the Islamic principle of taqiyya, or concealment, they led dual
lives that allowed for Castilian modes and manners, as well as an empty acceptance of the
29 “Aqui me rogaron estos honrados sabios que alii se encontraban, viendo la situation critica de nuestra
religion que, en el mterin de mi partida, yo me ocupase de recopilar alguna parte sustancial de comentarios
de nuestro honrado Coran, lo mas breve y compendiosamente posible. Yo acepte este pequeno trabajo de
este tratado por cumplir con la obligation m u su lm a n a .N a r v a e z Cordova, “Estudio preliminar,” p. 19-
20.
30 “Nos comenzo a impartir doctrina con un aspecto que estimulaba ademas de lo que amonestaba, siendo
su decir el mas elevado y acendrado que yo jamas faabia escuchado.” As transcribed by Narvaez Cordoba
from L. P. Harvey, “Un manuscrito aljamiado,” p. 72-74.
31 O f course, not every Morisco was a crypto-Muslim. Indeed, many had adopted Catholicism fully.
44
Catholic faith, to mask their adherence to Islam.32 Iberian authorities were well aware
of the practice and, indeed, were vigilant about any hints of Islamic practices among the
newly converted.33 By the same token, the practice of taqiyya was widely debated among
Islamic jurists.34 Yet, while this practice allowed for the preservation of life under duress
and the basic tenets of the faith (the above-mentioned writings suggest that a nuanced
understanding of the details of Islam had long been missing from Mudejar and Morisco
communities), it also was responsible for the ultimate demise of Morisco cultural life.
Normally, the condition of taqqiya was practiced in an Islamic cultural milieu (for
example, Shi’a Muslims avoiding persecution in Sunni societies). This was not the case
in Spain, where Moriscos practiced taqqiya in a Catholic inquisitorial setting.
Concealment resulted in a dismantling of Morisco socio-religious life because the
32 Taqiyya, also known as kitman, it is the “action o f covering, dissimulation... it denotes dispensing with
the ordinances o f religion in cases o f constraint and when there is possibility o f harm.” See R. Stotbraann,
“Takkiya” in The Encyclopedia o f Islam, New Edition, Vol 10, eds. Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, et al.
Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 134-136. The corpus on the subject o f taqiyya in Morisco life is extensive indeed.
See, for example, Louis Cardaillac, M oriscosy cristianos cun enfrentamientopolemico (1492-1640).
Mercedes Garcia Arenal, transl. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1979; L. P. Harvey, “Una
referencia explicita a la legalidad de la practica de la taqiya por los moriscos” in Sharq al-Andalus 12, pp.
561-563; Ibid, “Crypto-Islam in XVI Century Spain” in A d a s: Primer Congreso de Estudios Arabes e
lsldmicos. Madrid: Maestre, 1964, pp. 163-183; Idem, “The Political, Social and Cultural History o f the
Moriscos” in The Legacy o f Muslim Spain, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, pp. 201 -
234; Pedro Longas Bartibas, Vida religiosa de los moriscos, Madrid: E. Maestre, 1915, pp. 305-307.
33 Don Martin de Salvatierra, Bishop o f Segorve, for instance, wrote on the subject as follows, “es cosa
liana y certissima que todos los moros de Espafia, y faera della, por tradicion de unos a otros y por la
doctrina y ensenamientos de sus allaquies y maestros, tienen entre ellos por fee que si por escusar alguna
violencia o por temor de alguna pen a reciben el bautismo de los cristianos o confiesan a ihu-expo o hacen
alguna otra obra cristiana, no ofenden a mahoma si en sus corazones le creen, aman y adoran haciendo en
secreto sus ceremonias.” “Parecer de Don Martin de Salvatierra, obispo de Segorbe del estado en que estan
los moriscos de Valencia” in Pascual Boronat y Barrachina, Los moriscos espaholes y su expulsion, Vol. I.
Valencia: Imprenta de Francisco Vives i Mora, 1901, p. 619.
j4 Mainly, the points o f contention centered on how long taqiyya should be practiced and what type o f
concealment should be undertaken. In the Iberian context, see James Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal
to the Ottoman Empire” in Al-Andalus XXXI (1966), pp. 281-303. Nonetheless, there was also clear
condemnation o f the practice o f conecealment. The Maghrebi mufti al-Wansharishi was unwavering in his
disapproval o f taqqiya. He believed in the corrosive effects o f habitual contact with Christian practices and
beliefs. See Harvey, “Islamic Spain,” pp. 56-58; Ahmad Ibn Yahya al-Wansharishi, al-M i'yar al-mu'rib
w a-al-jam f al-mughrib 'anfataw i 'ulama' Ifriqiyah wa-al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib, 13 Vols. Beirut: Dar
al-Gharb al-Islami, 1981-1983. For a general introduction to the debate in the greater Islamic world, see R.
Stothman, “Takiyya,” p. 135.
45
dominant culture was very different indeed.35 Thus, Castilian and Aragonese cultural
practices quickly became the norm among the Moriscos (the coerced acceleration of a
process of cultural transformation that had already begun in the preceding century),
lending even more credibility to the process of cultural transformation feared by Yuse
Banegas,
If after such a short space of time it appears that we are having to struggle
to survive, what will people do when the end of the season is upon us? If
parents now make little of the religion, how are their great-grand-children
to exalt it?36
Given the overwhelming evidence to support an almost complete depletion of
surviving Morisco cultural practices, it is surprising that the physical presence of
Moriscos in the New World continues to be used as an explanation for the presence of
Mudejar artistic forms in the New World.37 Although scholars have not considered the
exact nature of the cultural information that the Moriscos would have contributed to
viceregal society, the literary and historical evidence is clear on the subject. The work of
Gerard Wiegers has demonstrated convincingly that, indeed, Yuse Banegas’ fears were
justified. The loss of Arabic and the diminished knowledge of Islamic practices among
sixteenth and early seventeenth century Moriscos (as is evident in the works of Gidelli,
the Mancebo de Arevalo and others, such as Muhanmad Devera and Muhammad
•2 0
Rabadan), were a consequence of the process described above. The influential work of
L.P. Harvey also has emphasized the direct relationship between the decline in the use of
35 L.P. Harvey acknowledges that there is no instance o f an entire Islamic population technically converting
to another religion and maintaining its religious roots intact over generations. Harvey, “The Political,
Social, and Cultural Life,” p. 209.
36 L. P. Harvey, “Islamic Spain,” p. 339.
37 “The possible presence o f Moslem (or rather formerly Moslem) workers or their descendants might
account for some earlier appearances o f mudejar forms in the Americas.” Kaufmann, “Islam, art,” pp. 49-
50.
38 Gerard Wiegers, “Islamic Literature,” pp. 209-212.
46
Arabic and the increasingly weakened Morisco culture of the sixteenth century.39 The
broadly studied Inquisitorial history of the same period, which demonstrates an escalation
of repressive measures, especially after the 1560’s, supports the literary evidence.40
Therefore, by this time, the Moriscos that continued to exist in the Iberian context were
A1
those whose Andalusi roots were elided.
While literary sources do not elucidate the relationship between cultural depletion
and the quality of artisanal practices among the Moriscos, historical documentation
suggests that economic developments brought about by the Castilian conquest had a clear
impact on Morisco artisanal production. The transformation of the Granadan silk
industry during the sixteenth century reveals significant changes in the workforce and
highlights the increasing importance of “old Christians” in trade practices.
Throughout the Andalusi period, Granadan silk products were highly coveted
luxury items across the Mediterranean and, thus, a lucrative economic enterprise for the
region.42 After the Castilian conquest, Granada continued to profit from the sale of high-
39 L.P. Harvey, “Islamic Spain,” p. 85.

40 Henry Katnen, The Spanish Inquisition. A Historical Revision. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998,
pp. 223-227
41 Consuelo Lopez-Morillas has argued against the concept o f “decline” in Morisco cultural life, suggesting
instead that their effort o f cultural survival necessitated a creative approach o f adaptation and invention o f
new linguistic forms. Her alternative to “the sorry cultural state” o f the Moriscos is persuasive, indeed, and
needs a deeper analysis. Yet, even if we accept Lopez-Morillas’ argument, we are left with a decidedly
changed cultural capital, one that responded more closely to the new Castilian hegemonic system than to a
“purely” Islamic one. See Consuelo Lopez Morillas, “Language and Identity in Late Spanish Islam” in
Hispanic Review 63:2 (1995), pp. 193-210.
42 See, among others, Francisco Anddjar Castillo and Julian Pablo Diaz Lopez, “Las actividades
economicas” in Historia del Reino de Granada. La epoca m oriscay la repoblacion, ed. Manuel Barrios
Aguilera and Rafael G. Peinado Santaella. Granada: Universidad de Granadadil Legado Andalusi, 2000,
pp. 81-90; Olivia Remie Constable, Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain. The Commercial Realignment o f
the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Espafia y Portugal en la
ruta de la seda. Diez siglos de produccion entre oriente y occidente. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona,
1996; Manuel Garzon Pareja, La industria seder a en Espaha. El arte de la seda en Granada. Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 1972; Maurice Lombard, Etudes d ’economie medievale III: les textiles dans le
monde musulman de Vile a u X Ile siecle. Paris: Mouton, 1978; Cristina Partearroyo Lacaba, “Almoravid
47
grade silk thread and woven goods. Rapidly, the silk industry ceased to be the nearly
exclusive domain of Moriscos and became a commercial activity where old Christians
found great prosperity. Although sericulture and dyeing remained tied to the Morisco
communities, old Christians increasingly dominated spinning and weaving. Indeed, in
1561 only one weaver in four Granadan parishes was a Morisco.44 In addition, old
Christians also dominated the commercial aspects of the silk industry. Castilian and
Valencian merchants took control of the distribution, export and, of course, taxation of
the silk production, thus limiting the Moriscos’ financial benefit from the manufactures.
Unsurprisingly, the influence of Castilian, Valencian, and Genoese merchants also had a
palpable effect on the technical and aesthetic aspects of the production. By the mid
sixteenth century, velvets, taffetas, and damasks—textiles that appealed to the dominant
Northern European and Italian markets—had become the principal Granadan textile
products.43 Indisputably, the new economic order imposed after the Castilian conquest
was detrimental to the survival of the celebrated Andalusi textile tradition.
Turning to the New World, Mudejaristas such as Louis Cardaillac and Mercedes
Garcia-Arenal have sought to put the question of the American Mudejar in historical
and Almohad Textiles” in Al-Andalus. The A rt o f Islamic Spain, ed. Jerrilynn Dodds. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum o f Art, 1992, pp. 105-113.
43 Andujar and Diaz “Las actividades economicas,” pp. 82-83; K. Garrad, “La industria sedera granadina en
el siglo XVI y su conexion con el levantamiento de las Alpujarras” in Misceldnea de Estudios A rabesy
Hebraicos 5 (1956), pp. 73-104 J. Enrique Lopez de Coca Castaner, “La seda en el Reino de Granada
(siglos XV-XVI)” in Espana y Portugal en la ruta de la seda. Diez siglos de produccion entre orientey
occidente. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1996, pp. 33-57.
44 Andujar and Diaz, “Las actividades economicas,” pp. 84-85; Antonio Luis Cortes Pena and Bernard
Vincent, Historia de Granada, III: La epoca moderna, siglos XVI, XVII, XVIII. Granada, Editorial Don
Quijote, 1986, p. 143.
45 Andujar and Diaz, “Las actividades economicas,” pp. 86-88; Ramon Carande, Carlos V y sus banqueros.
Barcelona: Critica, 1990, p. 126; German Navarro Espinach, “La seda entre Genova, Valencia y Granada
en epoca de los Reyes Catolicos” in Act as del Congreso “La Frontera Oriental N azarl como Sujeto
Historico (Siglos XIITXVI). Almeria Institute de Estudios Almerienses y Diputacion de Almeria, 1997, pp.
477-483.
48
perspective and have suggested sound ideas for consideration. Yet, their interpretative
range is limited and does not incorporate a comprehensive analysis of the reality of
Morisco socio-cultural life. Louis Cardaillac, for instance, has stressed the importance of
understanding the increasing tension between the Christian and Morisco communities in
Spain vis-a-vis the growing anti-Morisco attitude in the Americas.46 Nonetheless, while
Cardaillac’s approach presents a more comprehensive historical perspective on the
question, his efforts are still intended to map the presence of Islam in the New World.
Although he acknowledges changing social attitudes and political moments in sixteenth-
century Spanish culture, his methodology still assumes that Moriscos traveled in
unknown, but meaningful, numbers to the New World 47 Reading between the lines of
historical documentation and focusing on the possibility of Morisco presence in the
colonies, has kept the American Mudej arista discourse from evolving.
Conversely, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal is perhaps the first Mudej arista unconcerned
with the “possible influence of a small number of immigrants, or in the existence of an
obviously insignificant crypto-Muslim minority,” in the Americas.48 Her approach is
based on the fundamental notion that crypto-Islam was almost non-existent in the New
46 “Le Morisque apparait bien ici corame le ver dans un fruit sain; cette vision correspond bien a un
moment historique donne. Nous sommes proches de 1’expulsion, le divorce entre la communaute chretienne
et les Morisques est en train de se consommer. Si en ce dernier tiers du siecle, les interventions contre les
Morisques d’Amerique se multiplient, c ’est que dans la Peninsule le probleme devient chaque annee plus
brulant.” Cardaillac, “Le probleme Morisque,” p. 288.
47 Referring to a letter from the Phillip II to the Mexican Audiencia pertaining to the Uprising in the
Alpujarras and the impact that the Morisco redistribution had throughout Spain, for example, Cardaillac
states, “Le “repartimiento” de ces Morisques grenadins en Castile ou ailleurs posant des problemes, on peut
supposer, a partir de ce document que des grenadins furent ainsi envoyes au Mexique.” Ibid., p. 291. Fanjul
calls Cardaillac’s interpretation, “una lectura interesada y superficial, que insinua que pudo haber muchos
mas.” He also expounds on Cardaillac’s decontextualized and partial reading o f historical documentation.
Fanjul, “La quimera,” pp. 144-145.
48 “De ahi que no vaya a preocuparme de una posible influencia de un reducido numero de emigrantes, o de
la existencia de una minoria cripto-islamica, obviamente negligible del otro lado del Atlantico...”
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, “Moriscos e indios,” p. 157.
49
World.49 Like Louis Cardaillac and Peter Dressendorfer, Garcia-Arenal agrees that
anti-Morisco immigration laws in the colonies were the product of the conflictive
situation that followed the Christian conquest in Spain.50 Nevertheless, as stated earlier,
she also believes that a continuation of late-medieval messianic ideals, or the “last phase
of the Reconquest,” lasted well into the sixteenth century and impacted multiple
generations of Spanish colonists. Although Garcia-Arenal acknowledges a contemporary
response to the question of anti-Morisco attitudes in the Americas, she still considers the
fifteenth- century “Reconquest” ideology the most important factor in the continuation of
anti-Morisco legislations in the New World. This position is characteristic of the recent
Mudej arista discourse, as it lacks a clear understanding of the American colonial
experience, the impact of contemporary Iberian events upon it, and the degree of
influence of the anti-Islamic, or “Reconquest,” past on both.
Ultimately, traditional approaches to the study of the Mudej ar/Morisco question
in the Americas do not address the matter of the relationship (cultural, administrative, or
otherwise) between Spain and New Spain. The complexity of the colonial system, just as
the two “discretely interwoven” histories that it signifies, have been defined almost
exclusively by these fragmented approaches which isolate the colony from its
metropolitan center and its current events and socio-political developments.
49 “Estudios recientes basados en los fondos inquisitoriales de los Tribunales de Mejico y Lima demuestran
que el cripto-islamismo foe practicamente inexistente.” Ibid, p. 157.
50 “La conciencia del enemigo...no habla perdido su significado entre los herederos de ella. En otras
palabras: el problema de una investigacion acerca del Islam en la colonia no es en primera lfnea el de la
presencia real y autentica de tal o cual morisco espafiol en tierras de Indias, sino mas bien lo que llamaria la
continuidad de la conciencia del Islam como peligroso rival.” Dressendorfer, “Cripto-musulmanes,” p. 480.
“Y si las reglas fueron estrictas y eficaces en lo que a musulmanes se refiere, en mi opinion esto no se debe
tanto a un prejuicio acerca del linaje de estos individuos como al miedo atavico, producto de la ultima fase
de la Reconquista y de los conflictos surgidos con posterioridad a la toma de Granada, en tomo a una
posible mision o influencia espiritual islamica que corrompiera la naturaleza aun sin macula, de los nativos
de las Indias.” Garcia-Arenal, “Moriscos e Indios,” p. 157
50
Simultaneously, they assert an implausible continuum of Morisco life across the
Atlantic. The fundamental lack of knowledge of New World institutions and the field’s
almost visceral need to trace the footsteps of Moriscos into the New World has created a
circular argument that is not only historically inaccurate and fundamentally conflicting
with the documentary evidence, but that reproduces itself through reiteration.
In contrast, the studies of the Mexican Inquisition carried out by Richard
Greenleaf and Solange Alberro51 are illustrative examples of the comprehensive archival
research and informed critical analysis that characterizes the work of historians of the
colonial period. Greenleaf s greatest contribution to the field of colonial history has been
to redirect the practice of Inquisitorial history away from the routine classification and
exposition of proceedings. Instead, he has focused on the interpretation of the underlying
socio-historical facts that motivated the activity of the tribunal.52 Solange Alberro’s
innovative work, utilizing Inquisitorial documents as tools of interpretation in the history
of mentalities, has been similarly groundbreaking. Her work has opened the historical
discourse beyond the experience of the victims of the Inquisition towards that of the
Inquisitors themselves and the society that supported their pursuit. Both historians have
focused on the social practice of the Inquisition,53 rather than on the content of isolated
processes, and, as a result, have been able to better define the cultural forces that
promoted the Holy Office’s agenda(s). In this manner, Greenleaf and Alberro also have
51 Solange Alberro, In q u isitio n y sociedad en Mexico, 1571-1700. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica,
1988; and Richard Greenleaf, The Mexican Inquisition o f the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: The
University o f New Mexico Press, 1969. In addition to other meaningful studies, such as Bernard Grunberg,
L ’Inquisition apostolique au Mexique : histoire d'une institution el de son impact dans une societe
coloniale (1521-1571). Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998; and Jose Toribio Medina, Historia del tribunal del Santo
Oficio de la Inquisition en Mexico (1887). Mexico: UN AM and Miguel Angel Porrua, 1987.
52 In Greenleaf s own words, his is “an attempt to place an institution in an historical setting.” Greenleaf,
“The Mexican Inquisition,” p. 5.
53 Alberro, “Inquisicidn y sociedad,” p. 8.
51
been able to reject the traditional discourses of persecution, intolerance, and religious
zeal that have typified studies on the history of the Inquisition. This approach has led
both historians to center much of their efforts on the study of proceedings against
heterodox practices in New Spain. More importantly for our efforts, their broad view on
the activity of the tribunal puts the Morisco question in historical and documentary
perspective.
Yet, despite the fact that Greenleaf s and Alberro’s scholarship is firmly rooted in
the use of documentary evidence, there is an almost complete absence of Morisco voices
in their work. This is hardly surprising, however, given that heretical activities (or a
perception of them) never reached epidemic proportions in New Spain.34 Unlike the
Spanish Inquisition, the New Spanish tribunals very rarely processed crypto-Muslims.
The historical studies of Richard Greenleaf and Solange Alberro reflect this fact, as
neither author undertook a study of the Moriscos in New Spain, a minority group with
barely any voice, not to mention statistical weight, in the extant Inquisitorial
documentation. Instead, Greenleaf and Alberro focused their interests on the crypto-
Jewish communities of colonial Mexico, the most heavily persecuted of all heterodox
groups during the viceregal period. The richness of the documentation about the Jewish
population in New Spain provided the researchers with abundant, precise, and nuanced
information pertaining to the practice of the Inquisition.55
54 In the words o f Solange Alberro, “En tierras cristianas no es coraun el nuevo cristiano que practica
ocultamente la religion de sus antepasados a pesar del bautismo que recibio, y menos aiin el morisco o el
luterano; en cambio, abundan el bfgamo, el poligamo, el eclesiastico solicitante o el fiilano que profiere
palabras escandalosas acerca de los fundamentos de la moral sexual ensenada por la Iglesia.” Alberro,
Inquisition y Sociedad, p. 170.
55 The wealth o f proceedings against “judeo-conversos” has been the focus o f many historical studies. Its
scope is best illustrated by the amount o f presentations devoted to the theme in the symposium (and
subsequent publication) Cultural Encounters: The Impact o f the Inquisition in Spain and the New World,
52
The Morisco absence from these Inquisitorial history works does not mean that
such proceedings are completely absent from the historical record. On the contrary, the
limited amount of documentary evidence pertaining to the physical presence of Moriscos
in the New World is meaningful, if only because a handful of documents can hardly
support a sweeping pro-Morisco cultural argument, but also because they do provide
evidence of an Iberian mentality transfer to the viceroyalty. Specifically, there are fewer
than ten extant Inquisitorial proceedings against “Moriscos” for the first century of
colonial expansion in New Spain.56 Compared to the almost two hundred persons tried
C “7
for the crime of “judaizante” between 1589 and 1596 alone, this statistical fact,
indicating an absence of a sizeable Morisco community in New Spain, begs
where just about half o f the investigations are devoted to the study o f the crypto-Jewish phenomenon. See,
Cultural Encounters: The Impact o f the Inquisition in Spain and the New World, eds. Mary Elizabeth Perry
and Anne Cruz. Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1991. See also Alfonso Toro, Los Judlos en la
Nueva Espaha: documentos del siglo XVI, correspondientes al ramo de Inquisicion. Mexico: Archivo
General de la Nacion and Fondo de Cultura Econdmica, 1993; Eva Alexandra Uchmany, La vida entre el
ju d a lsm o y el cristianismo en la Nueva Espaha, 1580-1606. Mexico: Archivo General de la Nacion y
Fondo de Cultura Econdmica, 1992; Seymour B. Liebman, The Jews in New Spain. Faith, Flame, and the
Inquisition. Coral Gables: University o f Miami Press, 1970.
56 It must be noted that most o f these cases are o f dubious motivations and generally lack a clear heretical
reason. Nonetheless, Louis Cardaillac cites the following processes: Contra Maria Ruiz, Morisca casada
con un Cristiano Viejo (AHN Inquisicion de Mexico, Lib. 1064, f. 3r; Contra Nicolas Aleman “natural de
Mexico, hijo de una morisca herrada, ’’(1601) AHN Inquisicion de Mexico, Lib. 1064, f. 298. Cardaillac
also cites the following case, filed in the Phillipines: Proceso contra Marcos Quintero por andar entre
indiosy moros (1582), AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 126, Exp. 3, ff. 4-29. Marcos Quintero’s case is particularly
problematic, as its “indios y moros” context must be more critically examined in light of the diverse ethnic
make-up o f this South East Asian colony. Ernesto Chinchilla Aguilar (and Cardaillac subsequently) cites
the case (filed in Guatemala) Contra Pedro Soriano, Acusado de decir, “que como habla de defender la fe
de Cristo, cuando no defendia la sicya que era de moros, ” AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 292, Exp. 43; (also cited
by Dressendorfer) Contra Nicolas de Oliva “po r haber invocado a Mahoma ” (1611), AGN Inquisicion,
Vol. 292, Exp. 43, fols. 193-210. Lastly, Peter Dressendorfer cites the following proceedings: Contra
Simon de Zarate (1605), AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 276, fols. 193-200b; Contra Francisco Lopez Africano
(1583), AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 127, FoL 401-414; and again Contra M aria Ruiz, por mahometana, AGN
Inquisicion, Vol. 151, Exp. 5. See Ernesto Chinchilla Aguilar, La Inquisicion en Guatemala. Guatemala:
Ministerio de Educacion Publica, 1953; Cardaillac, “Le probleme morisque”; Dressendorfer, “Cripto-
musulmanes.”
57 See Stanley M. Hordes, “The Inquisition and the Crypto-Jewish Community in Colonial New Spain and
New Mexico” in Cultural Encounters: The Impact o f the Inquisition in Spain and the New World, eds.
Mary Elizabeth Perry and Anne J. Cruz. Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1991, p. 208. Fanjul
also remarks on this quantitative disparity. Fanjul, “La quimera,” pp. 154-55.
53
interpretation. Once again, anti-Morisco proceedings must be placed in the context of
the greater corpus of contemporary Inquisitorial activity and parallel events in the Iberian
Peninsula.
But the discourse is not confined to the role of Iberian-born Moriscos alone. The
role of African slaves as important transmitters of Islamic culture and religion to the
Americas is a similarly questionable supposition. Louis Cardaillac and Abd el Hadi Ben
Mansour expound on the spread of Islam through the presence of Moriscos and Maghrebi
fo
slaves alike, but their observations are intended to infer the presence of Islam in the
Americas. Built on very limited documentation, this argument is supported largely by
assumption and lacks related comparative information.59 The socio-religious distinctness
of sixteenth-century African slaves is not in doubt. Yet, the type of cultural information
that they carried and their ability to transmit it should be considered carefully. Indeed,
throughout the sixteenth century, Mexico received the largest number of slaves in the
Americas. In fact, Mexico received one of every two slaves sent to the Americas up to
1640.60
The sub-Saharan origin of the vast majority of the slaves that arrived in New
Spain during the sixteenth century also puts in question any real threat of Islamic
infiltration. Overwhelmingly, they came from Western Africa, especially Senegambia
and Guinea-Bissau, which are areas that saw limited Islamic influence until the
58 See Cardaillac, “Le problerae morisque,” p. 289 and Abd el Hadi Ben Mansour, “Magreb-Peninsula
Iberica en los siglos XVI-XVII: Eslabon y eonfluencias transatlanticas” in Al-Andalus allende el Atldntico,
ed. Mercedes Garcia-Arenal. Granada: El Legado Andalusi/UNESCO, 1997, p. 115.
59 See, for example, the following statement by Cardaillac, “Les espagnols qui s’embarquaient pour les
Indes emmenaient avec eux leurs serviteurs et omettaient de declarer qu’il s ’agissait d’esclaves maures.”
Cardaillac, “Le probleme morisque,” p. 290.
60 See Colin A. Palmer, Slaves o f the White God. Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1976, pp. 2, 14.
54
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.61 O f the dozen or so tribes that originated from
these regions, the Wolof and Mandinga tribes were the only two considered dangerous
because of their (perceived) Islamization. It is no surprise, then, that by 1532, Charles V
had outlawed their presence in Iberian territories.62 There is evidence of the violation of
this law, however, and between the years 1545-1556 about one-third of the
Senegambian/Guinean slaves (or 41 slaves in total) in New Spain hailed from these
banned locations. Still, the cultural and religious diversity that characterized the wide
geographical reach of the region does not guarantee that the majority of these slaves were
Muslims. In the end, as Palmer observes, “Ethnic origin and degree of acculturation
seemed never to have made any measurable difference in the price of a slave.”64
Nonetheless, sixteenth-century royal decrees survive as evidence of the Crown’s
fear of the spread of crypto-Islam in the Americas through the presence of Islamized
African slaves. A sample royal decree reads,
From Charles V to you the presidents and judges of my audiences

and chancelleries.. .let it be known that we have been informed that some
slaves from Barbary and other free and newly converted Moors or [their]
sons have passed and [continue to] pass to those realms even though it has
been prohibited... because of the harm that those who pass and continue to
pass can cause in a new land like that one, where the faith is newly
planted, it is advisable that we avoid the chance that anybody can plant or
61 Building on the earlier work o f Aguirre Beltran, Peter Boyd-Bowman and Philip Curtin, Palmer
calculates that 80.1% o f the slaves brought to New Spain originated from Senegambia and Guinea. In
contrast, only 0.5% (or 1 slave!) originated from North Africa during the same period. This distribution
also holds true o f slaves brought to Iberia (by way o f the Portuguese trade) during the sixteenth century.
See Palmer, “Slaves,” pp. 20-22; Aguirre Beltran, “La poblacion,” p. 240; Peter Boyd-Bowman, “Negro
Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico” in The Americas 26 ( 1969), pp. 134-151; Philip Curtin, The Atlantic
Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University o f Wisconsin, 1969, p. 98; Jose Luis Cortes Lopez, La
esclavitud negra en la Espaha peninsular del siglo XVI. Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1989, pp.
40-42; Carlos Paredes Martinez and Blanca Lara Tenorio, “La poblacion negra en los valles centrales de
Puebla. Origenes y desarrollo hasta 1681” in Presencia Africana en Mexico, ed. Luz Maria Martinez
Montiel. Mexico: CONACULTA, 1995, pp. 39-44.
62 Cortds Lopez, “La esclavitud,” pp. 42-43.
6j Palmer, “Slaves,” p. 21.
64 Ibid, p. 34.
55
make public the sect of Muhammad or any other offense to God our Lord.. ,65
Placed in historical context, however, such a governmental concern emerges not as a
reaction to a critical and tangible crisis, but rather as a response to a potential and
perceived hazard. As Palmer suggests, the need to control slavery and its possible
problems increased as did the slave population and, thus, the fear of violent resistance.66
In the Iberian context, however, the increasingly tense, and often violent, relations
between Moriscos and Castilian settlers throughout the sixteenth century also fueled this
fear. Nonetheless, the Hapsburg monarchs also issued a healthy number of exemptions to
their legislation against the danger of African slaves that suggest an ambivalent posture
regarding Morisco slaves. Furthermore, Solange Alberro has shown that, where
Mexico is concerned, Inquisitorial activity against slaves does not include any
proceedings against crypto-Islamic practices. Rather, it was aimed largely at the
extirpation of witchcraft, bigamy, apostasy, and violence among this dispossessed social
group. In the context of the greater scope of Inquisitorial history in New Spain, Alberro
concludes that such actions were, above all, an expression of rebellion against social
repudiation, rather than meaningful religious acts from a group that lacked strong roots to
65 “Don Carlos V a vosotros los mios presidentes y oidores de las mlas audiencias y chancillerlas
reales de las mlas Indias... sbpase que nos somos informados que a esas partes ban pasado y [que]
pas an algunos esclavos y esclavas berberiscos y otras personas libres o nuevamente convertidos de
moros o hijos [dellos] estando por nosotros prohibido... porque... los daftos que podrlan hacer los
que hubieren pasado y de aqul en adelante pasaren porque en una nueva tierra como esa donde
nuevamente se planta la fe conviene que se quite toda ocasion por que no se pueda sembrar ni
publicar en ella la secta de Mahoma ni otra alguna en ofensa de Dios Nuestro S e n o r . Real
Provision para que se echen de las Indias todos los esclavos berberiscos (1543), AGI Indiferente,
427, L. 30, f. 2v-3r. Palmer states, “as late as 1577 the crown renewed the prohibition against the
transportation o f such slaves to the Indies...” Palmer, “Slaves,” p. 120.
66 Palmer, “Slaves,” p. 119.
67 See L. Garcia Fuentes, “Licencias para la introduction de esclavos en Indias y envios desde Sevilla en el
siglo XVI” in Jahrbuch fu r Geschichte von StaatWirtschat und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, Number 19
(1982), pp. 1-46.
56
• AIR
its cultural past. Combined with the fact that slaves only began to arrive in New
Spain in great numbers during the first half of the seventeenth century,69 and that their
circle of influence was greatly restricted to the lowest social strata, it is speculative, if not
unproductive, to speak of the level of Islamic cultural information that they could have
contributed to the fashioning of sixteenth-century New Spanish society.
Evidently then, it is inaccurate to make sweeping statements regarding any
meaningful degree of Islamization of the slave population of New Spain. Furthermore,
slaves in New Spain were the product of a largely Portuguese— and, therefore, Western
African—trade, and the number of recorded North African slaves was negligible.70 It is
equally mistaken to presume that they were transmitters of any significant Islamic
cultural contribution to viceregal society. By extension, their participation in the artisanal
trade, especially in the production of Mudejar objects, would have depended on a system
of knowledge limited to—and codified by—specifically Iberian, not pan-Islamic,
traditions. Furthermore, there is no evidence of their sustained involvement in artisanal
workshops outside of the pre-industrial ohrajes (cotton cloth weaving industries) during
the sixteenth century.71 Instead, their participation was centered on agricultural and
mining activities.72
68 Alberro, “Inquisicion,”, p. 456.

69 G. Aguirre Beltran, La poblacion negra de Mexico. Estudio etnohistorico. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura
Economica, 1972.
70 Ibid, p. 120.
71 The guild guidelines were clear on the subject o f African race and mixed race individuals; castas simply
were not allowed to participate in artisanal guilds. As Francisco Santiago Cruz states, “En la redaction de
las ordenanzas necesariamente se tenian que tomar en cuenta las castas...a los negros y a los mulatos o de
“color quebrado,” como entonces se les llamaba, se les prohibio pertenecer a los gremios, con exception
de los curtidores de piel.” Francisco Santiago Cruz, Las artes y los gremios en la Nueva Espaha. Mexico:
Editorial Jus, 1960, p. 19.
72 Paredes Martinez, “La poblacion negra,” p. 42.
57
While we lack a substantial number of Inquisitorial proceedings against
Moriscos in New Spain, there is an excess of extant documentation that speaks of an
increasing paranoia about their illegal passage to the Americas. Among them, an
extensive collection of edictos defe (or edictos sobre herejes) survives in Mexican
archives as evidence of the State’s interest to keep heterodoxy away from the
viceroyalties. In principle, the edicts of the faith were read once every three years, on the
7 -3
third Sunday of Lent. The detailed description of heresies of all types (from Jewish and
Islamic practices to Protestantism and mystical sects, but also including witchcraft,
bigamy and other illicit practices) included in these publicly read announcements was
extensive. Kamen calculates that an edict of the faith must have taken “well over half an
hour to read from the pulpit.” 74 In the New World, even more so than in Spain, the
meticulous content of the edicts, detailing practices and beliefs so foreign to the local
population, must have constituted a rather tiresome display of Inquisitorial power.75
Nonetheless, the last decades of the sixteenth century saw an intense activity
around the proclamation of edicts of the faith in New Spain. Sometimes, they were
issued multiple times in a single year and on a more frequent basis than the prescribed
triennial cycles.76 Alberro cautions against reading too much into the increased
frequency of edict proclamation between the years 1571-1700, noting the irregularity of
73 In new Spain the norm was that the edicts were publicly read in towns o f 300 or more inhabitants. See
Alberro, “Inquisicidn,” p. 75.
74 Kamen, “Spanish Inquisition,” p. 175.
75 Kamen suggest that Iberian congregations endured the readings “either puzzled or bored,” indeed a
common enough reaction that motivated the decision to stop reading them in Catalonia in the 1580’s. Ibid,
p. 175. Alberro suggests that the heavily Christian audience o f the larger viceregal populations where the
edicts were more commonly read, together with the “hermetic character” o f the content, made for a
“surreal” listening experience. Alberro, “Inquisicion,” p. 76.
76 Alberro notes that between 1571-1700 a total sum o f one hundred edicts were read in New Spain. Ibid, p.
76.
58
the proceedings, the geographical variation, and the ease with which these readings
were manipulated in viceregal power struggles between the political class and the
. . 77 .
Inquisitorial authorities. But invariably her concerns apply to the seventeenth century.
Indeed, my own archival work unearthed many more edicts for the 1570’s and 1580’s
than are present in Alberro’s otherwise comprehensive Appendix.78 This previously
unidentified group of edicts, spanning the years 1575-1584, presents a noteworthy
connection to both local and Iberian historical situations that help to place the Morisco
question in direct relation to the ever-present Inquisitorial mentality.
At the most basic level, the creation of the Tribunal of the Holy Office in 1571
brought about an increased Inquisitorial activity at all levels.79 Counteractive in nature,
the content of the edicts of the faith made clear the extent of the Holy Office’s reach in
the practices of daily life. During the sixteenth century, as Kamen suggests, there was no
regular format, but rather the texts were tailored to suit each tribunal’s needs.80
Certainly, this was the model followed in the viceroyalties, with the exception that, in
addition to local concerns, New Spain’s tribunal also echoed imperial anxieties.81
A case in point is the comparative reading of the edictos de fe promulgated in
Mexico City in the years 1579 and 1582.82 The text read in 1579 shows an
77 Ibid, p. 76
78 In particular, AGN Inquisicion Vol. 159 holds more than a dozen edicts. AGN Inquisicion, Vols. 89 and
154 also contain edicts. Alberro, “Inquisicion,” pp. 128.
79 Prior to 1571, Inquisitorial activities were not centralized under the strong arm o f a tribunal. Instead, the
power o f the Holy Office evolved from a “monastic” Inquisition, with missionary friars authorized to wield
inquisitorial power, to an “episcopal” one, where power rested on the Archbishop. During the period prior
to the foundation o f the tribunal, the main thrust o f inquisitorial activity was controlling indigenous
idolatrous practices.
80 Kamen, “Spanish Inquisition,” p. 175
81 Alberro notes the “edicto particular,” or the type o f edict that addressed a specific viceregal worry or
pervasive pattern o f behavior, as the most successful type o f pronouncement. Alberro, “Inquisicion,” p. 77
2 For the edicts read in 1579 see Edicto contra herejes, AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 89, Exp. 16, ff. 52r-55v
(read in Comagua, Guatemala); Edicto contra herejes, AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 159 (cajas), Exp. 24-26. Of
59
overwhelming concern with heretical practices, rather than with heterodox behavior.
Although it admonishes the practice of Judaism, Islam, and Protestantism, it does so
perfunctorily as follows,
Or if someone had done or said anything in favor of the dead law

of Moses of the Jews or performed its ceremonies, or of the evil sect of
Muhammed, or the sect of Martin Luther and his henchmen, believing or
agreeing with any of their opinions. ..83
In contrast, the vast majority of the concerns developed in its content pertain to the
problem of the control of sound Catholic doctrine and practice in New Spain. Among
them, the faithful are required to report erroneous statements on beliefs such as the value
of silent prayer, of monastic life, and the contemplation of religious imagery, among
many others. But the text repeats a concern for the state of celibacy of its clergymen,
asking reports on any priest known to be married or to have solicited sexual favors at
confession. Similarly, an entire section is devoted to the reaffirmation of the legitimacy
of the Holy Office by means of denouncing deviant behaviors such as fabricating
evidence, making false accusations, and even doubting the infallibility of the Tribunal.84
In contrast to the decidedly local context that informed the edicto de fe
promulgated in 1579, the content of the one read in 1582 is decidedly anti-heterodox and
these, 26 constitutes proof o f the fact that it was read in Leon, Guatemala. For the edicts read in 1582 see
Edicto contra herejes, AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 89, Exp. 16, ff. 56r-63r; Edicto contra herejes, AGN
Inquisicion, Vol. 159 (cajas), Exp. 29, lr-3v, which was read in Comagua, Guatemala (the document offers
proof o f the fact that the edict was read subsequently in 1583 and 1589).
83 “O si alguno oviere hecho o dicho alguna cosa en favor de la ley muerta de Moysen de los
Judios o hecho ceremonias della o de la malvada seta de mahoma o de la seta de Martin Lutero y
sus sequaces creyendo o aprovando alguna o algunas opiniones suyas...” Edicto contra herejes
(1579), AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 159 (cajas), Exp. 24, ff. lr-2v.
84 See Appendix 1 for a complete transcription o f AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 159 (cajas), Exp. 24.
60
rooted in an unmistakable Iberian experience.85 The concern to preserve the
correctness and respect of the newly instituted inquisitorial tribunal disappeared in favor
of a detailed description of anti-heterodox practices and beliefs (Judaism, Islam,
Protestantism, and Alumbrismo). A cursory description of various heretical propositions
and a reminder of prohibited books and publications complete the edict. Particularly
foreign to the viceregal audience must have been the passage inciting the audience to
report anyone who “returned to Barbary, reneging of our holy Catholic faith, or to other
parts and places beyond these realms, or became a Jew or a M oor.,.”86 Clearly, these
concerns were motivated by historical circumstances that originated outside of the
viceroyalty, but that informed Imperial, and therefore Inquisitorial, policy nonetheless.
As the product of contemporary concerns, anti-Morisco measures in New Spain
must be evaluated against a wealth of similar such actions in the Iberian Peninsula during
the sixteenth century. Indeed, an increased interest in solving the Morisco problem and,
at its worst, a strengthening of anti-Morisco sentiment, characterized Spanish lawmaking
throughout the second half of the sixteenth century. The establishment of the
Inquisitorial Tribunal in New Spain in 1571 immediately followed the conclusion of the
Uprising of the Alpuj arras. Its development certainly was informed by the Morisco crisis
created in its aftermath. The most violent conflict in Iberian soil in almost a century took
place in the Kingdom of Granada in 1568 as a result of ever-increasing repressive
83 Indeed, it follows almost to the letter the model o f the Catdlogo de acusaciones compiled by Alonso
Manrique de Lara, Archbishop o f Seville and Inquisitor General between 1523-1538. See, Carlos Asenjo
Sedano, “Estudio Preliminar” in Martin de Ayala, Sinodo de la Didcesis de G uadixy Baza (1556).
Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1994, pp. XLV-XLVI; Louis Cardaillac, Moriscos y cristianos. Un
enfrentamientopolemico (1492-1640), p. I l l ; Boronaty Borrachina, “Los moriscos,” p. 110.
86 See Appendix 2 for a transcription o f the section “Secta de Mahoma” in Edicto contra herejes, AGN,
Inquisicion, Vol. 89, Exp. 16, ff. 57v-58.
r?7
61
legislation against Moriscos. The end of the war culminated in the military
subjugation of the Morisco revolt and resulted in a large-scale Morisco problem, or a
“decisive change in attitudes” towards the conquered community on the part of the
oo
Hapsburg state and the Christian community.
The detrimental emotional and legal impact of the Uprising of the Alpuj arras on
Spanish mentalities only worsened with the consequent forced resettlement of Granadan
Moriscos throughout Castilian territories.89 The anxiety and the discontent brought about
by the imposed presence of this population in Castilian communities are evident in the
great number of complaints brought before the Cortes de Castilla during the years
following the deportations. The list of grievances alludes to an increase in banditry
throughout the region, as well as to the frustration over a population that allegedly
refused to assimilate, not to mention the perceived ease with which the Moriscos were
able to break the law and return to their ancestral Granadan homes.90 In 1592, the Cortes
requested that Phillip II “resolve the present harm and the one that can result from such a
great number of Moriscos from the Kingdom of Granada in [the Kingdom of
' Castile].. .this harm is ever growing.”91 The friction between the Hapsburg State,
Christian society and the Morisco communities intensified throughout the end of the
sixteenth century and the first decade of the seventeenth century. During the time leading
87 According to Henry Kamen, “it was the most savage war to be fought in Europe that century.” Kamen,
“Spanish Inquisition,”, p. 224.
88 Kamen, “Spanish Inquisition,” p. 224. For a detailed historical description o f the events o f the Uprising,
see Valeriano Sanchez Ramos, “La Guerra de las Alpuj arras” in “Historia del Reino de Granada,” Vol. 2,
pp. 507-542.
89 For details on the geographic distribution o f the Moriscos, see Rafael Benitez Sanchez-Bianco, “El
destino de los Moriscos vencidos” in “Historia del Reino de Granada,” Vol. 2, pp. 583-607.
90 See, Mercedes Garcia-Arenal, Los Moriscos. Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1975, pp. 68-72.
91 “Poner remedio conveniente al dano presente del que adelante podria resultar de tanto numero de
Moriscos del reino de Granada como en el hay...este dano cada dia va en crecimiento.” As cited by Garcia-
Arenal, Ibid, p. 70.
62
to the ultimate expulsion of 1609, the Church played the role of an evangelizing agent,
as it also became a fundamental tool of social control.92
But the violent encounter in the Alpuj arras and its aftermath was preceded by a
series of efforts to contain, modify, and resolve the Morisco problem. Of particular
interest to this study is the convocation and subsequent publication of the proceedings of
the Sinodo de la Diocesis de Guadix y Baza, celebrated in 1554. This ecclesiastical
assembly not only resulted from the increasingly tense social climate of the period, but
also shares its content, to a great extent, with the wide-circulation of cultural information
found in prescriptive Aljamiado manuals, such as Y§a Gidelli’s Breviario Sunni (the
same work that influenced the writings of the Mancebo de Arevalo, as discussed
earlier). Of course, the proceedings of the Sinodo also owe their insight to the direct
access to Morisco cultural practices that characterized the quasi-missionary work of the
priests in this remote, isolated, and predominantly Morisco-populated region. This
tradition, in turn, informed the descriptive, if formulaic, content of the edicto de fe
promulgated in New Spain in 1582.
Between January 22 and February 10, 1554, the ecclesiastical members of the
Diocese of Guadix held thirty-two sessions aimed towards finding a solution to the
Morisco socio-religious problem in this remote region of Granada. Their observations
and conclusions, the product of almost three weeks of discussions, were codified and
submitted immediately to the Court. Upon approval, the text was printed, published, and
92 Benitez Sanchez-Bianco, “El destino,” p. 602.

93 Not to mention with earlier ecclesiastical assemblies on the subject o f the Moriscos. The most famous, o f
course, is the Catholica Congregation o f 1526. According to Manuel Barrios Aguilera, “cuando se retoma
en toda su intensidad la letra y el espiritu del corpus de la Catolica Congregation es en el Sinodo de Guadix
y de Baza de 1554, cuya radicalidad asimilatoria es pura emulation del referente de 28 afios atras, al que
supera en extension y sistematica.” See Manuel Barrios Aguilera, “Moriscos y cristianos en el orto de la
Granada Modema” in Jesucristoy el emperador cristiano. Cdrdoba: Caja Sur, 2000, p. 609.
63
used as a guideline (“constituciones”) throughout the Bishopric.94 The convocation of
the Sinodo constituted one of Bishop Martin de Ayala’s efforts to restructure a
disorganized and embattled Diocese.95 Its main goal was to regulate and standardize
“Christian” behavior, theological practice, and rituals of daily and private life among the
96 r
Moriscos. The Sinodo also sought to curb old Christian behavior and, thus, to protect
Moriscos from their abuse.97 Lastly, the duties of the Diocese’s clergymen were of
overwhelming importance in the content of the Sinodo, as its success hinged on the
responsibility of the priests to promote ecclesiastical presence and activity across the
region’s geographical confines 98 In short, Bishop Martin de Ayala held all members of
the Diocese accountable for their behavior and, thus, responsible for the success of the
acculturation of the Moriscos.
The very last heading in the body of the text provides a list of suspicious, and
therefore intolerable, cultural practices “of the time of Islam.” This last section is entitled
appropriately, Superstitions and rites. There are other things that are not heretical, but
rather superstitious, and must be punished because they were used and observed in the
94 See Carlos Asencio Sedano, “Estudio prelimiar” in Martin de Ayala, Sinodo de la Diocesis de Guadix y
Baza (1554). Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1994, p. XLVI. Asencio Sedano’s facsimile derives from
the only extant copy o f the Sinodo, currently housed in the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid). Martin de Ayala,
Sinodo de las iglesias de G uadixy Baza. Alcala de Henares, 1556.
95 For years the Bishopric o f Guadix engaged in a legal battle with the Archbishopric of Toledo over the
jurisdiction o f Baza and Huescar. In 1544, Martin de Ayala reached an agreement with Toledo that resulted
in the shared control o f the areas in question. See Gallego y Burin, “Los Moriscos,” p. 29; Asenjo Sedano,
“Estudio Preliminar,” pp. XVI-XVII.
96 Many aspects o f social and religious behavior are developed in the section entitled “Constituciones del
sexto titulo que trata de la doctrina y disciplina del pueblo.” From how to raise and educate children to how
to behave properly in church and the punishment for the practice o f witchcraft, this section is especially
rich in its information o f socio-cultural behavior. Martin de Ayala, “Sinodo,” ff. LI-LXVII.
97 For instance, the Sinodo recognized the abusive proclivity o f some old Christians (in this case, Church
officials!), “Porque muchos Cristianos nuevos se nos an quexado que en el sacar de las prendas les hazen
violencias y vexaciones nuestros fiscales y alguaciles tomandoles las Haves de las areas y entrandoles por
las paredes y cosas desta manera...” Martin de Ayala, “Sinodo,” f. LIII.
98 Indeed, seven o f eight chapters deal with the role and responsibilities o f churchmen in the proper
administration o f the Diocese and the supervision and education o f the Morisco masses.
64
time o f the Moors and because many new Christians make use o f them in order to
follow their blemishedfaith. 99 Its format, however, seems out of place in the text of the
Sinodo, which is organized in chapters that deal with concrete problems and their
regulatory solution. Quite literally a laundry list of assorted practices located at the very
end of the content, the section on “Supersticiones y ritos” seems to have been
incorporated as a tool of quick reference for the reader. Alfonso de Manrique’s Catalogo
de acusaciones also may have provided a model for the organization of the entirety of the
contents of the Sinodo.100 While this relationship seems to apply more directly to the
section on the “Supersticiones y ritos,” it still falls short of explaining the incorporation
of a great amount of popular practices, which most certainly were the product of first
hand observation of traditions of the Moriscos of Guadix, with more general descriptions
of basic Islamic practices.101
A comparative look at the content of the Sinodo's “Supersticiones y ritos,” the
viceregal edicto de fe of 1582, and the content of Yqa Gidelli’s Breviario Sunni (1462),
shows a deep level of interconnection between the works. This suggests that they belong
in a tradition of Morisco cultural writings that was accessible to both sides of the socio
religious spectrum and that informed survival as well as persecution writings. While,
indeed, the “Supersticiones y ritos” shares a similar concern for outward signs of
99 Supersticiones y ritos. A y otras cosas que no son heregias sino supersticiones, y se deven
castigar, por ser cosas usadas y guardadas en tiempos de moros, y porque muchos destos nuevos
Christianas m an dellas p or via de cumplir con su secta dahada. Martin de Ayala, “Sinodo,”
ff.XCv-XClv.
100 Along with Fernando de Toledo’s “Titulo de la doctrina de los cristianos nuevos” in Ordenanzas de la
Ciudad de Huescar (1514). See Asenjo Sedano, “Estudio preliminar,” pp. XLV-XLV1.
101 For instance, this section mentions how a star was painted on a newborn’s forehead and henna was
rubbed on the infant’s head shortly after birth. Also, it describes the custom o f the bride hammering a nail
to the door o f the groom’s home upon crossing the threshold for the first time. The description o f Morisco
women weaving silk outdoors, under mulberry trees on New Year’s Day, in the hope of a successful
harvest in the coming year, also has a decidedly Granadan tone. Martin de Ayala, “Sinodo,” ff. XCI-XCIv.
65
Islamization with the edicto de fe (and therefore, with Alfonso Manrique’s Catdlogo de
acusaciones), it also reveals an important relationship with the work of Gidelli (and
therefore, with that of the Mancebo de Arevalo and others; the chain of transmission is
long indeed). In particular, they share a nearly identical sequence in their discussion of
the traditions pertaining to illness and death.
The Sinodo offers short information meant to aid in the identification of
suspicious behavior, while the Breviario expounds on the details of ritual practice.
Nonetheless, the Sinodo describes the process as follows,
Item, when they are ill they are oriented towards the Qibla so that they die
in that position.
Observe when the new Christians die, if their bodies are washed or the
nails of their hands and feet are groomed (cut), if they are laid to rest as
Moors with their arms at their side instead of crossed over their chest, and
those who do it must be chastised.
Item, if those corpses are wrapped in a band of cloth (linen) of the type
woven during the fast of Ramadan, and sometimes they use henna on them
and place them a bit to the side, and sometimes also they place stones,
109
water and other things over the burial.
In comparison, the Breviario states,
When it cannot be performed sitting down, do it lying on the right side

facing the qibla, and if not over the left side, and if not flat on the back
with the legs facing qibla and do not stop humbling yourself with your
face and your eyelashes and your head to the extent that you can on the
bed.
[the corpse] should be bathed by whomever knows best how to clean and
dry it, the body well covered (...?) over it, and sprinkle water over it as if
you were washing it and perform the guado (al-wadu) moving it from side
to side.. .and do not remove hair or circumcision (perform it?) or the nails
or anything from the body, except clean it as much as you can...and wrap
the corpse using three or five or seven strips of white cloth or shirts, or
tunics one over the other.103
102 Martin de Ayala, “Sinodo,” f. XCI.

103
“ ...Quando non lo podrahaser asentado hagalo acostado sobre el lado drecho al alquiblay si non sea
sobre el ysquierdo y quando non sea sobre sus espaldas y sus piemas al alquibla y non sece de humillar con
66
In addition to the organization of their content and its subject matter, the divergent
information pertaining to the care of nails and adornment o f the deceased is of particular
interest. While cutting the nails of the corpse becomes an obvious sign of suspicious
behavior in the content of the Sinodo, for Gidelli it amounted to an erroneous practice.
Written as a guideline o f Islamic conduct for an increasingly acculturated community,
Gidelli’s Breviario Sunni sought to preserve and correct ritualized behavior. In other
words, it focused exclusively on what should be done (with the tacit acknowledgement of
the type of behavior that was, in fact, taking place). On the other hand, the Sinodo’’s
section on ’’Supersticiones y ritos” made ample use of observed popular practice to
inform codified principles of Islamic ritual practice, so that proper and erroneous became
“Islamic” by virtue o f the fact that it was taking place among its Morisco brethren.
My recent discovery of a copy of the Breviario Sunni o Ceremoniario de la Secta
de Mahoma (1462), in the Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico City), connects the role
of Aljamiado literature to anti-Morisco writings in Spain and New Spain.104 Its presence
in New Spain underscores the vigilant anti-Morisco attitude that was pervasive in the
Iberian world of the sixteenth-century and that emanated constantly from the colonial
center of power. Yet, the correlation between Spain’s legislative motivations and the
impact of such concerns on the administrative class of its American territories has not
su rostro y pestanas y cabesa quanto podra sobre la caraa.. ./baftele quien mejor supiere como sea limpio y
esprimido su cuerpo cubiertamente untado ([,) sobre el y echando agua y vanandole como quien vafia asi y
con su alguado volviendole de lado a lado...y non quiten al diftmto cabello ni circuncicion ni unas ni cosa
de su cuerpo salvo a limpiarle quanto podran...y amortajen al difunto en tres lienzos o cinco o siete
blancas tiras o camissas o alcandoras una sobre otra de grado en grado.” Breviario Sunni o Ceremoniario
de la Secta de Mahoma, AGN, Ramo Inquisicion, 1528 (54): 1, ff. 27-29.
104 Ibid, ff. 1-109. For an introductory discussion o f the Breviario in its American context, see Maria J.
Feliciano, “Y ea Gidelli y la Nueva Espana: Un manuscrito del “Breviario Sunni” en el Archivo General de
la Nacidn (Mexico, D.F.)” in Aljamia 13 (2001), p. 48-51.
67
been sufficiently explored to date. The following critical interpretation of the role of
Yqa Gidelli’s Breviario Sunni, an emblematic work of great significance in the history of
Aljamiado literature and Mudejar and Morisco history, sheds light on the relationship
between changing Iberian and colonial mentalities of the sixteenth century (especially
those concerned with the Morisco problem). Ultimately, it also provides a clearer
cultural map to situate the role of Mudejar aesthetic in the development of New Spain’s
artistic tradition.
The content of the Breviario Sunni has been carefully examined by renowned
figures in the field of Andalusi and Aljamiado literature since the late nineteenth century.
Most notably, Gerard Wiegers, L.P. Harvey, Pascual de Gayangos and Dario Cabanelas
Rodriguez have provided the greater part of our knowledge regarding Y<ja Gidelli’s life,
works and socio-historical environment.105 Their work has also identified the Islamic
legal sources used by Gidelli in the writing of the Breviario, the author’s motivations for
composing such a detailed work, and the indelible mark left by the Breviario Sunni on
Aljamiado and Romance Literature of the sixteenth century. The present study,
therefore, will not engage in a detailed discussion of the Breviario’’s content, history, or
significance for the Morisco population, but will focus instead on the examination of its
use at the hand of State and Church officials, especially as it relates to its possible use in
the Viceroyalty ofN ew Spain.
Written by Y<?a Gidelli, the chief judge (qadi) of Segovia’s Muslim quarter in
1462, the Breviario Sunni is the work of one of the most influential writers of the
105 Certainly, the most complete and up-to-date examination o f both the life o f Y?a Gidelli and the content
o f the Breviario Sunni is Wigers, “Islamic Literature.” See also L.P. Harvey, “Islamic Spain,” pp. 74-97;
Pascual de Gayangos, “Tratados de legislacion,” pp. 247-42; and Dario Cabanelas Rodriguez, Juan de
Segoviay elproblem a isldmico. Madrid: Universidad de Madrid, 1952.
68
Mudejar community.106 Its content offers detailed information about daily life among
the Mudejares of Castile of the fifteenth century, but it is essentially a prescriptive text
whose influence extended well into the beginning of the seventeenth century. Not only
was Gidelli’s work more frequently cited by subsequent Mudejar and Morisco authors
than any other work of its kind,107 but it also became a useful tool for Inquisitors, law
makers and religious scholars in their later quest to eradicate heterodox practices from
Iberian soil. The Breviario's rarity as an extant early document is heightened by the fact
that its use was likely Inquisitorial and that it aided in the detection of heterodox practices
in the viceroyalty.
The Breviario's transformation from an instrument of cultural survival to one of
social repression lies at the heart of this discussion, for it mirrors an analogous changing
pattern in the Old Christian attitude towards the Morisco population. In its American
context, Yfa Gidelli’s work belongs in the confluence of two important literary traditions,
that of survival writings (such as the Leyes de Moros and the works of the Mancebo de
Arevalo, for example) and of Qur’anic refutations and anti-Morisco legislative texts (such
as the proceedings of the Sinodo de Guadix). In this context, once used as a resource in
an active exercise of social control throughout the sixteenth century, the Mexican
Breviario must be defined by the Spanish State’s and the Catholic Church’s agenda,
rather than by the Moriscos’ continued attempt at cultural resistance. When examined
together with the above-mentioned documentation and the history of the Morisco
minority in Spain, the Mexican Breviario speaks of a climate of great anxiety about the
possible presence of Moriscos in the New World, rather than of dangerous levels of
106 L.P. Havery, “Islamic Spain,” p. 97.

107 Ibid, p. 86.
69
illegal Morisco immigration. More than anything, it reveals that the colonists in the
New World reproduced the Iberian need to distinguish and distance themselves from the
Moriscos, a cultural group with which they most likely had no direct contact, but which
they deemed polluting all the same.
The copy of the Breviario Sunni discovered at the Archivo General de la Nacion,
in Mexico City, shows a direct connection to the famous manuscript BN 2076 of the
same name. Coincidentally, the copy at the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid) is considered
by Wiegers to be the best extant example of this work, though it was copied by a
Christian, perhaps of Morisco extraction, shortly after the middle of the sixteenth
century.108 Both the Mexican Breviario and BN 2076 are followed by a treatise written
by an Inquisitor, Doctor Zarate, entitled Las ceremonias que tienen los moros sacadas del
alcoran de Mahoma y de otras partes y otros Ritos que entre los moros se han
introduzido por costumbre que tambien los guardan por ceremonias. Furthermore,
Wiegers’ suspicion regarding the probable use of the text “by the Christian authorities as
a means to find out which customs of the Moriscos were related to Islam,”109 seems to be
corroborated by the location of the copy of the Breviario Sunni in a miscellaneous
volume of the Inquisitorial collection of the Archivo General de la Nacion. The Mexican
manuscript seems to have been used as reference material for Inquisition officials, rather
than as evidence of heretical behavior, as it is not attached to a specific trial, has no
markings that may suggest incriminatory use, and bears no relationship to any of the
other documents contained in the same miscellaneous volume.110
m Wiegers, “Islamic Literature,” p. 115-117, 121.

109 Ibid., p. 116.
110 Maria Judith Feliciano, “Yga Gidelli y la Nueva Espafta,” p. 49.
70
Further evidence of the complete change in the Breviario’’s intended use by the
mid-sixteenth century is its absence from private libraries in New Spain and commercial
shipping logs of the colonial period. The scientific work of classical Arab and Andalusi
writers, such as Abu al-Qasim al-Zahravi (Albucasis, 936-1013), Abu al-Hasan Ibn al-
Haitham (Alhazen, b. 965) and Ibn Sina (Avicena 980-1037), were regularly (and legally)
found in translation in bookseller registries and private collections of the sixteenth

111
century and early seventeenth century. Contrary to the canonical quality of these
academic texts and their wide circulation among European elites, the religious work of a
Mudejar writer of the fifteenth century may have been suspicious property in the hands of
an ordinary citizen. Documentary evidence from Inquisitorial activity in Spain supports

• 11”)
this postulation. It is no surprise, however, that the orthodox nature of the work of
Juan de Segovia, Y?a Gidelli’s famous clerical patron, seems to have allowed it to travel
to New Spain in religious circles without problems.113
The late sixteenth-century dating of both MS 2076 and the Mexican Breviario,
along with their use as anti-Morisco Inquisitorial tools, places the works in direct
connection with very meaningful moments in the history of Spain and New Spain. In
1569, Phillip II issued a royal decree ordering the establishment of a Tribunal of the Holy
111 “Alcabi?io comentado por Juan de Sajonia en 068”; “(a) Otabio Orafiano, medico y Albusio, cirujano;
esta con el de los Anales de Francia por Juan Tritemio. En latln. En cinco rs.”; “(a) La Perspetiua de
Alhazen, arabe; (b) y Biteleon, comentado, con figuras. En latin. En cinco rs.” In Registro de Luis de
Padilla (16001. As cited by Irving Leonard from, AGI Contratacion, Legajo 1135, FoL 153r-169v. See,
Irving Leonard, Books o f the Brave. Being an Account o f Books and o f Men in the Spanish Conquest and
Settlement o f the Sixteenth-Century New World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1949, Appendix,
Document V, Items 159, 268, 280.
112 Gerard Wiegers’ discussion about the discovery by an Inquisitor o f a copy o f the Breviario Sunni (MS
R.A.H. S 3, Saa77) sewed on the hem o f a Morisco’s shirt, as well as o f the B reviario’s widespread use in
the Morisco communities o f Aragon, which suggests that by the turn o f the seventeenth century, Gidelli’s
work was considered an indication o f crypto-Islamic activity. Wiegers, “Islamic Literature,” pp. 117-119.
113 For in-depth analysis o f the life and works o f Juan de Segovia, see Cabanelas, “Juan de Segovia;” and
Anne-Marie Wolf, Juan de Segovia and Western perspectives on Islam in the fifteenth century. Ph.D.
Dissertation, University o f Minnesota, 2003.
71
Office In each of the greatest urban centers of the Spanish Americas: Mexico City and
Lima. By 1571, the New Spanish Tribunal was properly constituted and began its
function as overseer of the interest of the Church and the State in matters of Catholic
orthodoxy.114 The formal establishment of the Tribunal of the Holy Office had an
immediate impact on the intensification of the colonial anti-heterodoxy campaign. The
establishment of the Inquisition had an equally direct effect on the effective transference
of Iberian mentalities in New Spain. Most of the Inquisitorial officials appointed to the
New Spanish Tribunal held degrees from Iberian institutions, such as the universities of
Osuna, Sevilla, Cordoba and Granada, in addition to Mexico and Lima.115 Just as
importantly for our purpose, the administrators of the New Spanish Inquisition
maintained very close contact with the Spanish center and kept well informed of the
changing intellectual climate in Spain and of European politics as a whole.116 The echo
of contemporary socio-political events in Spain quickly resonated in the actions and
resources of the viceregal tribunal.
Together, the continual reading of edicts of the faith in New Spain and the use of
the Breviario Sunni in the viceregal context, in addition to its apparent use as a reference
in the Sinodo de Guadix, presents a unified transatlantic picture of anti-Morisco thought

11 7
and action. While the realities of the problem were different between the New World
colonies and the Iberian Peninsula (and even among Iberian regions) the anxiety was the
114 For detailed information about the formation o f the inquisitorial tribunal in Mexico, see Greenleaf,
“Mexican Inquisition,” pp. 168-173.
115 Alberro, “Inquisicion y sociedad,”, p. 31.
116 Greenleaf, “The Mexican Inquisition,” 1969, p. 170.
117 Antonio Garrido Aranda also highlights the importance o f the model o f the Sinodo de Guadix in the
convocation and formulation o f the Sinodo Provincial de Mexico (1555), where the issues o f Amerindian
conversion, assimilation, and education were o f utmost importance. No doubt, the Sinodo de Guadix had a
clear resonance in the Americas. See Antonio Garrido Aranda, “Granada ^Modelo de Indias? Moriscos e
Indios” in “Mudejar iberoamericano,”, pp. 152-154.
72
same. Anxiety, indeed, brought the Breviario Sunni to the New World. The Mexican
Breviario could further highlight how increasingly difficult it was for Christians to
distinguish crypto-Muslim practices at a moment when they had almost disappeared and
in a place where they were seldom, if ever, seen.
The methodological gap that separates the investigation of specialists in colonial
history from that of the Mudejaristas is evident. The colonial historians’ interest in the
development of socio-political institutions (for example, the Holy Office) as indicators of
change in the political and social life of New Spain has led them to focus on the
experience of more heavily persecuted groups whose documentation provides ample
evidence o f their existence and activities spanning many decades of the early colonial
period. Although the inquisitorial history corpus does not provide any information
regarding the social value of anti-Morisco writings or the life of the few documented
Moriscos in the colonies, this methodology is valuable nonetheless, as it places the
American Mudejar question in socio-historical perspective.118 The silence of Morisco
voices from the colonial Inquisitorial archives of Madrid, Seville and Mexico City,
resources that have survived almost intact to our day, provides the strongest indication to
date of the incidence of Moriscos in the colonies. This silence, however, remains to be
interpreted as an absence and must be considered in relation to its historical moment and
viceregal context. In this absence, then, the role of “Christian” Spaniards in the process
118 In the few instances that Moriscos are mentioned in Greenleaf s work it is only in the context o f the
denial o f tainted blood by accused men and women. See Greenleaf, “The Mexican Inquisition;’ pp. 109,
135. Although processes against Lutherans, Jews and even Frenchmen found their way into Ibanez’ work,
there is not a single mention o f Moriscos in her work on the Mexican Inquisition o f the sixteenth century.
See Yolanda Mariel de Ibanez, El Tribunal de la Inquisicion en Mexico (sigloXVI), 3ra edition. Mexico:
Editorial Porrua, 1984. The same is true o f Grunberrg’s work, “LTnquisition apostolique.” For a general
overview o f heresy in New Spain, see Julio Jimenez Rueda, Herejias y supersticiones en la Nueva Espana.
Los heterodoxos en Mexico. Mexico: UN AM, 1946.
73
of transference of aesthetic information to the viceroyalties must be acknowledged and
evaluated carefully.
Yet, the discourse of the American Mudejar in art historical historiography is
permeated with similar themes of surviving Reconquest attitudes and the presumed
cultural impact of a significant, though undocumented, Morisco presence, as well as with
the literal interpretation of a limited number of documentary sources. The objective has
been to map an aesthetic continuity between the arts of Islamic Spain and those of the
American colonies. In the introduction to the pioneering work Arte Mudejar en America
(1946), Manuel Toussaint explored the involvement of Moriscos in the social and artistic
development of the nascent viceroyalties. As a reflection of his belief that Mudejarismo
was but a survival of Hispano-Muslim art or, more romantically, a product of Spanish
nostalgia, Toussaint asked, “Did Moriscos or Mudejares travel to the New World? Did
they directly intervene in the works of art whose forms indicate an Arab survival or, was
110
it the Christian Spaniards who developed it from their recollections?” His racialist
understanding of the nature of Mudejarismo led him to believe that Moriscos must have
» 190
settled in the New World in significant numbers.
Writing in 1946 and faced with a lack of documentary evidence, the author is
forced to suggest a series of problematic scenarios concerning the manner in which
Morisco participation in the cultural life of the colonies must have taken place. These
include a supposed lack of attention to “purity of blood” standards among the settlers of
119 ‘yPasaron moriscos o mudejares a America? Întervalieron directaraente en las obras cuya forma indica
supervivencia arabe, o fiieron espaftoles cristianos los que desarrollaron sus recuerdos?” See, Manuel
Toussaint, “Arte Mudejar,” p. 9.
120 “Puede sostenerse que entre los conquistadores de la Nueva Espafta y seguramente de los otros paises de
America, pasaron muchos descendientes de moros.” Ibid, p. 9. I use the term “racialist” as one that,
absorbing fully the sixteenth century anti-Morisco discourse, subjectively links ethnic origin and religious
creed to support a discourse that hinges on direct Morisco participation in the visual arts.
74
• 191 * •
the early colonial period, an estimation that Morisco passage to New Spain was not
initially “horrifying” to the authorities,122 and a parallel between the date of the expulsion
of the Moriscos from Spain and what he perceived to be a sudden increase of Mudejar
structures and decoration in New Spain during the early seventeenth century.123 The
unsubstantiated evidence that he offered to support those claims, such as a specific,
though questionable, list of colonizers’ names and last names of debatable Morisco
origins or the “two hundred Moorish converts that participated in the conquest of Peru”124
(for which he offered no bibliographic information), make it difficult to accept
Toussaint’s assertions about Morisco presence in the Americas.
Strangely, Toussaint did recognize that the extant historical documentation
pertaining to Inquisitorial activity in New Spain lacked evidence to support his assertions
of a significant Morisco diaspora in the Americas. Similarly, he admitted that Iberian
culture was filled with Hispano-Muslim practices as a result of a long process of
intercultural exchange. Toussaint also recognized that Christian colonizers were
responsible for introducing such practices to the New World.125 The value that he placed
on ethnicity and religion in his discourse on Mudejarismo, however, led him to question
121 “Los caudill os no hacfan informaciones de pureza de sangre entre sus hombres, y buen numero de ellos
ha de haber existido que deseaba alejarse de Espaha y crear su vida en tierras lejanas.” Manuel Toussaint,
“Arte Mudejar,” p. 9.
122 “Por otra parte, la idea de que los moriscos pasaran a Nueva Espana no era vista con tanto horror a
principios del siglo XVI, como lo hubiera sido despues del establecimiento del Santo Oficio.” Ibid, p. 9.
123 ‘Un hecho importante es que el apogeo de ciertas manifestaciones mudejares en Mexico, como la
decoracion con relieves de argamasa y la fabrica de alfarjes, tiene lugar a principios del siglo XVII, como si
coincidiera con la expulsion de los moriscos de Granada...” Ibid, p. 10.
124 “No deben olvidarse, ademas, los doscientos moros conversos que intervinieron en la conquista del
Peru.” Ibid, p. 9.
125 A notion supported by Diego Angulo, for example. “El secular empleo de temas islamicos por maestros
Castellanos y andaluces habla hecho considerarlos a los conquistadores como propios.” Angulo Ifiiguez,
“Historia del arte hispano-americano,” p. 144.
75
his own understanding of the problem. He reasserted the importance of the physical
presence of Moriscos in the colonies in hesitant terms as follows,
It is clear that such customs were brought by Andalusian Christians

themselves, who after centuries of living with Moors had adopted them as
their own, but something must have strengthened the flame, so as not to let
the fire die.126
He reasoned that the converse nature of those Moriscos who allegedly settled in the New
World allowed them to produce works of art in accordance with the law and, therefore,
away from litigation or criminal investigation.127 This supposition is also inaccurate, as
there were strict prohibitions against the passage of New Christians to the Americas since
early in the colonial enterprise.128
Toussaint’s influence on the historiography of Mudejarismo in the arts of colonial
America cannot be underestimated.129 The impact of the racialist model of Mudejar
labor, its dependency on Morisco immigration to the New World, and the position of
passive consumer reserved for the Christian patron have locked the art historical
discourse around stylistic debates that overlook historical and socio-cultural contexts.
126 “Claro es que estas costumbres las hablan traldo los mismos cristianos andaluces que, a fuerza de
convivir durante siglos con los moros, las hablan adoptado por suyas propias, pero algo debe haber atizado
la llama para que no desmayase la hoguera.” Manuel Toussaint, “Arte Muddjar,” p. 10
127 “Muchos de los descendientes de moros eran conversos, y podfan as! trabajar libremente sin que fuera
delito desarrollar su arte que era, precisamente, arte mudejar.” Ibid, p. 10.
128 Some o f these legislations have already been discussed in the preceding pages. For a chronological
exposition o f these legislations see Jose de Veitia Linaje, Norte de la contratacion de las Indias
Occidentales (1672). Madrid: Institute de Estudios Fiscales, 1981.
129 To the extent that, sixty-five years later, in the latest edition devoted to Mudejarismo o f the journal Artes
de Mexico, entire fragments o f his work Arte mudejar en America have been reprinted without a critical
interpretation. This reprinted piece, entitled Geometrla sugerente: Reminiscencias mudejares is introduced
as follows: “En 1946 se publico en Mexico Arte mudejar en America, obra pionera que, por su rigor y
amplitud, ha sido referencia obligada para los estudiosos que hoy pueden ofrecer metodologfas y
definiciones mas precisas. El propio autor, Manuel Toussaint, destacadlsimo historiador del arte mexicano,
advertla que era imposible “formular conclusiones que puedan asimilarse a leyes o reglas.” Su vision, sin
embargo, ofrece un singular panorama de lo que sobrevive del mudejar, al que llarao “la expresion mas
subyugadora de la Espafia anterior al Renacimiento.” Manuel Toussaint, “Geometrla sugerente:
Reminiscencias mudejares” in Artes de Mexico 54, p. 35.
76
Because of these limitations, scholars, such as Guadalupe Aviles Moreno and Santiago
Sebastian, understood the Mudejar to belong solely to the Iberian Peninsula and its
localized circumstances.130 Not surprisingly, the same methodological constraints have
made scholars overstate its importance. The work of Sydney Markman, who believed
Mudejarismo to be the stylistic determinant in the development of viceregal art, takes the
most radical departure from the negation of the Mudejar as a meaningful element of
1T1
colonial art, essentially making it Spanish America’s original and most enduring style.
While, as mentioned earlier, recent scholarship has begun to separate the racial element
from Mudejar artistic production, 132 most art historical discourse still promotes a
formalist approach to understanding the American Mudejar phenomenon. This
methodology requires a deeper socio-historical analysis of the function of the Mudejar in
130 In Aviles Moreno’s words, “Lo consideramos mas correcto hablar de supervivencias de elementos
arquitectonicos o decorativos mudejares en el arte novohispano, que de un arte propiamente mudejar que
no se did, pues esto ultimo encierra un contenido histdrico y artistico de un periodo muy concreto.”
Guadalupe Aviles Moreno, “Mudejar en Nueva Espafia en el siglo XVI” in II Simposio Internacional de
Mudejarismo. Teruel: Institute de Estudios Turolenses, 1982, p. 335. Sebastian believed in a purely
mimetic assimilation o f the Mudejar in the New World that rendered the style inauthentic in its American
context. “Los espafioles aportaron al medio americano un legado de formas vigentes en Espafia, en las que
lo mudejar pasd ya como una supervivencia popular, como un arte puramente nostalgico. Estas
pervivencias de un arte popular hicieron que fructiferaran en el medio virreinal las recreaciones espaciales
y los esquemas compositivos de acuerdo con modelos ejemplares vistos en la Peninsula, y asimilados en
Hispanoamerica por pura nostalgia” Santiago Sebastian, “Êxiste el mudejarismo en Hispanoamerica?” en
M udejar hispanoamericano: Del Islam al Nuevo Mundo. Rafael Lopez Guzman e Ignacio Henares Cuellar,
eds. Madrid-Barcelona: Ludweig Editores, 1995, p. 46.
13'“The mudejar building tradition is the unifying element, the constant that remains unchanged, also
finding its way across the Atlantic along with the peculiar Andalusian accent o f the Spanish speech o f
America. The mudejar arrives in the New World veneered first with Gothic and Plateresque, then with
Renaissance and ultimately with Baroque skins. Thus, o f all the stylistic determinants of the architecture o f
America, the mudejar is the strongest and most prevailing.” Sydney Markman, Hispano-American
Colonial Architecture: Social, Historical Stylistic Determinants with Special Reference to Mexico and
Guatemala. 1984, p. 12.
132 See, for example, Rafael Lopez Guzman’s assertion: “Una parte importante de la historiografia actual no
identifica la production artistica denominada mudejar con los mudejares en sentido juridico. Lo mudejar
formana parte de las culturas cristiana y musulmana que se definen con numerosos elementos de conexion
en la Baja Edad Media. De esta forma, los alarifes seran tanto cristianos viejos como moriscos a lo largo
del siglo XVI, momento del desarrollo de la posible production mudejar en America.” Rafael Lopez
Guzm&n and Ignacio Henares Cuellar, Mudejar iheroamericano: Una expresion cultural de dos mundos.
Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1993, p. 193.
77
its new American colonial environment. A detailed examination of sixteenth-century
colonial American mentalities is critical to our understanding of the meaning of Mudejar
forms and the reasons for their adoption in the new territories, in spite of the anti-Islamic
sentiment that was palpable throughout the viceroyalties.
In addition to its formalist derivation, the study of Mudejarismo in the artistic
tradition of the American colonies also has been the subject of varying political agendas
that have tied it to ideas of modem state-making and Spanish national identity. The
posture of Juan Contreras, Marques de Lozoya, whose Franquist rhetoric made him a
firm believer in the messianic aspect of Spain’s colonization of the Americas, best
illustrates this position.133 In his words,
Spain was also the transmitter of the artistic culture of Islam in the New
World. In this manner, Morisco culture, already diffused throughout
Spain, becomes the basic element of the artistic unity between the Iberian
Peninsula, North Africa and the territories of the complex continent,
which, in an effort unparalleled in History, was discovered and conquered
by Spain, and by her was incorporated into the Occidental and Catholic
culture.134
133 While such an admission o f the cultural impact o f Andalusi culture upon “Christian” Spain seems
contradictory considering its Franquist source, the themes o f Reconquest, Counterreformation (or strict and
unifying Catholicism), and the colonization o f the Americas were fundamental principles o f the Franquist
ideology o f “Hispanidad.” Together they spoke o f the triumph o f national Catholicism and Iberian
traditionalism. Indeed, the Mudejar element, as evidence o f the success in Iberian unification and empire-
building, was deemed innately Spanish. Nonetheless, it was a love-hate relationship o f great complexity.
For a discussion o f the theme o f Reconquest in Franco portrait painting, see Miriam Basilio, "Genealogies
for a New State: Painting and Propaganda in Franco's Spain, 1936-1940," in Discourse: Journal fo r
Theoretical Studies in Media and Culture (forthcoming 2004). In the architectural context, Basilio has also
identified Reconquest and Crusader themes in Franquist propaganda in "The Alcdzar of Toledo: Ritual,
Tourism and Propaganda in Franco's Spain, 1936-1940," in Architecture & Tourism: Spectacle,
Performance, and Space, eds., D. Medina Lasansky and Brian McLaren. Oxford: Berg, 2004.
For an in-depth discusion o f the concept o f “Hispanidad” in Franquist Spain, see Eduardo Gonzalez Calleja
and Fredes Limon Nevado, La hispanidad como instrumento de comb ate. Roza e imperio en la prensa
franquista durante la guerra civil espahola. Madrid: CSIC, 1988.
,j4 "[Espafia] foe tambidn la difusora en el Nuevo Mundo de la cultura artistica del Islam. Y de esta
manera, lo Morisco, difundido por Espafia, viene a ser el fundamento de la unidad artistica entre la
Peninsula, el Africa del Norte y las comarcas del complejo continente que, en una tarea que no tiene rival
en la Historia, fue descubierto y conquistado por Espafia, y por ella incorporado a la cultura catolica y
occidental.” Juan Contreras Marques de Lozoya, “Lo morisco en America” in Archives del lnstituto de
Estudios Africanos Vol. XIV, No. 53 (1960), p. 27.
78
The notion that Mudejar works of art had a direct and unmediated connection with the
arts of Islam negates the essential and self-aware role of the Spanish Catholic community
in the adoption, transformation, and transmission of its forms. Indeed, the idea that the
Mudejar artistic tradition provided the foundation for an aesthetic continuity that linked
Spain to its realms across three continents overstates the magnitude of the phenomenon.
Consequently, it underestimates the wealth of cultural information available throughout
the sixteenth century in the new territories.
Undeniably, the Mudejar was selected from a varied range of accessible—and
decidedly current—visual information. But in their “American life,” Mudejar arts are
seldom connected to their new viceregal environment, its circumstances, or those of its
diverse population.135 Instead, they are often linked to the Mudejar’s “Medieval”
essence, rooted in the solution of conflict through visual appropriation, and in the
preservation of power through ideological (sometimes confused with “aesthetic”)

» 13f\
imposition. Questioning the nature of the transmission of cultural information, the
135 It has sufficed to provide evidence o f “Mudej arismo” in seemingly disconnected cultural expressions.
In the chapter “Entre moros y cristianos,” for instance, Francisco Santiago Cruz offers a list o f Mudejar
traits that due to their apparent disconnection, seem more like passive cultural survivals than active
practices. These ranged from language and the fine arts to folkloric expressions as follows, “El
Mudejarismo se proyectb de muy diferentes formas y maneras. Vino en el lenguaje de los
conquistadores... se manifesto en las artes, en la arquitectura con el empleo de azulejos y dibujos
geometricos; en la fabrica de los alfarjes. Los conquistadores no olvidaron el uso de muebles y utensilios de
ascendencia morisca, como son los estrados en que las mujeres toman asiento sobre cojines; las alfombras;
las finas y delicadas celosias de madera...;los guadameciles para puertas. El mudejarismo aparecio en los
dulces y en las comidas mas diversas: quedan por alii las golosinas de almendra, los alfajores y los
alfeniques, que hacen las delicias de los cristianos.” Santiago Cruz, “Las artes y los gremios,” p. 75.
136 See, for example, the following statement by Rafael Lopez Guzman and Ignacio Henares Cuellar, “Los
resultados derivados de las intervenciones en los nuevos asentamientos respondieron tanto a los sucesivos
gestos de apropiacion como al prestigio de una tradicion que habria de mantenerse viva mediante valores
destinados a asegurar la vigencia de un modelo polltico-religioso que cimentaria a uno y otro lado del
Atldntico, hasta bien entrado el siglo XVIII, el dominio de la aristocracia cortesana y los programas
institucionales del Antiguo Regimen.” Rafael Lopez Guzman and Ignacio Henares Cuellar, “De Granada a
Mexico.” La realidad historica in Arte Mudejar: Exploraciones. Artes de Mexico 54 (2001), p. 16.
79
social meaning behind the use of visual forms, and the problematic nature of taste in a
colonial situation remains to be incorporated into the Mudejaristas’ art historical practice.
For this purpose, it is essential to examine the sixteenth-century New Spanish mentality
that not only accepted Mudejar modes and manners in its environment, but that chose
them consciously and selectively over other available sources. The “threat” of Morisco
immigration to the New World seems to have existed quite apart from the colonists’
continuing taste for (and choice of) objects rooted in a Hispano-Muslim past. The
meaningful gap between the perception of cultural/religious difference and the
appreciation of material culture is sometimes recognized, but seldom investigated in

1T7
American Mudejar studies. Its implications, however, offer a fertile ground for the
interpretation of the socio-cultural life of sixteenth-century Viceregal Mexico.
Rather than worrying about the few Moriscos that could have passed illegally to
New Spain during the sixteenth century, I propose instead that we focus on the cultural
models that were transmitted openly and that served to further an Iberian hegemonic state
in the Americas. Stressing the obvious disconnection between taste and ethnicity (and
religious creed), we must focus on the transmission of taste from the Iberian conquerors
and the subsequent transformations that it suffered as a result of viceregal social
developments. Only in this manner will the useful nature of Mudejar forms in the
American colonial environment cease to contradict the limited Andalusi cultural life (and
137 Ramon Gutierrez, for instance, goes only as far as stating the seeming contradiction between the
Mudejar aesthetic choice and the Christianizing agenda in some colonial churches as follows, “ Puede
plantearse sin dudas la contradiction que parece haber entre un rigido proceso de control en la
evangelization ...y la utilization de ‘rasgos moriscos’ en las techumbres de la iglesia...Ello nos habla de
un proceso de vaciamiento simbolico de ciertas formas que dejan de tener un sentido negativo por estar
incorporadas a la cultura iberica dominante.” Ramon Gutierrez,“Transferencia y presencia de la cultura
islamica en America Latina a traves de la Peninsula Iberica” in El Arte Mudejar, Gonzalo Borras Gualis,
coordinador. Zaragoza: UNESCO, 1995, p. 167.
80
the equally restricted ability to export it) that characterized the Morisco minority
throughout the sixteenth century. In the end, neither Iberian artisanal knowledge nor
patterns of consumption were creed-dependent. Rather, they belonged in a long chain of
transmission that had been incorporated by the Hapsburg imperial agenda and Iberian
culture at large. In this framework, we can begin to move beyond statements that foster
an understanding of “Catholic” Iberian lifestyles unadulterated by expressions of
“Islamic” art and culture.138
After all, in 1536 all lines were easily crossed in Mexico City—and the Holy
Office dutifully stepped in—when Hernando Nunez, angered by his bad luck in a game
of cards, reportedly shouted,
If the land of the Christians were here, and the land of the Moors were
there, I would leave the land of the Christians and enter that of the Moors,
and I would become the best Moor that there ever was among the
Moors.139
In the context of the suspicious, if not plainly paranoid, environment that characterized
the process of socio-cultural formation in New Spain, a gambler’s articulation of
frustration quickly turned into a threat to the religious purity of the community. It is
evident that the imbrication of social distrust and religious anxiety was a fundamental
aspect of the imperial need to assert and legitimize itself through prescriptive reiteration.
The myth of the Moriscos in the New World, therefore, lies outside the margins of the
imperial voice and its audible echo in early colonial governmental and everyday life.
138 Such as the following statement by Kaufmann, “In the millennium after the Hegira Islam
spread all over the Eastern Hemisphere, but traces o f Islamic culture should not have been found
at all in the vast areas o f the Western Hemisphere ruled by the Spanish and Portuguese durin g the
period between the first voyage o f Colombus and the independence o f modem Latin American
states, 1492 to ca. 1820.” Kaufmann, “Islam, art,” p. 43.
139 “Que si aqul estuviera tierra de cristianos y aqui tierra de moros yo me fuera de la tierra de cristianos a
la tierra de moros y fuera el mejor moro que fuera en el mundo.” AGN Inquisicion, Vol. 30, Exp. 2, 21 v-
22v.
81
Lujo Indiana or Iberian Practice?
Sartorial Display, Sumptuary Consumption and
the Negotiation of Identities in Sixteenth-Century New Spain
And so we are informed that in the provinces of Peru, New

Toledo, New Spain, New Granada and Chile, in the mainland
and in other parts of our Indies.. .very many of their citizens and
other people keep silver services, large cupboards, offensive and
defensive weapons as well as large vases and other vessels,
jewelry and gemstones, and silver and gold beads, all of which
without paying taxes. This is a great fraud that harms our royal
treasury and we want to address this matter.
Philip II, Provision que manda, que ninguno tenga oro niplata,
joyas, perlas, ni piedras sin quintar en las Indias, so pena de
averlo perdido, 15591
This passage is illustrative of a sizeable legislative corpus that reflects the
monarchy’s interest in curbing access to and display of luxury goods across the Iberian
realms. It also suggests that the same pattern of royal anxiety, condemnation, legislation,
and reiteration applies to the issue of viceregal opulence. Once again, looking beyond
the prescriptive voice of the monarchy, which in this case focused on material concerns
associated with precious materials, we find a wide ranging system of meanings encoded
in sumptuous goods. Not surprisingly, different segments of society exploited the
characteristic multivalence of luxury in order to advance various agendas. In this
1 “Por quanto nos somos in form ados que en las provincias del Peru y nueva Toledo, Nueva Espafia, y
nuevo reyno de Granada y Chile, y tierra firme, y otras partes de las nuestras Indias, islas y tierrafirme del
Mar Oceano, muchos delos vezinos dellas, y de otras personas tienen en sus casas mucfaa plata de servicio
y grandes aparadores y annas offensivas y deffensivas de plata y tinajas y otras vasijas y joyas y piedras y
perlas de oro y plata todo ello sin quintar lo qual es gran fraude y dafio de nuestra Real hazienda, y
queriendo proveer en ello.” Provision que manda, que ninguno tenga oro ni plata, joyas, perlas, ni piedras
sin quintar en las Indias, so pena de averlo perdido (1559) in Diego de Encinas, Cedulario Indiano (1596),
Vol. III. Estudio e indices por el Doctor Don Alfonso Garcia Gallo. Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica,
1946, p. 360
2 In this legal document, Philip II dictates that owning such illegal property was cause for confiscation by
the authorities. Ibid, p. 360. This law was reissued in 1578 and 1584. Ibid, p. 361. Moreover, Volume III
o f the Cedulario Indiano is filled with detailed instructions and various laws pertaining to the careful
overseeing o f the quinto real, or the 20% tax levied on precious materials, and the supervision o f the
almojarifazgo, or import-export taxes. See Ibid, pp. 360-467.
82
context, Philip IPs anxiety is wholly understandable. Undoubtedly, the monarch and
his council were well aware that in addition to the potentially lost tax revenue, a free-
flowing exchange of symbols took place throughout the empire, outside of their ability to
control their manipulation fully.
The central role of sumptuous material goods in the Codex Yanhuitlan (ca.
1550’s) [Fig. 4] highlights the use of luxury in establishing and contesting colonial power
in the Oaxacan Mixteca. It also illustrates the role of opulent sartorial display as an
instrument in both the Spanish and the native elite’s struggle to remain powerful actors in
the changing colonial order. For the purpose of this study, the Codex Yanhuitlan
represents, above all, the ability of luxurious display to negotiate complex social relations
and generate systems of meaning through adaptation and display. More precisely, it
demonstrates how traditional European visual tools helped to negotiate very “American”
situations, where their meaning was defined within the context(s) of new colonial
realities.
An anonymous native or, quite possibly, natives illustrated the Codex Yanhuitlan,
a miscellaneous document containing information that pertains to the historical and
economic development of the Mixtec region during the early colonial period.
Undoubtedly, the detailed treatment of viceregal cloth and clothing in the Codex renders
it a unicum within the corpus of New Spain’s early colonial codex production.
3 Unfortunately, the provenance history o f the Codex Yanhuitlan remains unknown. While the work o f
Mixtec artist(s) is undeniable, we have not identified who commissioned the work or its intended purpose.
The unidentified circumstances o f its creation and use, together with the varied subject matter (from tribute
offerings and agricultural details to Mixtec religious imagery) and the elaborate cast o f characters (among
them Bishops, Dominican priests, encomenderos and native caciques) that are illustrated in the Codex, it is
impossible to ascertain with conviction whose perspective it represents.
Contemporary works of comparable historical, political, or economic content present
standardized depictions of the Iberian elites usually dressed in nearly identical capes,
Figure 4
Don Francisco and Don Gonzalo de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan
84
raffled collars (gorgueras), hats or caps, pants, and socks.4 Alternatively, Spaniards
are represented in armor or, in the case of religious figures, wearing ecclesiastical
vestments. Dark colors, beards, and an excess of cloth and clothing distinguish Iberian
bodies, especially in relation to Amerindians.5 A comparative look at typical
representations from various codices illustrates a true uniformity in the representation of
Iberian sartorial display. [Fig. 5-7] Yet, such a limited repertoire does not match the
Figure 5. Detail, Codex Tlatelolco Figure 6. Relation de Michoacan
Figure 7. Detail, Codex Kingsborough
4 A comprehensive discussion o f the relationship between the Codex Yanhuitlan and other early colonial
native documents falls outside the scope o f this investigation. At present, I limit my comparison to a basic
outline o f the most obvious visual distinctions, especially as they relate to cloth and clothing, hoping to
undertake a more detailed (and long-overdue) study o f the Codex ’ distinctive focus on material culture in
the near future. For a comparative study o f the representation o f Spaniards in sixteenth century codices,
especially as it relates to the native experience o f colonization and the formulation o f Amerindian changing
identities and historical memories, see Stephanie Wood, Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views o f Spanish
Colonial Mexico. Norman: University o f Oklahoma Press, 2003.
5 The role of the chair as another focal symbol o f Iberian-ness and power in viceregal codex illustrations is
the subject o f a future study.
85
undeniable variety o f sumptuous items characteristic of Iberian wardrobes.
Consequently, by emphasizing the visual content of the Codex Yanhuitlan throughout this
work, I am highlighting a system of representation that is focused intensely, if atypically,
on sumptuous display in a manner that reflects the historical documentation more closely.
Regardless of the richness of its visual content, traditional studies of the Codex
Yanhuitlan have focused on its wealth of information regarding the feudal encomienda
social structure and its adaptation of the pre-Hispanic tribute system, the agricultural
goods produced by the region and the impact of European rule on Mixtec life.6 My
approach to the study of the Codex Yanhuitlan, however, redirects the discourse towards
European life in New Spain and stresses the cultural and social impact of the New World
on its Old World colonizers. In these illustrations, sumptuous clothing is exploited fully
for its symbolic value. It also presents a nuanced language that conveyed unambiguous
meanings and articulated a decipherable and distinct viceregal visual vocabulary that was
legible to the Iberian as well as to the Amerindian consumers.
The Codex Yanhuitlan was illustrated around 1550, although it represents events
that span the years between 1532 and 1554.7 In its mixture of symbolic and physical
representations stands the scene of two Spaniards whose identities have been the subject
of debate. [Fig. 4] Kevin Terraciano argued recently that “the symbol to the man’s left,
11-Rabbit, corresponds to the Christian year 1530 in the Mixtec calendar. In this year,
Yanhuitlan came under crown control as a corregimiento (before the return of the
6 Codice de Yanhuitlan, ed. Wigberto Jimenez Moreno and Salvador Mateos Higuera. Mexico: Museo
National, 1940; Heinrich Berlin, Fragment os desconocidos del Codice de Yanhuitlan y otras
investigaciones mixtecas. Mexico: Antigua Libreria Robredo, 1947; Sepulveda y Herrera, “Codice de
Yanhuitlan.”
7 See Codice de Yanhuitlan, ed. Maria Teresa Sepulveda y Herrera. Mexico: INAH, 1994, p. 13.
86
encomendero, Francisco de las Casas).”8 Maria Teresa Sepulveda y Herrera, on the
other hand, maintains a date of 1542, relying on the argument that the Codex followed the
Mexica, rather than the Mixtec, calendar.9 The following analysis of the sartorial
information encoded in the Codex Yanhuitlan supports the idea that the characters
depicted in the image are indeed Don Francisco and Gonzalo de las Casas, encomenderos
of Yanhuitlan.10
As the encomenderos’’ hand gestures indicate the tribute owed to their estate, their
bodies offer a complex cultural representation of early colonial sartorial display. Seated
on the left, above the glyph of Yanhuitlan, is the head of the family, Don Francisco de las
Casas. He wears a plumed hat {sombrero aderezado), a doublet (jubon), a sober leather
jerkin (cuera or coleto), and intricately decorated stockings (calzas). A large linen collar
(golilla) reaches his shoulders while linen and lace cuffs (lechuguillas) peek out from
under his sleeve. Don Gonzalo de las Casas, son of Don Francisco and eventual heir of
the encomienda, is attired even more spectacularly. His most remarkable feature is the
headwrap that complements his outfit.11 A highly decorative cuera covers his jubon and,
in turn, allows his magnificent cut sleeves (mangas acuchilladas), cuffs, and ruffled neck
(gorguera) to stand out. He wears short bulbous pants (calzones) and lavishly slit half
8 Kevin Terraciano. The Mixtecs o f Colonial Oaxaca. Nudzahui History, Sixteenth through Eighteenth
Centuries. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001, p. 33.
9 To support this assertion, she relied on the studies {sincronologia) completed by Alfonso Caso and
Jimdnez Moreno, who based their studies on calendrical glyphs (Jimenez Moreno) and codicological
genealogies (Alfonso Caso). Sepulveda y Herrera found a direct correspondence between the use of
Mexica and Mixtec years in the Codex, leading her to believe that the Codex Yanhuitlan followed the
Mexica tradition. See Sepulveda y Herrera, “El Codice Yanhuitlan,” p. 85-88.
10 The encomendero was a Spaniard who received a land grant and exclusive access to its indigenous labor
in recompense for services rendered to the crown during conquest. For a detailed discussion o f the
encomienda system, see Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos o f New Spain 1521-1555.
Austin: University o f Texas Press, 1996.
11 The Codex Yanhuitlan also is unique in its representation o f a Spaniard wearing a headwrap in New
Spain. In the following chapter, I will address in detail the place o f the “turban” in sixteenth-century Iberian
sartorial vocabulary as well as its role in prompting astonishment on the part o f the modem historian.
87
stockings (medias calzas). Like his father, he also wears borceguies, or fine leather
boots of Andalusi origin. Together, father and son stand as a painted example of every
broken sumptuary law imaginable.
While the conventional interpretation of this image establishes that its wealth of
sartorial detail originated from European printed materials, rather than from the practice
of daily (if refined) life, I argue that Don Francisco and Gonzalo de las Casas are
1“)
represented more than exquisitely dressed, they were most fashionably attired.
Moreover, the wealth of textiles depicted in this scene provides us with a visual history of
the encomenderos. Firstly, Don Francisco’s wide-brimmed hat indicates that he was
often exposed to the elements. [Fig. 6] In the Tesoro de la Lengua Castellana o Espanola
(1611) Covarrubias informs the reader that, “When one goes about the street if it is sunny
13
or windy or too cold, one wears a hat.” In fact, bonnets were commonly depicted in
contemporary courtly portraits, as the sitters’ defining roles were decidedly urban and
palace-bound. [Fig. 7] Covarrubias establishes the difference between the hat and the
bonnet in terms of propriety, as the bonnet “is head adornment that one uses in town or in
the city, and when one must gather publicly in decent clothing.”14 Don Francisco, as the
12 Especially Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” p. 32 and Sepulveda y Herrera, “El Codice de Yanhuitlan,” p.
114. In Chapter 3 , 1 suggest that, indeed, the use o f European printed sources exerted a powerful and
undeniable influence on the development o f viceregal art since the early sixteenth century. The effect o f
European models is evident in the drastic changes o f representation that occurred shortly after the conquest.
The fact that composition, rendering, and perspective, among other, shifted to suit a European way o f
seeing is, therefore, incontrovertible. But 1 argue for the consideration that the wealth o f sumptuous items
that circulated throughout viceregal spaces in real life also had a strong impact on the representation o f
cloth and clothing during the sixteenth century.
13 “Y cuando se vapor la calle, si llueve o hace sol o viento, o mucha frialdad, tomamos sombreros.” See
Sebastian de Covarrubias y Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espanola (Madrid, 1611), ed. Felipe
C.R. Maldonado. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1995, p. 597. Also cited by Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “La
moda en la Espafia de Felipe II” in Alonso Sanchez Coello y el retrato en la corte de Felipe 11. Madrid:
Museo del Prado, 1990, p. 82.
14 “Es omamento de la cabeza, con que andamos en la ciudad o villa, y cuando se ha de hacer visita publica
con traje y habito decente.” Covarrubias, “Tesoro,” p. 597. See also Bemis, “Modas,” p. 82.
88
owner of a productive agricultural region, is represented wearing a marker of Ms
outdoor life, wMch was the source of Ms wealth.
Fig. 8 Fig. 9
Detail, Don Francisco de las Casas Don Sebastian de Portugal
Codex Yanhuitlan C ristobal de Morales, 1565
Don Francisco’s feathered hat is also a clear indication that Ms attire was
undemably decorous and genteel. It calls to mind Mateo Aleman’s colorful description
of a gentleman walking to court in Toledo in his influential picaresque Guzman de
Alfarache (1599-1604).
As I walked by Zocodover.. .1 saw a gentleman mounted on a mule on his way to

court. He was so impeccably dressed that he left me green with envy. He wore
long, red, slit, velvet pants lined in silver cloth. The doublet was made of gold
thread, the jerkin of suede decorated with Milanese piping almost tMee fingers
wide. The hat was elegant, embroidered, and well decorated with feathers
and a small braid of black enameled gold beads. A red woolen cape was in his
luggage, of Florentme rascia, I think, and gold piping all around, like the jerkin
and pants.15
15 “Llevaba un calzon de terciopelo morado, acuchillado, largo en escaramuza y aforrado en tela de plata.
El jubon de tela de oro, coleto de ante, con un bravato pasamano milanes casi de tres dedos en ancho. El
sombrero muy galan, bordado y bien aderezado de plumas, un trencillo de piezas de oro esmaltadas de
negro, y en cuerpo: llevaba en el portamanteo, un capote, a lo que parecio de raja o patio morado, su
89
Unlike Guzman de Alfarache, whose cheap imitation of the gentleman’s courtly dress
ultimately garnered him sneers and ridicule from the public congregated in Toledo’s main
square, Don Francisco is depicted as an embodiment of refined masculine Iberian style.
But it is perhaps the clothing that adorns Don Gonzalo’s body that is most telling
of his life and deeds. [Fig. 7] He arrived from Spain, perhaps from Trujillo, his
hometown, in 1537 and, by 1541, was an active soldier waging war against the Caxcan
natives.16 In 1547, Don Gonzalo served as regidor (municipal council official) of

17
Mexico City and later participated in the war against the Chichimecs. In 1546, he
inherited his father’s encomienda at Yanhuitlan, but by 1580 had settled in Granada,
where he died eleven years later.18 His military career is represented in his ornate cuera,
commonly used as protective gear by soldiers up to the 1530’s, and thereafter adopted as
a civil and decorative, but signifying garment for men of arms.19 The prestige associated
with combat, especially in post-conquest Iberian and viceregal society, made the
incorporation of the cuera into courtly dress very popular. [Fig. 9] As Luis de Peraza
observed of male costume in Seville in 1552, “in order to look like soldiers, and to make
pasamano de oro a la redonda, como el del coleto y calzones.” Mateo Aleman, Guzman de Alfarache,
Primera Parte, Libro 2, Capitulo VIII, ed. Benito Brancaforte. Madrid: Ediciones Akal, 1996, pp. 210-211.
16 Antonio Garrido Aranda, “Estudio preliminar” in Gonzalo de las Casas, Arte nuevo para criar seda
(1581). Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1996, pp. xvii-xxiv. The Caxcans were a Chichimeca
indigenous group from the region o f Zacatecas. They were renowned for their fierceness in battle and in
1541 revolted against Spanish control.
17 Robert Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos o f New Spain, 1521-1555. Austin: University o f
Texas Press, 1991, p. 73
18 Ibid, p. 74
19 Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “La moda,” p. 73-74.
themselves look ferocious, [men] wear cueras over their shirts and slit pants. This
9n
dress also makes them look more genteel.”
Figure 10 Figure 11
Detail, Don Gonzalo de las Casas Don Gonzalo Chacon
Codex Yanhuitlan Anonymous, 1550-1560
Peraza’s remarks on the courtly and military associations of the leather jerkin
offer information of relevance for the interpretation of the symbolic use of clothing in the
Codex Yanhuitlan. As discussed above, Don Francisco’s clothing stands to represent
respectability and sociability, or the look of a courtier. His own sober cuera was
fashioned accordingly. The sumptuous display associated with Don Gonzalo’s
representation, however, corresponds with Peraza’s military interpretation. Indeed, as in
Peraza’s description, slit stalkings and even slit sleeves complement his highly decorative
20 “Y por parecer soldados traen sobre los juvones y calzas picadas cueras, para mostrarse mas feroces, y es
habito que les da gentil parecer.”As cited by Bemis from Memorias de la Real Sociedadpatriotica de
Sevilla, tomo I, p. 37.
91
cuera to promote the appearance of fierceness.21 The nomenclature itself, medias
picadas and mangas acuchilladas, with their evocation of knives and swords, and
perhaps the look of a soldier after battle, has military undertones.
Certainly, for Gonzalo de las Casas, representing his military activity in New
Spain had special significance. After all, his father’s estate was not obtained through
battle merit, as was the norm after the Conquest. Rather, a favor curried for Heman
Cortes, his mother’s cousin, earned him a large and prosperous agricultural property to
which he held no legitimate claim as a conqueror. Military activity, however, was a

99
contractual obligation of encomenderos. Indeed, they constituted the bulk of the king’s
93
army against the Caxcans between the years 1541 -42. As a military servant of the
Crown in New Spain, Don Gonzalo fulfilled his duty as an encomendero, but also
legitimized the family’s claim to the land and secured his turn at its administration 24 No
doubt, he also asserted the fact routinely and publicly by means of sumptuous and
symbolic sartorial display.
A display of wealth and power such as the one depicted in the Codex Yanhuitlan
suggests that a great amount of luxury items circulated even in remote areas of New
Spain during the sixteenth century. Traditional scholarship has constructed a case for
21 The courtly and elegant aspect o f the leather jerkin reinforced by the fact that Spanish jerkins were highly
desirable items o f trade. See Thomas B. James, “Southampton and Spain in the Sixteenth Century to the
1588 Armada: A Sample o f Sources for Ceramic Studies” in Spanish M edieval Ceramics in Spain and the
British Isles, eds. Christopher M. Gerard, Alejandra Gutierrez and Alan G. Vine. Oxford: BAR, p. 45.
22 See L. N. Macalister, “Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain” in The Hispanic American
Historical Review 43:3 (1963), pp. 359-360.
23 Ibid, p. 359.
24 Evidence o f the de las C asas’ efforts to remain powerful players in the old encomendero guard is Don
Gonzalo’s position as regidor o f Mexico City. Exploiting the crown’s financial pressures, and in an effort
to harness control o f colonial power, encomenderos were able to buy municipal offices. See Stuart B.
Schwartz, “Cities o f Empire: Mexico and Bahia in the Sixteenth Century” in Journal of Interamerican
Studies, 11:4 (1969), pp. 625-626.
92
unmeasured luxury consumption based on the scarcity of such goods during the early
colonial period.25 While this may have been the case during the years immediately
following the conquest, visual and documentary sources indicate that an excess of
imported goods may have been the reality by mid-century. In 1552, for instance, the
Castilian Cortes signed Petition 214 stating, “For a long time we have experienced the
rise in price of necessary objects, cloth, silks and leather goods, and other things that are
of common use and necessity in this kingdom, and we understand that it comes from the
great export of these items to the Indies...”26 Not only did imported luxury items circulate
through New Spain since early in the colonial enterprise, but the viceroyalty quickly
began producing luxury items as well.
The Oaxacan Mixteca, the site of the de las Casas’ encomienda, certainly was far
removed from the viceregal capital, Mexico City.27 In terms of textile production,
however, it was not in the distant periphery, but was rather at its center, yielding some of
25 A statement such as the following is seldom questioned by modem scholarship, “La deficiencia de
comunicacion comercial de la Nueva Espafia durante los primeros 40 afios de la Domination volvia
insuficiente la importation por lo que, careciendo en plaza de much as mercancias y objetos indispensables
para la moda y evolution del arte de vestir, se produjo un estancamiento absoluto en la forma de los
trajes...” Jose Benitez, E l tra je y el adorno en Mexico 1500-1910. Guadalajara, 1946, p. 45.
26 “Otrosi, decimos, que como quiera que ha muchos dias que por experiencia vemos el crecimiento del
precio de los mantenimientos, paftos, y sedas, y cordovanes, y otras cosas de que en ete reyno hay general
uso, y necesidad, y habemos entendido, que esto viene de la gran saca que de estas mercadurias se hacen
para las Indias...”As cited in Juan Sempere y Guarinos, Historia del lu x o y de las leyes suntuarias (1788)
Vol. 2. Madrid: Ediciones Atlas, 1973, p. 40-41
27 While the Mixtec region was very much at the center o f a pre-Hispanic trade route that linked Mexico to
the rest o f Mesoamerica, especially to the Maya lands o f Guatemala, the area was not as appealing to
Spanish settlers, whose center was the distant viceregal capital, Mexico City. Friar Francisco de Burgoa’s
descriptions o f travel to the region as late as 1670, include images o f winding and treacherous mountain
passes, susceptible to floods and high winds, as well as placid valleys. Terraciano notes that for the Iberian
settlers, the Mixteca was “too far away from the commercial route that ran from the mining areas o f north-
central New Spain to Mexico City and from the capital to the Atlantic coast.” See Francisco de Burgoa,
Geografica descripcidn de la parte Septentrional del Polo Artico de la America y Nueva Iglesia de las
Indias Occidentales, Vol. I. Mexico, 1934, p. 278; and Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” p. 3.
93
'y&
New Spain’s finest silk, wool and cochineal dye. The wealth of sumptuous cloth and
clothing displayed in the Codex Yanhuitlan, together with the proficient manipulation of
its symbolic value, also supports the notion that luxury items did reach southern Mexico
in meaningful numbers at the behest of its power elites during the colonial period.29 It is
not surprising, then, that Don Gonzalo and Francisco de las Casas are depicted in full
display of the goods that made them wealthy and that linked them to the center of power.
Correspondingly, the Codex Yanhuitlan can be read as a catalogue, an exhibition
of the fruits of their tribute. By means of the detailed representation of sumptuous cloth
and clothing, the encomenderos of Yanhuitlan were linked to both Spain and to their
American land. The clothes, their style and the wearers were European, but the audience
surely was American. In the end, the Codex Yanhuitlan presents Don Gonzalo and Don
Francisco de las Casas as the personification of colonial power, holding court and dressed
accordingly. But an isolated interpretation of this image is also unrepresentative of the
colonial experience, since access to luxury was not a reality for every member of the
viceregal population. Considering New Spain’s remarkable range of social, ethnic, and
economic groups, the history of the use and manipulation of luxury during New Spain’s
formative years speaks of a struggle between the practices of daily and public life across
28 C6di.ce de Yanhuitlan, Estudio Preliminar de Maria Teresa Sepulveda y Herrera. Mexico: INAH, 1994,
pp. 51-52. See also Angeles Romero Frizzi, E conom iay vida de los espanoles en la Mixteca Alta: 1519-
1720. Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1985.
29 This assertion counters Kevin Terraciano’s belief that “The movement o f silver and goods and the
provision o f services along this trunkline [the Mixteca] did not reach southern Mexico in the colonial
period.” Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” p. 3. Romero Frizzi’s work stresses the economic and logistical, as
well as socio-cultural, complexities o f commerce in the Oaxacan Mixteca during the two hundred years o f
colonial rule. Moreover, the circulation o f luxury items among the Spanish and Mixtec elites is fully
acknowledged, and documented, in her work. See Angeles Romero Frizzi. Econom iay vida de los
espanoles en la Mixteca Alta: 1519-1720. Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1985. For a similar pattern
o f commercial exchange in a remote region o f Oaxaca, see John K. Chance, The Conquest o f the Sierra:
Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Oaxaca. Norman: University o f Oklahoma Press, 1989.
94
the Iberian Empire. It also shows the keen interest of the Hapsburg dynasty in exerting
control over the lives of its colonial subjects, not to mention the economic production of
its territories. Viceregal actors (the church, the Holy Office, the civil authorities, and the
citizens of New Spain) engaged in a cultural and religious tug-of-war around the highly
visible, but suspiciously managed, role of luxury. Yet, this locus of social tension
remains to be acknowledged fully in modem scholarship.
Even so, it is unquestionable that a profusion of cloth and clothing circulated
through the social strata and ethnic groups of New Spain throughout the sixteenth
century. It is no surprise, then, that on the 15th of October, 1580, Don Pedro Gudines
Maldonado officially inventoried the contents of a crate that had recently arrived at his
home in Puebla de los Angeles from Mexico City.30 As his uncle’s sole inheritor, Don
Pedro had received the material goods of an estate of relatively modest means.
Everything, after all, fit nicely in a single crate. Of the thirty-three entries, eighteen were
fairly sumptuous items of clothing, while the rest were basic house linens, equestrian
equipment, a small desk, and an ebony cross.31 Although the wardrobe was neither large
nor exceptionally luxurious, it was comprised of silks and velvets almost exclusively. In
contrast to Gudines Maldonado’s inheritance stands the testament of Antonio Mendez, a
rural dweller of the town of Tlalmanalco who, in 1576, left a will comprised of forty-
30 “En la ciudad de Los Angeles a quince dias del mes de otubre de mill y quinientos y ochenta afios ante el
dicho sefior Antonio de Aguilar alcalde ordinario desta dha ciudad parescio don Pedro Gudines Maldonado
vezino desta ciudad y dixo que como alvacea que es de Diego Bravo difunto que murio en esta dicha
ciudad quiere enbentariar ciertos bienes del dho difunto que le enbiaron en una caxa de la Ciudad de
M exico...” Testamento e Inventario de Diego Bravo (1580). AGI, Contratacion 21T , N. 1, R. 1, 4, f. 5v.
31 Among them, “dos coletos blancos/. ..unas calpas de terciopelo con medias de seda con unas telas de
oro/unos muslos de terciopelo biejos/otro muslo de pelo de camello sin medias/...un cuello y uno
punos/unos fapatos de cordovan/...un sombrero de tafetan con una toquilla bareada.../una gorra de
terciopelo negro..” Ibid, ff. 5v-6r.
95
seven items. While the vast majority of his modest belongings pertained to rural life
and work, only eight items were garments, and most were described as “old.”33 Far
beyond the reach of either man, and in stark contrast to the quality of their inventoried
possessions, Catalina de Miranda’s wedding dowry showed the trappings of an affluent
life.34 For a widow from the prosperous mining town of Taxco cataloguing her own
possessions in a marriage contract, the goods itemized in her dowry represented the
wealth accumulated during her adult life. The ninety-two items detailed in her dowry
included various homes, gold jewelry, silverware, and a great amount of items of home
decoration, but also more than twenty-seven refined items of clothing, made of valuable
silks, damasks and velvets, many embroidered in precious materials.35
The record of material goods found in these documents, as well as in the painted
representations of the encomenderos in the Codex Yanhuitlan, highlights the normal
relationship between economic level, social position, and the ability to acquire and
display costly items of clothing. Simply put, they are evidence of the basic fact that only
some members of viceregal society dressed sumptuously because, not surprisingly,
relatively few could afford to purchase luxury goods. Nonetheless, a close look at the
historical documentation of the sixteenth century shows that the citizens of New Spain
acquired textiles (of various levels of refinement) in vast amounts. Thus far, however,
32 Autos hechos sobre el cumplimiento del Testamento de Antonio Mendez. AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol
391, Exp. 6, fs. 13-27.
“un capote e un sayo traydos/dos jubones de aleta traydos/...dos caraisas viejas/una capa negra e un sayo
viejo de pano de castilla” Ibid, ff. 16v-17r.
j4 “Carta de dote de Catalina de Miranda.”AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 135, Exp. 2, s/n.
35 Among her belongings, “una saya de rraso Colorado con quatro palitas de terciopelo morado con unas
espiguillas de oro/ otra saya de tornasol guarnecida de terciopelo carmesi trayda/una basquina de grana
guamecida de terciopelo negro/...otra saya de perpinan e pano de castilla nueva con dos fajas de terciopelo
Colorado con un rrivete/... cuarenta botones de oro con con su asiento de verrueco cada uno/...quatro
gorgueras blancas los cuellos desilados/quatro camisas de pecho labradas las dos de azul e la una de oro e
la otra de azul...” Ibid, s/n.
96
the wealth of viceregal woven goods has been interpreted through a myopic lens that
has made use of a narrow sample of historical evidence and little or no comparative
information, all the while focusing exclusively on New Spain’s consumer experience. At
best, New Spain’s culture of consumption has been rendered as the initial expression of
the viceroyalty’s budding sense of self vis-a-vis the metropolitan center or, at worst, as an
unexplained (but fully assumed) phenomenon whereby colonial luxury consumption
reached sudden and unprecedented levels very early in its history.
To date, no attempt has been made to link the viceregal practice of sumptuary
display to its roots in sixteenth-century European culture. The conventional assessment
of consumer culture in Viceregal Mexico instead speaks of continuous and profligate
spending patterns throughout the colonial period, inspired by a complex of colonial
inferiority in relation to the European metropolitan center, as well as by the extravagance
of the conquered Amerindian courts.37 In this chapter, I propose a new way to revise the
discourse on early viceregal luxury consumption, which questions the preeminence of
cloth and clothing in New Spain’s cultural map on two levels; its connection to the
greater sixteenth-century European practice of luxury consumption, and the meaning of
its use in the colonial context.
36 The development o f the theme o f luxury in Alberro’s work, for example, reinforces the notion o f the
central and singular place o f luxury in the lives o f viceregal members o f society in relation to a search for
colonial identity in competition with the metropolitan center. “Si la influencia renacentista es efectivamente
probable aqui, aunque Espafia no hubiese conocido los esplendores que marcaron esta epoca en la Italia del
norte o incluso en Francia, la emulation con la metropoli es en cambio una constante en la busqueda de la
identidad criolla.” Solange Alberro, D el gachupln al crioilo, o de como los espanoles de Mexico dejaron
serlo. Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1992, p. 179.
37 As Jose Durand succinctly explains, “El lujo y magnificencia que acompafian al nacimiento de esa
aristocracia, surgen, por una parte, como replica necesaria de las deslumbrantes cortes de incas, mayas y
aztecas; por otra, como reflejo fiel del boato renacentista; y tambien como timbre de honra de las Indias
ffente a Espafia.” Jose Durand, “El lujo indiano” in Historia M e x ic a n a ll, Vol. VI, 1956, p. 59.
97
First, I contend that the conspicuous consumption of luxurious dress and
textiles in sixteenth-century New Spain represents the continuation of a European
tradition of such consumer behavior rather than an isolated practice that appeared
suddenly and remotely in the Americas. I propose instead that refined clothing and costly
textiles were as essential in the display of social power in New Spain as they were in the
contemporary societies of the Iberian Peninsula and Europe. As an active participant in a
well-established socio-economic system of manufacture, consumption, and exchange of
textiles, viceregal society undoubtedly kept close ties with the development of taste
outside of its borders. It cultivated a European visual language of display that depended
largely on imported materials, models, and attitudes but which also was compounded by
a rapidly-developing local system of production, fueled by colonial needs. Viceregal
consumption of sumptuous textiles, whether imported or produced locally, helped to
maintain a sense of hierarchical European identity and, in turn, exerted considerable
influence on the formation of New Spain’s colonial culture.
Recent publications on the subject of trade, consumption, and Renaissance culture
have argued successfully for a reappraisal of the role of luxury in the cultural and
economic development of fifteenth and sixteenth-century E urope/8 The central stage
afforded to cloth and clothing by Jones and Stallybrass has offered a nuanced picture of
the highly commoditized experience that was sixteenth-century European life and of the
38 See Art Markets in Europe, 1400-1800, eds. Michael North and David Ormrod. London: Aldershot,
1998; Economic history and the Arts, ed. Michael North. Kohln: Bohlau, 1996; Richard Goldthwaite,
Wealth and the D em andfor A rt in Italy, 1300-1600. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993;
Elizabeth A. Honig. Painting and the M arket in Early Modern Antwerp. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1998; Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods. A New History o f the Renaissance. New York: Norton, 1996;
Lisa Jardine and Jerry Broton, Global Interests. Renaissance Art between E ast and West. Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 2000; Woodruff D. Smith, Consumption and the M aking o f Respectability 1600-1800.
New York: Routledge, 2002.
98
role of cloth and clothing in facilitating it. In Stallybrass’ model of the “cloth
society,” significance is measured beyond the economic Impact of cloth, but rather in
relation to its cultural importance as a means of transference of social (and personal)
values.40 Cloth, in his view, also acts as a locus of transformation, for its enduring
materiality implies alterations in meanings and associations as wearers and audience
inevitably change.41 This model is especially useful to understand New Spain as a cloth
society, or as a logical continuation of the pan-European cloth culture. More importantly,
it also provides a methodological springboard with which to initiate a shift towards the
interpretation of the value system in place in the viceregal practice of luxury
consumption.
Although the level of conspicuous consumption in New Spain undoubtedly fits an
early-modern European model, the multiple patterns of intention present in viceregal
consumer behavior were unique to the viceroyalty and its new colonial situation. As
New Spain’s own cultural identity developed, the ubiquitous presence of luxury also took
new meanings that were produced, interpreted, and eventually changed by its social,
ethnic, and economic realities 42 Yet, the intricacy of New Spain’s cultural ground,
where significance in the manipulation of luxury undoubtedly served multiple functions
39 See Ann Rosalind Jones and Peter Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials o f Memory.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
40 “In a cloth economy, though, things take on a life o f their own. That is to say, one is paid not in the
“neutral” currency o f money but in material which is richly absorbent o f symbolic meaning, and in which
memories and social relations are literally embodied.” Peter Stallybrass, “Worn Worlds: Clothes,
Mourning and the Life o f Things” in The Yale Review 81:2 (1993), p. 39.
41 “In a cloth society, then, cloth is both a currency and a means o f incorporation. As it changes hands, it
binds people in networks o f obligation. The particular power o f cloth to effect these networks is closely
associated with two almost contradictory aspects o f its materiality: its ability to be permeated and
transformed by maker and wearer alike; its ability to endure over time.” Ibid, p. 38.
42 Douglas and Isherwood succinctly, if colorfully, described the importance o f consumption in the
promotion o f cultural transformation as follows, “Consumption is the very arena in which culture is fought
over and licked into shape.” Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World o f Goods. Towards and
Anthropology o f Consumption. New York: Routledge, 1979, p. 37.
99
beyond those assigned in the European context, also remains to be examined
critically.43 Focusing on New Spain’s colonial reality, it is clear that the use and
consumption of textiles carried context-specific meanings that await analysis.
Specifically, clothing played the role of mediator of social identities, at once aiding in the
stratification of viceregal society and opening spaces for transgression of these socio
cultural divisions. Because access to sumptuous clothing was both restricted and easily
obtained, its use and manipulation speak clearly of the social contest that took place in
New Spain’s public realm. This seemingly contradictory function, whereby clothing
simultaneously upheld European standards and helped to alter their meaning, further
highlights the pliant nature of the early colonial cultural process and the ease with which
sumptuous cloth navigated through the cultural transformations that its display provoked.
Ultimately, it is at this level of adaptation, where costume effectively helped to negotiate
New Spain’s social spaces and to express its cultural distinctiveness that we can properly
speak of a defining colonial or viceregal attitude towards opulence.
As a pervasive cultural phenomenon, New Spain’s patterns of sumptuary
consumption also raise multiple questions that probe deeply into identifiable outlines of
social practice and their public function. The focus on the system of relationships that
worked to make meaningful social activities of the use and manipulation of luxury items
marks a departure from the traditional methodology which has characterized the field of
Spanish colonial costume studies to date. Replacing the practice of defining patterns of
43 This is not to say that issues o f class, mobility, and transgression (as they pertain to the colonial period in
New Spain) have not been explored. Generally, however, historians o f the colonial period are uninterested
in the visual aspects o f these relationships. As a result, the study o f material culture as a facilitator o f social
movement and change in the viceregal world has remained unexplored by modem historical and art
historical scholarship. See, for example, Douglas Cope, The Limits o f Racial Domination: Plebeian Society
in Colonial Mexico, 1660-1720. Madison: University o f Wisconsin Press, 1994.
100
consumption and display in terms of binary oppositions44 with a careful look at the
motivations that fueled a culture of acquisition and display such as New Spain’s allows
this analysis to go beyond the basic level of material exchange, or the simple fact that
luxurious goods were imported, manufactured, sold and acquired,45 and into the realm of
social practice and meaning.
The purpose behind the acquisition, display, and manipulation of cloth in New
Spain no doubt reflected the wide array of agendas of each segment of the viceregal
population. In a society in flux, then, the measure of use of expensive materials in the
clothing and ornamentation of colonial bodies simultaneously served to further the
distance between socio-cultural groups (an essential construction for the survival of
Iberian colonial hegemony) and to challenge the legitimacy of Spanish rule and
superiority in the new realms.46 Luxury, whether actively displayed or tacitly
acknowledged, publicly articulated shifting power structures, racial identities, and social
affiliations as it simultaneously helped to cultivate New Spain’s own visual culture and to
maintain a direct connection with European standards of decorum and respectability.
The historiography of visual culture in colonial Mexico has devoted a great deal
of attention to the quantity of luxury items consumed since the onset of the colonizing
process in the sixteenth century. Indeed, scholarship has made the term luxury a keyword
44 The typical oppositions remain colonizer-colonized, Criollo-Peninsular, European-Amerindian, etc.

Federico Garza Carvajal has moved beyond similar opposing categories o f analysis in favor o f a
comparative interpretation o f discourse and mentalities to successfully broaden the scope o f queer studies
in the colonial/imperial context. See Federico Garza Carvajal, Butterflies will Burn. Prosecuting
Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico. Austin: University o f Texas Press, 2003.
45 This is the level o f the “market transaction that delivers the goods into the home,” to cite Douglas and
Isherwood, and it is not only reductionist, but it is also a highly subjective way to define and explain the
experience o f consumption. See Douglas and Isherwood, “The World o f Goods,” p. 51.
46 For a historical analysis o f race and social relations in the late colonial period, see Chance, “Race and
Class.”
101
in the study of viceregal costume.47 Considerably less effort has been made to
explain the reasons why this pattern emerged or how it helped to shape a functional
visual language reflective of changing social values in an openly stratified community.
Making use of superlatives to describe the rate of consumption and taste for fineries in
New Spain since the early sixteenth century and repeatedly citing the same historical
sources, historians and art historians alike have sought to find confirmation of an
unmeasured pattern of luxury consumption in a narrowly selected documentary corpus.
The function of luxury, consequently, has been removed farther from the academic
discourse. Because the expository aim of most studies has not given way for effective
interpretative analysis, and because the few published analytical studies are founded on
inconsistent information, these sources remain to be explored critically, while their
validity has yet to be questioned, and their motivations examined. As a result of this
methodological chain reaction, the study of cloth and clothing of the viceregal period has
centered on an overstated and undefined concept of luxury, as it has relied on problematic
historical sources and has limited itself to descriptive references of patterns of consumer
behavior.
No text has been as valuable, and as repeatedly used, in the advancement of the
idea of viceregal luxury as Thomas Gage’s dramatic descriptions of opulent display in
New Spain. His famous account The English American. A New Survey o f the West
47 See, for example, Pilar Gonzalbo Aizpuru, “De la penuria y el lujo en la Nueva Espafia: Siglos XVI-
XVII” in Revista de Indias 56 (206), pp. 49-74.
48 As recently as 2002, Thomas Gage’s description were dutifully used to put viceregal material culture o f
the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries “in social context.” See Gustavo Curiel, “Customs, Conventions,
and Daily Rituals among the Elites o f New Spain: The Evidence from Material Culture” in The Grandeur
o f Viceregal Mexico: Treasures from the Museo Franz Mayer. Mexico and Houston: Museo Franz Mayer
and The Museum o f Fine Arts, Houston, 2002, p. 25.
102
4Q
Indies, 1648, based on his travels in the region between the years 1625-1637, is
more than a standard reference in viceregal costume studies; it is the gauge with which
modem scholarship has measured the role of opulent display in New Spain. Surprisingly,
Thomas Gage’s descriptions stand as accurate depictions of sartorial display and luxury
consumption, rather than as recognized tools of political propaganda and problematic, if
not prejudiced, social observations of Spanish life in the Americas.50 His accounts, after
all, were intended for a Puritan audience of the mid-seventeenth century.51 Though it is
well-acknowledged that Gage’s biased perception of the Spanish colonial enterprise
portrayed its viceregal product as the embodiment of corrupt Catholicism and the creation
of a society given to sensual weakness,52 his preconceptions are ignored routinely when
the case of luxury and luxury goods must be substantiated.
In an effort to single out Spanish culture in New Spain as corrupt and self-
indulgent, quite literally the antithesis of Puritan morality, Thomas Gage described
viceregal citizens succinctly as “excessive in their apparel, using more silks than stuffs
49 Thomas Gage, The English-A merican, a New Survey o f the West Indies, 1648, edited, with an
introduction by AP Newton. Guatemala City: El Patio, 1948.
30 The following statement by Chloe Sayer is illustrative o f the tremendous acceptance o f Thomas Gage’s
descriptions in contemporary scholarship: “As before, it is Thomas Gage who evokes not the theory but the
reality with his recollections o f Mexico City, famed according to him, for its streets, its women, its horses
and its apparel. His writings go further than any other source in conjuring up the wealth and luxury o f the
early 17 century.” Chloe Sayer, Mexican Costume. London: British Museum Publications, 1985, p. 91.
51 Given the charged nature o f Puritan/English-Spanish relations during Gage’s lifetime, his descriptions
must not be applied freely to the social reality o f the Iberian world, let alone in its application to the history
o f the sixteenth century. As Charles and Katherine George state, “Roman Catholicism is seen not only as an
enemy of the faith, but in terms o f Gunpowder Plots and in its principal national embodiment, Spain, as an
enemy o f the state as well.” Charles H. George and Katherine George, The Protestant M ind o f the English
Reformation, 1570-1640. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961, p. 392.
52 Not only does the author himself indicate that Spaniards were “prone to venery,” but the publication o f
his travel accounts in 1648, and its multiple editions thereafter in Britain, France, Germany and the
Netherlands, were important tools in promoting anti-Spanish sentiment across Europe. For a more detailed
account of the anti-Spanish political use o f Gage’s travel writings, see A.P. Newton, “Introduction” in
Gage, “The English-American,” pp. x-xi. For in-depth studies o f anti-Catholic sentiment in Protestant
ideology, see George and George, “The Protestant Mind,” pp. 251-411; Arthur Marotti, Catholicism and
Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts. New York: McMillan, 1999.
103
and cloth.”53 In a more colorful description, perhaps the most cited of Gage’s
accounts in studies of costume and luxury, the author portrayed mulatas in a fantastic
. manner,54 complete with publicly exposed and obscenely adorned breasts:
Skirts, laced likewise with gold or silver, without sleeves, and a girdle about their body o f
great price stuck with pearls and knots o f go Id... their sleeves are broad and open at the
end, o f Holland or fine China linen, wrought some with coloured silks, some with silk
and gold, some with silk and silver.. .their heads are covered with some wrought coif, and
over it another o f network o f silk...their bare, black and tawny breasts are covered with
bobs hanging from their chains o f pearls.”55
With this description, Gage intended to highlight the mulatas ’ seductive behavior, the
Spanish men’s inability to resist them and, more importantly, the permissive environment
that allowed for the development of this decadent social dynamic. For the purpose of the
study of luxury, however, this account stands as an insightful representation of viceregal
sartorial practice without consideration for accuracy as it relates to the writer’s
motivations.
Furthermore, Gage’s portrayal of a generally affluent viceregal society, where
access to luxury was not just unobstructed, but was promoted, further contradicts the
historical documentation, which points clearly at a real struggle between the Church and
the State’s desire for social control by means of limiting access to sumptuous goods, and
the contravention of those norms on the part of the population. Contrary to Gage’s
53 Gage, “The English-American,” p. 85.

54 The sexual objectification o f the female slave and mestiza bodies which took place throughout the
colonial period is not in question. A solid academic corpus on the subject has provided ample evidence to
support the development o f sexual stereotypes as well as a resulting self-consciousness o f their role as
objects of desire. 1 question, however, the applicability o f this model for the sixteenth century, the
formative period o f colonial identities and racial mixing. See for example, Solange Alberro, "Beatriz de
Padilla: Mistress and Mother" in Struggle and Survival in Colonial America, ed. David G. Sweet and Gary
B. Nash. Berkeley: University o f California Press, 1981, pp. 247-256; Magali M. Carrera, Imagining
Identity in New Spain. Race, Lineage, and the Colonial Body in Portraiture and Casta Painting. Austin:
University o f Texas Press, 2003; Verena Martinez-Alier, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-
Century Cuba. A Study o f Racial Attitudes and Sexual Value in a Slave Society. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1989.
55 Gage, “The English-American,” p. 86.
104
report, poverty, vagrancy, and material scarcity—and all the social problems that they
engendered—were widespread in the viceroyalty.36 In the end, the academic practice that
subjectively favors an inaccurate concept of luxury above historical accuracy has fostered
an understanding of consumer behavior in New Spain that fits closer with Thomas
Gage’s vision of viceregal society than with the actual experience of life in New Spain
during the sixteenth century.
Like Thomas Gage’s descriptions, Archbishop Juan de Zumarraga’s writings on
the subject of luxury habitually offer proof of the “problem” of luxury in the viceroyalty.
Indeed, New Spain’s first Archbishop often voiced his opinion regarding the issue of
opulence among the faithful assigned to his care. In 1529, for instance, he wrote to
Charles V describing the use of silk as “so common over here that men, whether
mechanics or the servants of lower-class folk, and women of the same kind.. .walk about
covered in silks, capes, skirts and wraps...”57 In another letter, dated to 1547, he offered
more detail, stating, “I have been informed that in two weddings celebrated in this realm
this year, forty or fifty women have attended, wearing dresses valued at three or four
thousand pesos each.”58 Zumarraga’s concern, however, is understood commonly as that
of a clergyman alarmed at a new and local pattern of consumption.59 In reality, however,
56 See Chance, “Race and Class”; Cope, “The Limits o f Racial Domination”; Julia Hirschberg, “Transients
in Early Colonial Society: Puebla de los Angeles, 1531-1560” in Biblioteca Americana 1 (1983), pp. 3-30;
Ilona Katzew, “Casta Paintings,” pp.39-42.
57 “Que las sedas son aca tan comunes que hombres, oficiales mecanicos y criados de otros de baja suerte y
mujeres de la mesma calidad y enamoradas y solteras andan cargadas de sedas, capas y sayos y sayas y
mantos y desto se sigue mucho dano...y lo peor es, que para mantener esa seda, demas de quitar los cueros
a los indios de no encomienda valen todas las cosas a subidos precios.” As cited by Abelardo Carrillo y
Gariel in E l traje en la Nueva Espana. Mexico: IN AH, 1959, p. 58.
58 Docnmentos ineditos del siglo X V Ip a ra la historia de Mexico, ed., Mariano Cuevas. Mexico: Museo
Nacional de Arqueologia, Historia y Etnologia, 1914, p. 149.
59 See Magdalena Chocano Mena, La America colonial (1492-1763). C ulturay vida cotidiana. Madrid:
Editorial Sintesis, 2000, p. 49.
105
the Archbishop’s statement is rooted in the tradition of Iberian moralistic writings
against luxury and idle behavior best illustrated by the works of authors such as the
Archbishop of Granada, Fray Hernando de Talavera’s De vestiry de calzar,60 written
between 1492 and 1506, and, as well as Fray Luis de Leon’s Laperfecta casada of
1583,67 and Fray Tomas de Trujillo’s Libro llamado reprobation de los trajes of 1563, 62
among many others.
Undoubtedly, the perceived crisis of excess and vanity was a cause for concern
among the religious elite ofNew Spain, but the Iberian clergy was experiencing the same
anxiety about an identical problem. In both cases, the condemnation of the collective
pursuit of extravagance served a greater purpose beyond the obvious; as it sought to
normalize behavior, it reiterated the role of the church as the overseer of social practice.
Fray Tomas de Trujillo was keenly aware of this function when he criticized the king
directly in his treatise as follows,
.. .my main goal, as I show it here, is to condemn such blatant wantonness

in clothing and such excessive superfluousness as there is in attire. All of
this is particularly obvious in your Royal court, and in the places that your
Majesty attends. For this reason, many nobles are indebted and their
vassals are destroyed. And they find themselves to be poor for the service
of God and of their King. Average and lesser people imitate their poor
example so indiscriminately that in order to emulate them in their clothing,
they quickly destroy their livelihoods and further corrupt their conscience
with other bad deeds.63
60 Fray Hernando de Talavera, Del vestiry del calzar. Real Biblioteca del Monasterio del Escorial, iv.b.26
(antigua iv.A.23). Also, Fray Hernando de Talavera, D e ve stiry de calzar. Tractadoprovechoso que
demuestra como en el vestir e calzar comunmente se cometen muchos pecados y aun tambien en el comer y
en el bever, with an introduction by Antonio Garcia Benitez. Sevilla: Padilla Libros, 1998; and Tractado
provechoso que muestra como en el vestiry calzar comunmente se cometen muchos err ores y aun en el
comer y beber. Madison: Hispanic Seminary o f Medieval Studies.
61 Fray Luis de Leon, La Perfecta Casada (1583). Chicago: The University o f Chicago Press, 1903.
62 Fray Tomas de Trujillo, Libro llamado reprobation de los trajes. Estella, Navarra: Imprenta de Adrian
de Anvers, 15 6 3 .1 have used the copy housed in the Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid (Signature BN R8294).
63 “Mi intento principal, segun en ella lo ensefto, es reprovar tan notables dissoluciones en los vestidos y
tan demasiadas superfluydades como hay en las ropas. Todo lo qual principalmente se senala en vuestra
106
Fray Tomas de Trujillo also challenged the king, suggesting that if the nobility and
statesmen had taken up arms as they did clothes, their names would be more celebrated
and Spain’s would be more feared.64 In the courtly pursuit of luxury and its bourgeois
imitation the author clearly found a way to explain the palpable process of imperial
decay. He singled out its effect as a distraction to the ruling class that resulted in its
disconnection from governmental affairs.
Overlooking this essential function of moralistic writings and the specific context
of each author’s criticism separates the case against luxury from its motivations, thus
effectively reducing it to be “all about” the problem of luxury. Understanding the issue
of luxury in New Spain entails looking beyond its function as a direct inheritor of
contemporary European practices, but also as a likely tool in the struggle for religious-
moral control of a new society (especially one distant from the imperial and colonial
center and particularly anxious about the impact of heterodoxy upon its delicate social
order). In this manner, we render the practice of ostentation and sumptuous consumption
as less distinctive of (or, unique to) viceregal culture and more dependent on a greater
social structure and its articulation(s) of power and culture.
Real corte, y en los lugares donde vuestra Magestad asiste. Por lo qual andan muchos senores empenados, y
tienen a sus vassallos destruydos. Y se faallan pobres para las cosas que tocan al servicio de Dios, y a la
corona de su Rey. De los quales toman los otros medianos, y moenores, con poca discrecion tan mal
exemplo, que por imitarlos en las ropas, consumen en poco tiempo sus haziendas: y aun depravan con otras
malas obras sus consciencias.” Trujillo, “Libro llamado,” ff. iv-ii.
64 “Q poderoso sefior, si como ban dado los grandes de vuestra corte, y los principales de vuestros Reynos
en tantas diversidades de ropas, y en tan ricas y costosas libreas, huvieran dado en tener mucfaas y diversas
armas, y en el ejercicio de todas ellas. Si como se han dado, y aficionado a servir damas con tantos gastos,
y a seguir corte con tanta costa, se huvieran inclinado a andar por la mar buscando corsarios, y por las
costas de Berberia persiguiendo piratas, quan mas esclarecidos fueran sus nombres, y quanto mas temida
vuestra Espana.” Ibid, ff. ii-iiv.
107
When Friar Feman Gonzalez de Eslava raised the following moralistic
question in his Coloquio Tercero (1574), he was, on a basic level, openly addressing New
Spain’s social values and patterns of consumption,
Who do you think makes kings conquer realms and great lords spend
excessively and always be indebted; who makes the common folk presume
to be like they are; who makes merchants succeed but remain fruitless, and
who makes young men exalt their refinement; who makes women think
that they are beautiful, even if their faces resemble Satan’s own; and who
makes all find esteem and delight in themselves?65
But the context in which Gonzalez de Eslava’s piece was produced, presented and
received reveals a much more nuanced agenda, set in the midst of a historically
significant and politically charged moment in New Spain’s early history. Performed in
Mexico City before high-ranking officials, Gonzalez de Eslava’s Coloquio Tercero was
one of many events intended to celebrate the arrival of Don Pedro Moya de Contreras,
New Spain’s new Archbishop and first Inquisitor General, to the viceregal capital.66 The
Coloquio, therefore, offered critical commentaries on contemporary viceregal life that
were intended to reflect on the nascent relationship between Moya de Contrera’s dual
role as head of the Viceregal Church and chief overseer of the first Holy Office tribunal
in the Americas. The bishop’s responsibility as watchdog of Catholic morality and
orthodoxy was established in opposition to (and yet dependent on) the threat of deviant
behavior, especially when the danger took the form of a well-established social practice.
65 “iQuien piensas que hace a los reyes conquistar reinos, y a los grandes senores gastar excesivamente y
estar siempre empenados, y a los menudos presumir de ser como ellos, y a los mercaderes triunfar y quedar
sin frutos y a los mozos alabar su gentileza y a las mujeres parecerle que son hermosas aunque tengan
rostros de satanases, y a todos, en general, estimarse y contentarse de si mismos?” Feman Gonzalez de
Eslava, Coloquios espiritualesy sacramentales, Vol. I., ed. Jose Rojas Garciduenas. Mexico: Porrua, 1958,
p. 92.
66 In his own words, Gonzalez de Eslava wrote the Coloquio, “A la consagracion del doctor Don Pedro
Moya de Contreras, Primer Inquisidor de esta Nueva Espana y Arzobispo de esta Santa Iglesia Mexicana.”
Gonzalez de Eslava, “Coloquios espirituales,” p. 71.
108
The politics of morality, orthodoxy, and social order are central to the
perception of luxury and its relationship to religious thought across the Iberian realms
during the sixteenth century. Luxury, as a sin of excess and arrogance, the opposite of
virtue through humility, was a target of clerics in Iberia and of their counterparts in the
American viceroyalties, who, in turn, responded to counter-reformation ideals and the
challenges of establishing Iberian-Catholic hegemony in the New World.67 Beyond its
role as a tool of social differentiation, luxury also served a ritual purpose. Sumptuous
dress had an important place in the celebration of the Catholic religious calendar, where
the observance of feast days was visibly performed (and thus publicly reaffirmed)
through appropriate sartorial display.68 By subverting calendrical cycles, the
inappropriate use of clothing once again hindered the reaffirmation of imperial power in
the colonies. While a literal interpretation of the concern for luxury in moralistic writings
leads to the assumption that New Spain consumed luxury items at unprecedented levels,
analyzing them within the context of their social function in an Iberian colonial situation
is fundamental to assess the true extent of the use of luxury in the practice of sixteenth-
century viceregal life.
In contrast to the moral interests of the clergy, however, the state had socio
economic motivations in mind when it, too, condemned outrageous spending. Sumptuary
67 Indeed, the counter-reformation ideology that inundated the Iberian world during the second half of the
sixteenth century had a direct impact on the proliferation o f moralistic writings in the American territories.
Acknowledging the importance o f sixteenth century spirituality facilitates a deeper understanding o f the
meaning o f the word “luxury” as a synonym o f “excess” in the viceregal religious vocabulary, especially as
applied in moralistic writings. Furthermore, in as much as the reforms that followed the Council o f Trent
were also aimed towards a “recomposition” o f the religious life o f the Iberian world, the religious
establishment and the Hapsburg monarchy further consolidated their ties while strengthening their claim to
empire and their interest in social. See Maria Alba Pastor, Crisis y recomposicion social. Nueva Espaha en
el transito del sig lo X V I alX V II. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1999, pp. 13-25.
68 See Antonio Garcia Benitez, “Prologo,” in “De vestir y de calzar,” p. 10.
109
legislations, frequently re-issued by the Spanish monarchs throughout the colonial
period, are interpreted similarly as reprimands against a pattern of consumption that had
reached an especially alarming level in the New World. Philip II’s sumptuary restrictions
of 1565, for instance, had already been issued in Monzon in 1564 and were specifically
addressed to the American colonies. On the surface, this decree highlights the monarch’s
concern for the economic welfare of his colonial subjects stating, “The overseers of these
kingdoms, among other things, asked and begged of us that we remedy and investigate
the excess and disorder that in dress and clothing take place in these realms, which is so
great that my vassals and natives lose their land and homes in such dresses, inventions
and new guises. Many of them are broke and their livelihoods are destroyed. ,.”69 Yet,
the choice of words such as “excess” and “disorder,” stresses an fundamental interest in
imperial social control that cannot be overlooked or removed from the historical
discourse. Furthermore, the great body of evidence of such legislations, continually
issued in Spain since the thirteenth century, also is overlooked by costume historians of
the colonial period.
It has been argued that sumptuary legislations were intended to preserve social
order through the correction of dangerous consumer behavior and the prevention of the
vulgarization of aesthetic symbols.70 The long-standing tradition of legislating luxury
69 AG I, Indiferente, 427, L. 30/1/322 Real Provision a los virreyes (07-08-1565) “Los curadores del rreyno
que a ellas vinieron entre otras cosas nos pidieron y suplicaron con fiierza foesemos servidos de poner
rremedio y veer cerca del exceso y desorden que en lo de los trages y vestidos en mios reinos havia el cual
havia venido a ser tan grande que los mios subditos y naturals en los dichos trajes y vestidos e ynvensiones
y nuevos usos y ...consuman sus haziendas y muchos dellos estavan consumidos y destruidos...” f. 156r
70 Gonzalez Arce has described the Iberian tradition o f luxury control as follows, “La legislation suntuaria
se justifica como correctora de los excesos en el consume a consecuencia de los cuales podia quedar
subvertido el orden social,” and “La vulgarization de los simbolos esteticos fue considerada como una
transgresion social.” Jose Damian Gonzalez Arce, Apariencia y poder: La legislacion suntuaria castellana
en los siglos XIII-XV. Jaen: Universidad de Jaen, 1998, pp. 79, 84.
110
and controlling access to sumptuous goods indeed was a pan-European practice in
which Spain participated actively.71 In the work entitled Historia del luxo y de las leyes
suntuarias de Espana (1788), for instance, Don Juan Sempere y Guarinos compiled one
and a half volumes of sumptuary legislations issued by the Spanish monarchy up to
1600.72 Evidently, then, every effort to curb luxury consumption in the Iberian colonies
was also made in the Iberian Peninsula. Not surprisingly, just as restrictions frequently
were imposed, transgressed, and manipulated in Iberia, so too they were in the Americas.
While the struggle to control the access to valuable symbols of wealth and power
links New Spain to a greater European tradition of effecting sumptuary legislations, the
use and meaning of viceregal sumptuous clothing developed in a unique environment
where new ethnicities, identities, and sources of prosperity had to be articulated publicly
and, above all, clearly. Sixteenth-century viceregal luxury had a central function in the
elaborate exchange of visual symbols that characterized New Spain’s display culture.
Although colonial fashion played and important part in the theatre that asserted,
maintained, and challenged European social control in the Americas, it was also an
eclectic blend of Andalusi (“Mudejar”), Flemish, French, Italian, Far-Eastern and
Amerindian stylistic elements. Amidst this wealth of visual information, the Crown
sought to limit the acquisition of luxury textiles, while routinely granting permission to
transgress the same laws. These “gray” areas, spaces of sartorial infractions encoded in
clothes, highlight an ambivalent attitude towards traditional notions of control and
transgression. The complexity of the American colonial context, where the imperial need
71 See, for example, Christopher J. Berry, “The idea o f luxury”; John Sekora, Luxury: The Concept in
Western Thought. Eden to Smollett. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University, 1977.
72 Sempere y Guarinos, ’’Historia del Luxo.”
Ill
for socio-political control met the indigenous project of cultural survival, and,
eventually, the criollos’ increasing desire for self-assertion, inherently required flexibility
and willingness to trade cultural symbols. The gaze of all members of colonial society,
whether actively or passively, engaged in a game of sartorial display, acknowledgment
and manipulation.
Indeed, even the very distant king participated in this exchange. In 1581, sixteen
years after the sumptuary legislation was issued in Monzon, Philip II ordered the
purchase of a diplomatic present for the “King of China.” The extraordinary inventory of
the goods included in the shipment, issued in Seville in January of 1581, details the
contents of this generous gift.73 Thirty-five chests of different sizes held silk, cotton,
leather, lace, and woolen garments, as well as accessories of all types, decorated in silver
and gold threads, precious stones or adorned with colored feathers. Also included in the
present were home furnishings such as beds, bed linens, curtains, clocks, enamels, and
Venetian glass; equestrian equipment made of gilt and decorated leather; and a small
group of paintings, among them royal portraits and Catholic devotional images. Of the
above-mentioned categories, cloth and clothing constituted the bulk of the shipment,
amounting to about half of the total of goods.
It seems a peculiar choice that Philip II ordered such a quantity of clothing and
adornment be sent to the “King of China,” a ruler who most certainly was not in need of
regal vestments, especially those made of silk. In fact, Philip II’s selection was rooted in
a long-established regal tradition of investiture that served to enforce governmental and
personal relations not only in European courts, but also in centers of power across the
73 Relation de lo comprado en Mexico para el regalo que S. M. mando hacer al Rey de la China. AGI,
Contaduria 801, N. 1, R. 4, ff. l-44v. See Appendix 3 for a complete transcription o f the document.
112
world.74 Chinese monarchs, for instance, participated in such exchanges since at least
the end of the 6th century CE.75 In this context, sumptuous clothing and textiles provided
an intercultural and diplomatic lingua franca of sociability. Sixteen years after Andres de
Urdaneta discovered the eastward trade route from the Philippines to Mexico, Philip of
Spain wished for a gesture of amity through luxury for a distant and unknown trading
partner.
Ultimately, through the pointed selection of opulent goods, Philip II offered the
“King of China” a mixed-media portrait of himself, of his body and of his living
environment. He intended to present his Chinese counterpart with a picture of his
physical and cultural self through the sumptuary goods that enabled his regal lifestyle, the
very objects that were produced or exchanged in his kingdom. Each Valencian silk robe,
Dutch handkerchief, Cordoban leatherwork and Castillian woolen cape helped to define
him as the ruler of a large European empire, open for business with the East.
Remarkably, the last few pages of the inventory of diplomatic gifts turn to a
register of the public offering and auction of the goods initially intended for the “King of
China.”76 Two years after their purchase, Philip II unaccountably changed his mind
regarding the shipment and ordered that the goods be auctioned in Mexico City. On
February 19, 1583, the public bidding began and by the 10th of May of the same year
every item was sold, with the exception of three paintings, six clocks and “four little
74 See Stewart Gordon, “A World o f Investiture” in Robes and Honor: The M edieval World o f Investiture,
ed., Stewart Gordon. New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 1-22.
75 See Xinru Liu, “Silk Robes and Relations between Early Chinese Dynasties and Nomads beyond the
Great Wall” in “Robes and Honor,” pp. 23-34. See also, Ahmad Ibd al-Rashid Ibn Zubayr, Book o f Gifts
and Rarities (Kitab al-hadaya wa al-tuhaf) with forewords by Oleg Grabar and Annemarie Schimmel.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996.
76 “Relacion de lo comprado en Mexico,”ff. 40-44v.
113
77
things covered in felt.” Even the woolen wrapping on some of the boxes found a
buyer.78 By ordering a public offering of regalia in Mexico City, Philip II allowed free
access to some of the finest examples of luxury goods in his realm. Not only did the
monarch himself encourage viceregal citizens to disobey his own sumptuary restrictions,
but he also supported outrageous spending through public auctions in Mexico City. In
doing so, Philip II effectively enabled many citizens of Viceregal Mexico to walk through
its city streets luxuriously dressed as kings. In the end, this outcome was more favorable
than the costly alternative; absorbing the high price of an exceptional gift that never made
it to its high-profile recipient in China was much less appealing, indeed, than selling the
gift’s contents for profit to whomever could afford them.
The very monarch that repeatedly issued laws to restrict luxury consumption, sent
an ambiguous message (in fact, incited the colonial bourgeois to break those laws) that
only served to reinforce a pattern of consumer behavior established quickly after the
conquest. As the encomienda system produced new lords even in remote locations, all
aspects of visual display were valuable means to properly “hold court.” Luxurious dress
was an early tool in the creation and negotiation of power structures, ethnic identities and
socio-cultural affiliations in the new American environment. It was also an efficient
instrument in the elaboration of personal and communal notions of self. The social order
77 “Relacion de lo comprado en Mexico,” f. 44v.

78 “la lana que vino envuelta con el presente se remato en Leandro [illegible]rea un peso de oro comun..
Ibid, f. 43v. “Los seis relojes del presidente estan en poder de los oficiales de la real Hacienda de su
majestad por no se haber podido vender respecto del valor que se tasaron por un relojero que a! parecer es
excesivo y no se hallo persona que llegue con mucha parte a dar en lo que se tasaron. Los oficiales dicen
haber escrito a los jueces oficiales de la Contratacion de Sevilla que avisen lo que costaron para venderlos
conforme a esto y no se poder vender por la tasacion que aca se hizo. Par de guantes adobados que asi
mismo faltan del dicho presente y en los oficiales que no nos recibieron. Firmado. Quedan cuatro cosillas
[cajillas?], cubiertos de baqueta con sus cerraduras por vender del dicho presente con lo cual esta cerrada
dicha cuenta.” Ibid, f. 44v.
114
that maintained a clearly defined vassal-king relationship may have been blurred, but
the one that upheld the crucial disparity between a Spanish encomendero and an
Amerindian encomendado was supported by means of the same European luxury textiles.
A reverse pattern also took place once Native elites and mixed-race individuals learned to
challenge cultural leadership similarly aided by luxury. Yet, this was hardly unexpected.
Quite on the contrary, at various moments in the continuous process of cultural change in
New Spain, the members of the colonial elite were willing to “give up many of the visual
7Q
cues of their superiority.” This conscious exploitation of sumptuous clothing reveals a
high degree of fluidity in cultural and power structures in the empire and its colony.
Seen through the eyes of colonial satirists of the sixteenth century, this attitude
towards sumptuous clothing and its manipulation seems even more mutable. Mateo
Rosas de Oquendo exemplifies the characteristic ambivalence of writers who, on one
hand, were keen and severe observers of viceregal life and, on the other, appropriated
styles, themes and techniques to voice judgmental opinions.80 True to Rosas de
Oquendo’s subversive agenda, the treatment of the cultural significance of luxurious
clothing in his work spans the moralistic, the materialistic, and the incongruous,
depending on the topic at hand and the nature of the characters making use of the objects.
In the end, the author recognized luxury as yet another fabled aspect of life in the
79 Joyce Appleby, “Consumption in Early Modem Social Thought” in Consumption and the World o f
Goods, eds., John Brewer and Roy Porter. London: Routeledge, 1993, p. 172.
80 Or, as Julie Greer Johnson observed, “By bending inversely the magical lens through which Europeans at
first generally perceived America, satirists reoriented traditional elements to create an entirely new
configuration.” See Julie Greer Johnson, Satire in Colonial Spanish America. Turning the New World
Upside Down. Austin: Uni versity o f Texas, 1993, p .l.
115
viceroyalties and exploited its multiple meanings and associations in his continuous
stream of critical verses directed towards exposing the myth of the New World. 81
*
Rosas de Oquendo explores vanity and the morally corrupting qualities of
clothing in Conversion, a somber poem laden with religious overtones. In this
introspective look into his soul, the author seeks to rid himself of worldly trappings, or
more precisely, of his ties to a corrupt life. He begins by seeking help from his own eyes,
the most reliable tools of a social observer as well as of a sinner, as follows,
Miradores ojos mios,

libres censores del pueblo,
si sois de lince en el alma
como en la virtud sois ciegos.
Todo lo malo mirasteis

y no visteis nada bueno,
senal evidente y clara
que sois del bien extrangeros.82
In his effort to effect a religious change in his life, represented in the poem as a rather
literal renunciation of the world by the physical crossing of a river, Rosas de Oquendo
sheds his clothes just before entering the water. To each item of clothing, or to its
characteristics, he ascribed intense symbolic meanings, articulated through clever word
plays that speak of the undignified nature of dignified sartorial display.
En el vestido esta el dano

quiero desnudarle presto,
para arrojarme desnudo,
desembarazado y suelto.
81 “[satirists] endeavored to shorten the distance between the word and the object it represented by
separating illusion from reality and myth from history. In order to expose the mythological foundations
upon which Spanish American culture had supposedly been validated, therefore, they responded by
inverting or reversing a number of traditional literary strategies, which would in turn cast doubt upon the
prevailing authority and the ideology it espoused.” Ibid, p. 5.
82 Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, “Cartapacio de diferentes versos a diferentes asuntos” in Bulletin Hispanique
Tome 9 (1907), p. 174.
A que aguardo? Ropa ftiera!
en esta orilla la dejo,
y de todos mis ajuares
solo una sabana quiero.
Quedaos mis galas aqui,

que es vuestro traxe grosero,
y en lajusta que me aguarda
he de entrar al uso nuevo,
Tu, mi gorra aderezada,

porque goces tu elemento
te dejo al aire colgada
sobre tu vano cimiento.
Tu, domestico enemigo,

tieso, almidonado cuello,
que he dejado de acostarme
porque anduvieces compuesto,
quedaras en la ribera
dondetuvo losrodeznos
mi piedra desatinada
que he traido al retortero.
Vos, jubon, que me dejasteis,

tan ajustado y envuelto,
pues tan poco me ajustais,
con justa razon os dejo.
Y vos, valon guarnecido

con tanto boton de fuego,
aunque bien acuchillado,
no habeis salido maestro.
Las ligas que me ligaban

pluguiera al piadoso cielo
que sus puntas en mis cames
hubieran sido de acero.
Liguen las medias agora

con nudo apretado y ciego,
porque no medien a nadie
con sus mal medianos medios...
Y por caridad escribo

en la tierra con el dedo:
N a d ie estas ro p a s levante,
117
que twopeste su dueno...83
In stark contrast to the deeply moralistic Conversion, the decidedly humorous
quality of Rosas de Oquendo’s Sdtira que hizo un galdn a una dama criolla que le
alababa mucho a Mexico, takes on the myth of the grandeur of New Spain from a much
more ordinary position. In fact, he paints a literary picture completely dissonant with the
extant material and historical evidence, one in which viceregal society is represented as
rudimentary and lacking in items of refined living. In the few instances that sumptuous
goods are present, the actors do not know what to do with them. The author uses native
words to designate Mexican objects and foodstuffs that he counterbalances against proper
Spanish products as ultimate proof of New Spain’s cultural deficiency.
Mi senora mexicana,
Ya le dixe la otra noche
Que no me alabe esta tierra
Tanto, que me da garrote...
Mas hablando agora en seso

aqui, pues nadie nos oye,
sepamos destos milagros
que desta tierra com pone...
no trato aqui de vestidos

de sinalefa y lam pote
bocazies, m edrinaques,
que las mas faermosas rom p e...
Q ue cam a tiene dorada,

que tapiceria de corte,
que estrado con dos alfombras
con diez cogines o doce?
Que silla de dos espaldas?

do esta el bufete con gonces,
la vagilla de la China
y otra de plata que rode?...
8j Rosas de Oquendo, “Cartapacio,” p. 177.
118
Q ue vestidos tiene ricos
de diferentes colores,
cuantas joy as tiene de oro?
tiene m uchos talegones?
Pues si nada de esto tiene,

sino son dos tinajones,
piedra de moler cacao,
tres tecomates84 y un bote.
Un tolquestre donde duerm e,

y un vestido de picote,
con otro de sinabafa
que de ordinario se p on e...
Cual da saya, cual basquina,

cual holanda o ruan de cofre,
coal paga en plata o en cuartos,
nadie negocia por conde.85
In the end, the Sdtira que hizo un galdn a una dama criolla makes clear that the
viceroyalty’s invented riches simply could not compare to life in Spain. Rosas de
Oquendo exposes the myth of New Spain as a land of quick riches and little refinement,
and presents it as a place where Peninsular Spaniards ultimately found humiliation,
Aqui de Dios y del Rey!

Que venga de Espana un hombre
A valer mas a las Indias
Y este vendiendo camotes!
Ved Nueva Espana quien es,

Pues por ganar dos tostones
Se humilla un triste espanol
A vender tocino y coles.86
Not surprisingly, Rosas de Oquendo also found a place to sing the praises of the
richness of New Spain and the bounty of its land. His Romance en alahanza de la
Provincia de Yucatan takes the opposite approach of the Sdtira que hizo un galdn a una
84 A tecomate is either a receptacle made from a gourd or a coarse cup made o f clay.
85 Rosas de Oquendo, “Cartapacio,” pp. 159-163.
86 Ibid, p. 162.
119
dama criolla. Here, the wealth of local produce, manufactures, and natural resources
is exalted and valued without a single reference to the Iberian Peninsula. Rosas de
Oquendo, an Iberian-born new citizen of the viceroyalty, seems to have found complete
comfort in his viceregal (that is, American) lifestyle. Although he states at the beginning
of the poem that an acquaintance, Don Pedro Cubas, asked him to write a piece in praise
of Yucatan, the author makes clear that he is, indeed, paying tribute to a laudable region.
Once again, Rosas de Oquendo makes use of cloth and clothing as literary devices that
are useful to present as evidence of a refined society.
Y comenzando a loar
lo que es justo ser loado,
digo que es una provincia
fertil y de temple sano...
H ay m uchas mantas, paties,

tecomates muy galanos,
xicaras, cocos sabrosos,
y m uchisim o calzado.
H ay ponchos finos y buenos
con hilo de anil labrados,
y otras mil curiosidades
y lindos panos de m an os...
H ay disciplinas, cordones,
sobrecam as, tambien fiascos
de vino que son muy buenos,
y por de fuera aforrados. , .87
Mateo Rosas de Oquendo’s seemingly inconsistent attitude towards luxury
incorporated the voices of multiple members of viceregal society, the biased views of
criollos, Peninsular Spaniards as well as the interactions of Native and mixed-race
individuals with items of clothing. As a keen observant of this dynamic, the author
exposed the multiple meanings of, and even reactions to, the numerous patterns of
87 Rosas de Oquendo, “Cartapacio”, pp. 163-167.
120
consumption and use of textiles in the viceregal context(s). Rosas de Oquendo
understood and exploited the nature of cloth and clothing as easily sabotaged symbols
that, in the end, were manipulated to mean any number of things, depending on the
no
moment, the actor, and the audience.
Each of the religious, historical, and literary sources mentioned earlier, in spite of
their varied agendas, highlights the importance of clothing in the regulation of social
structures and the significant, but problematic, place of clothing in early modem
European thought. These perspectives stress the social service (and disservice) of luxury
in terms of morality, religious piety and economic welfare. They also emphasize its
prominent position in intellectual, religious, and political thought in Europe during the
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Patterns of intent in the use and display of luxury items are easily recognized, and
certainly visibly juxtaposed, in the representation of Don Francisco de las Casas and the
Cacique of Yanhuitlan, also from the Codex Yanhuitlan. [Fig. 10] The ostentatious
picture of European courtly display that characterized the illustration of the two
encomenderos [Fig. 4] finds a very American character here. The pictorial relationship
between the new Iberian settler and the deposed, but still influential cacique, is
negotiated largely through the representation of sumptuous clothing. Dated to the year
1536, according to the glyph located on the upper right margin of the page, this image
seems to represent the triumphal return of Don Francisco to his encomienda, after it was
briefly repossessed and redistributed by the viceregal authorities.89 Don Francisco,
88 For a Bakhtinian interpretation o f Rosas de Oquendo’s works, see Pedro Lasarte, “Mateo Rosas de
Oquendo: La sdtira y el camaval” in Hispanic Review, 53:4 (1985), pp. 415-436.
89 Sepulveda y Herrera, “Codice de Yanhuitlan,” p. 104.
121
Figure 12
Don Francisco de las Casas and the Cacique of Y anhuitlan. Codex Yanhuitldn
dressed similarly to the previous illustration, his cape more visible now, claims his
property by the piercing his sword on the place glyph of Yanhuitlan, while the smaller
figure of the cacique looks on.90 This indication of dominance and control is offset by
the cacique’s use of a jubon under a Mixtec cape and a decorated hat not unlike the
encomendero ’$ own. He has also grown a beard in the Iberian style. The cacique’s
incorporation of items of European dress as symbols of power, that is, of his own claim to
the administration of the land that once belonged to his family, is significant beyond a
90 This is a widely-recognized symbolic representation o f the act o f conquest in the Mixtec pictorial
tradition. See Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” p. 34.
122
passive exercise in assimilation. As a response to his need to remain an influential
player within the new political system, the cacique engaged in a conscious act of
insertion into the new power structure. Aided by the symbolic value of clothing, he did
not challenge colonial authority, but rather fashioned himself as a member of its ruling
body.91
The use of Spanish clothing by members of the native population began soon after
the conquest. Diego Mufioz Camargo’s Description de la ciudady provincial de
Tlaxcala (1585) highlights the stark contrast between Spanish and native clothing, but it
serves to establish the most fundamental distinction that clothing traditions reflected after
the conquest. Munoz Camargo observed that, “one hundred Spaniards take up more space
than one thousand Indians because [the Indians] squeeze together more tightly and are
not surrounded by a circumference of bulbous clothing like we are. ,.”92 Indeed, excess
clothing was essential to establish strict distinctions of what was Iberian and what was
not. According to the author, the simple act of looking (seeing?) yielded clear
information regarding ethnic origin and cultural affiliation. But Munoz Camargo, who
wrote the Description some sixty years after the conquest, also recognized the process of
assimilation that quickly took place in New Spain during the evangelization period. The
91 O f course, the distinctly small scale o f the cacique's body, and his closeness to the ground, compared
with the larger encomendero that quite literally towers above him on a chair, indicates a higher political
status and social superiority.
92 “Hase de considerar que toman mas campo 100 espafioles que mill yndios por que se aprietan mas y no
tienen entomo de ropa abultada como los nuestros, y ansi en poco espacio de campo caben mas gentes de
Indios que de Espanoles.” Diego Mufioz Camargo, Descripcion de la C iudady Provincia de Tlaxcala de
las In d ia sy del M ar Oceano para el buen gobierno y ennoblecim iento dellas (1585). Estudio Preliminar,
Rene Acuna. Mexico: UNAM, 1981, f. 14r.
123
image captioned How the natives dressed at the behest o f the friars [Fig. 11] shows
Q -J
how shirts, doublets, and pants began to be used habitually. This exercise in cultural
Figure 13
How the natives dressed at the behest of the friars
Diego M unoz Camargo, Descripcion de la ciu d a d y provincial de Tlaxcala
assimilation by means of the use of clothing, seemingly a necessity for the evangelical
process, swiftly broke down easily identifiable markers of ethnicity, allowed the natives
to equal themselves to the conquering Spaniards, and threatened the establishment of
hegemonic control. The crown dutifully stepped in and legislated accordingly.
The ability to wear Spanish clothing became a right bestowed upon worthy
natives by royal decree. For a native cacique, then, donning Iberian clothing also was an
inherent act of subservience and in no way implied full equal status with the Iberian
93 “De como se vistieron los naturales a instancias de los frailes y se pusieron sayos y camisas y jubones y
âragtielles como el dia de hoy los us an y se trasquilaron los cabellos a nuestro uso.” Mufioz Camargo,
“Descripcion,” f. 243r.
124
counterparts. Evidence of this position is the copious amount of such special
dispensations issued throughout the colonial period.94 While it is important to note that
there is no sure way to ascertain the true levels of adherence to or transgression of these
sumptuary laws against Amerindians, it is meaningful nonetheless that the monarchs
routinely issued exemptions. Evidently, every actor participated in the manipulation of
visual symbols. The native elites recognized and exploited ways to participate in the new
socio-political system and the Iberian ruling class, in turn, limited—but not erased—the
caciques ’ desire to substantiate their power by means of a controlled access to European
visual tools. Ultimately, the encomenderos themselves also were subject to and certainly
defiant of Church and state regulations on luxury. They held their own court and dressed
as kings in a distant land, where the figure of their own ruler was absent and the reach of
the arm of the state was relatively weak. In the context of the Codex Yanhuitlan, even the
identity of the Hapsburg monarch was challenged, as two commoners from Extremadura
appropriated its trappings in his new but distant realms.
As a representation of the colonial present, of the new social order and its
processes of transformation, the images in the Codex Yanhuitlan highlight an Iberian and
Amerindian struggle to claim legitimacy, retain power, and effectively reap the benefits
of the colonial system. Sumptuous cloth and clothing were a vital part in the exchange of
visual symbols that maintained colonial relationships and identities in a constant state of
94 There is a staggering amount o f surviving M ercedes Reales in colonial archives. A typical document
reads as follows: “Don Lope Suarez de Mendoza [he hago saber en] la presente doy licencia a don
Francisco Cortes yndio prencipal del pueblo de capotean para que andando en abito despanol y n[illegible]
pueda libremente andar en un cavallo con silla y freno y traer una espada para el homato de su persona con
que no la trayga en partes [illegible] prohibidas por ordenanza y con esto mando que ni en lo uno ni en lo
otro no se ponga enbargo ni impedimenta alguno por ninguna justicia ni persona... ” Licencia a Don
Francisco Cortes yndio principal del pueblo de capotean para que andando en abito despanol pueda traer
una espaday andar a cavallo (1582), AGN, Indios, Vol. 2, Exp. 214, f. 54-54v.
125
development and transformation. Kings, encomenderos and caciques continuously
challenged each other’s position by means of an effective manipulation of luxury display.
Yet, in the face of change, access to luxury, however controlled, also aided in
maintaining social distinctions clearly demarcated and cultural differences firmly
established. The shifting use of sumptuous costume allowed the elasticity needed to
support what already was a confounding process of political consolidation and social
transformation.
Beyond the sheer existence of luxury in New Spain, of the basic act of
conspicuous consumption, the place and moment of the use of items of sumptuous
clothing as tools of social manipulation by actors with significantly different agendas lay
at the center of the production of meaning(s). The multiplicity of associations made
between personal and communal identities, by the conscious use of items of clothing as
functional visual symbols, helped to mediate the actual experience of life under the new
viceregal system and the imaginary, or the possibilities of its employment, for the benefit
of each group or individual.95 In this, too, members of viceregal society made a very
contemporary use of sumptuous cloth and clothing. As an acculturating agent with a
useful life operating beyond the realm of the Spanish aristocracy, the success of luxury, a
95 Joyce Appleby’s understanding o f this process as defiant, rather than transgressive, is very applicable to
the viceregal situation. She believes that “in every elaboration o f a fresh style there is simultaneously
created an armoury o f defiant gestures. Perhaps not the grand stuff o f revolutions, but splendidly innovative
in the minor skirmishes o f everyday insubordination.” Appleby, “Consumption,” p. 172
126
universal signifier, relied on the mental images that it stimulated and on the social
change that it effected.96
96 W oodruff Smith has identified an “instability in luxury goods” once their access reached beyond “the
limits o f the European upper classes.” He states, “consumers respond not only to the inherent physical
qualities o f goods through their senses, but also, through intellectual activity and imagination, to
possibilities and suggestions that arise from the places o f particular material objects in various cognitive
frameworks.” See Woodruff D. Smith, “Consumption,” pp. 71-73.
127
Chapter 3
On Silk Turbans and Frayed Jubones,

or the Changing Function of
“Morisco” Clothing in the Iberian World
“Tell me, senor, said Dorotea, “is this lady a Christian or

a Moor? Her dress and her silence lead us to imagine
that she is what we wish she was not.”
“In dress and outwardly,” said he, “she is a Moor, but at

heart she is a thoroughly good Christian, for she has the
greatest desire to become one.”
Don Quijote, Part I, Chapter XXXVII1
This passage from Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s Don Quijote (1605) highlights
a characteristic Iberian unease about socio-religious indistinctness as expressed by
clothing. It also underscores the concerns of socio-cultural legitimacy which defined the
Morisco problem during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The struggle to
maintain social order by means of a clear and easily decoded sign system resulted in the
acknowledgment of the central role of cloth and clothing in the Iberian efforts of cultural
imposition and resistance. It also lead to the recognition o f both its usefulness and
inherent danger.
Zoraida, an Arabic-speaking Algerian woman who aided a Spanish captive to
escape from prison in North Africa (expecting in return to be smuggled into Spain to
become a Christian), confounds Dorotea, an “old Christian” innkeeper. Without a doubt,
Zoraida’s external signs indicated otherness. Her silence was the suspicious product of
1 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote. Transl. John Ormsby, eds. Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth
Douglas. New York: Norton, 1981, p. 298. I am grateful to Professor Leyla Rouhi for alerting me to this
passage from Cervante’s famous “The Captive’s Tale.” For a detailed literary analysis o f “The Captive’s
Tale,” framed within the Cervantine binary o f the “ideal’ versus the “real,” see Leyla Rouhi, "The Lovely
Moor o f Cervantes," unpublished paper presented in November 12, 2004 at Cornell University’s
Interrogating Iberian Frontiers: A Cross-Disciplinary Symposium on Mudejar History, Religion, A rt and
Literature.
128
her incomprehension of the Spanish language. Her fully veiled body betrayed the
“Christian” content of her heart. Dorotea ultimately begged Zoraida to remove her veil.
Once fully displayed, her beauty equaled her Catholic piety, leaving no doubt about her
true Christian spirit. Dorotea’s own need to know who (or rather, what) was Zoraida
also remained tied to contemporary Iberian ideals of respectability, legitimacy, and
decency. The role of cloth and clothing in this contest of socio-cultural authenticity
cannot be undervalued. The risks were high indeed, at once threatening the process of
imperial construction and of the Moriscos’ struggle for survival.
Zoraida’s male companion (“el cautivo,” as he is mentioned in the text), for
instance, was instantly recognized as a recent arrival from ‘the lands of the Moors,” also
on account of his clothing.4 As a native speaker of Spanish, however, and thanks to his
handsome and visible features, the narrator readily identified him as a Christian. As
Cervantes’ narrator recounts, “In short, his appearance was such that if he had been well
dressed, he would have been taken for a person of quality and good birth.”5 Although the
captive’s clothing identified him readily in relation to a lowly status (a prisoner), his
equally recognizable Iberian cultural baggage rendered him honorable nonetheless.
2 The narrator tells us, “Behind him, mounted on an ass, came a woman dressed in Moorish fashion, with
her face covered and a veil on her head. She was wearing a brocaded cap and a mantle that covered her
from her shoulders to her feet.” Ibid, pp. 297.
3 “Dorotea took the Moorish lady by the hand and led her to a seat beside herself, where she requested her
to remove her veil... she removed it and disclosed a countenance so lovely that to Dorotea she seemed more
beautiful than Luscinda. ..and as it is the privilege and charm o f beauty to win the heart and secure good
will, all forthwith became eager to show kindness and attention to the lovely Moor.” Cervantes Saavedra,
“Don Quixote,” p. 298. This passage is followed by a scene in which Zoraida forcefully rejects her Arabic
name in favor o f a Christian one, moving her audience to tears, “No! No Zoraida,” she said hastily, with
some displeasure and energy, “Maria, Maria!” giving them to understand that she was called “Marla” and
not “Zoraida.” Ibid, p. 298.
4 As the text details, “from his attire he seemed to be a Christian lately come from the country o f the Moors,
for he was dressed in a short smock o f blue cloth with short sleeves and without a collar. His breeches were
also o f blue linen and his cap o f the same color, and he wore date-colored boots and had a Moorish cutlass
slung from a strap across his breast.” Ibid, p. 297.
5 Ibid. p. 297.
129
Zoraida’s ambiguity, on the other hand, sparked suspicion, warranted investigation,
and required justification. Thus, in Iberia, the relationship between the wearer and
his/her attire was at once symbiotic and mutable.
A similar attitude towards clothing and the body characterized viceregal society
throughout the sixteenth century. Amid the representation of the use and display of
costume in the Codex Yanhuitlan stands out a seemingly incongruous image: Don
Gonzalo de las Casas, heir to the encomienda, sits across from his father, Don Francisco,
wearing a headwrap, or toca, something like a large turban. Such a choice of head
adornment by this otherwise powerful and culturally unambiguous Spanish character
remains puzzling for art historians, historians, and archaeologists. Don Gonzalo’s head
adornment [Fig. 12] has produced much amazement but has yet to become the subject of
historical analysis. The underlying disbelief that items of clothing understood in 2004 to
be signs of otherness had a visible place in mainstream Iberian life validates the sense of
astonishment about the use of a “turban” by a prominent Spaniard.
Figure 14
Detail, Don Gonzalo de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan
130
Kevin Terraciano, for instance, recently limited his examination of the
prominent place of the headwrap in the context of the Codex Yanhuitlan to a succinct
statement that suggests that the depictions of material culture, especially sumptuous
clothing, in the codex were inspired entirely by illustrations found in European printed
sources.6 This view stops short of providing a comprehensive interpretation of a
manuscript that is not just a multifaceted visual source, but also a mirror of the socio
economic situation and historical complexity that shaped the Mixteca during the early
colonial period. Given the wealth of material goods that flooded the Mixtecan region
throughout the colonial period, it seems unlikely that the artist necessarily needed to copy
from imported printed materials in order to represent items of common use, sumptuous as
they were.7 Nevertheless, this view also is present in Maria Teresa Sepulveda’s similarly
short statement, wherein the artist’s great attention to sartorial detail “seems to be a copy
of the representations found in European engravings of the time, especially in the
stockings, the encomendero’s decorative knee pads, and in the heir’s turban (cap).”8
6 In his opinion, “Images o f a Spaniard wearing a turban, a friar writing at a desk, and native men sporting
European haircuts suggest the use o f models from European illustrated books and engraved images.”
Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” p. 32. This assertion supports Terraciano’s belief that the Mixteca was so
distant from the colonial center that luxury items did not reach it in meaningful numbers. In his words, “In
particular, [the Mixteca] was too far away from the commercial route that ran from the mining areas o f
north-central New Spain to Mexico City and from the capital to the Atlantic coast. The movement o f silver
and goods and the provision o f services along this trunkline did not reach southern Mexico in the colonial
period.” Ibid, p. 3.
Angles Romero Frizzi’s work stresses the economic, logistical, and socio-cultural complexities of
commerce in the Oaxacan Mixteca during two hundred years o f colonial rule. Moreover, the circulation o f
luxury items among the Spanish and Mixtec elites is fully acknowledged and documented in her work. See
Romero Frizzi, “Economia y vida.” Despite an earlier assertion to the contrary, Terraciano himself
recognizes the wealth o f trade items present in indigenous household inventories o f the Mixteca since the
early colonial enterprise as well the significant position o f luxury textiles in the patterns o f commercial
exchange and private consumption o f the region. Terraciano, “The Mixtecs,” pp. 202-203, 231-251. For a
similar pattern o f commercial exchange in a remote region o f Oaxaca, see John K. Chance, The Conquest
o f the Sierra: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Oaxaca. Norman: University o f Oklahoma Press, 1989.
8 “El pintor realize con gran detaile los rostros, actitudes, muebles e indumentaria de los personajes; esta
parece ser copia de las representaciones de grabados europeos de la epoca, sobre todo en las calzas,
131
These passages underscore the extent to which the mainstream of colonial art
historical practice has excluded the use of costume as an interpretative tool.
As a poorly investigated aspect of the images in the Codex Yanhuitlan—not
surprisingly, one whose answer inherently lies outside of the colonial encounter and,
more specifically, the native experience—the representation of clothing, and the
headwrap in particular, are believed to signify something other than viceregal socio
cultural identity as it was performed. Rather, such a complex representation of sartorial
display is explained minimally as the product of the artist’s resourcefulness.
Undoubtedly, the influx of European printed sources was greatly influential in the
development of New Spain’s artistic practices throughout the viceregal period and
especially during the sixteenth century.9 The possibility that European engravings served
as inspiration for the composition of the images of the Codex Yanhutlan, therefore, is
unquestionable. The undocumented presupposition of the “fact,” however, does not
acknowledge the richness of viceregal material culture or the dominant role of sumptuous
sartorial goods therein. Consequently, the discourse remains closed to the likelihood that
rodillera de traje del encomendero y el aparente turbante (gorra) del heredero.” Sepulveda y Herrera, “El
Lienzo,” p. 114.
9 Although the corpus on the subject o f the impact o f European models (including prints, painting, and
treatises) upon viceregal art is tremendously extensive, it has not been undertaken systematically. The
classic work on the subject is Manuel Romero de Terreros, Grabados y grabadores en laN ueva Espana.
Mexico: Ediciones Arte Mexicano, 1948. Other works that focus on the sixteenth century include, among
many others, Samuel Edgerton, Theaters o f Conversion. Religious Architecture and Indian Artisans in
Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque: University o f New Mexico Press, 2001; Elena I. Estrada de Gerlero, “Una
obra de plumaria de los talleres de San Jose de los Naturales” in A rte y coercion: Primer Coloquio del
Comite Mexicano de Historia del Arte. Mexico: UNAM, 1992, pp. 97-108; Maria Concepcion Garcia Saiz,
“La interpretation de los modelos europeos en las artes de tradition indigena” in Felipe I I y el arte de su
tiempo. Madrid: Fundacion Argentaria, 1998, pp. 293-303; Martin S. Soria, “Una nota sobre pintura
colonial y estampas europeas” in Anales del Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigacion.es Esteticas 5
(1952), pp. 41-51; Edward J. Sullivan, “European Painting and the Art o f the New World Colonies” in
Converging Cultures. A rt and Identity in Spanish America, ed. Diana Fane. New York: The Brooklyn
Museum, 1996, pp. 28-42; Manuel Toussaint, La pintura en Mexico durante el siglo XVI. Mexico: 1936;
Guillermo Tovar y de Teresa, Pintura y escultura del renacimiento en Mexico. Mexico: INAH, 1978.
132
the sartorial models quite literally “walked around” and, therefore, that real-life
display also must have provided a powerful model.
Perhaps the most inaccurate interpretation of Don Gonzalo’s headwrap is the one
offered by Florence and Robert Lister, the prominent archaeologists of colonial Mexico,
who used it as evidence of their theory of direct Muslim intervention in the establishment
of a ceramic industry in New Spain.10 Focusing strictly on the headwrap and overlooking
the encomendero’s identity, they concluded that, “such clothing indicates a lack of
prejudice among colonial Spaniards and they may have allowed the theoretically illegal
participation of moriscos in some aspects of overseas life, possibly including pottery.”11
Certainly, it is difficult to imagine that Don Gonzalo, the heir to the powerful encomienda
of Yanhuitlan, was represented as a foreign “other” in a document that highlights the
historical events that shaped the Mixteca as a productive Spanish colonial region. After
all, both encomenderos are represented wearing up-to-the-minute fashion trends and
utilizing clear sartorial signs as identifying marks of their legitimacy as Spanish
colonizers. Puzzling as it may seem, therefore, the use of the headwrap must fit into the
Codex’ visual construction of their identities. This use, in turn, derived from a greater
trend that remained in practice across the Iberian empire.
10 Throughout their work, the Listers advocate a direct connection between the ceramic tradition o f al-
Andalus and the first-hand involvement o f Moriscos in the establishment o f the craft in the New World.
Indeed, they fully embrace the possibility that not only “the fundamentals o f the transplanted craft were
Muslim, but the practitioners as well.” Robert and Florence Lister, Sixteenth-Century Maiolica Pottery in
the Valley o f Mexico. Tucson: The University o f Arizona Press, 1982, p. 89.
11 Lister and Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” p. 89.
133
In this chapter, I propose that the use of so-called Morisco clothing12 in New
Spain had little to do with the supposed physical presence of Muslims or with the
hypothetical use of printed sources as stylistic references (or guides of sartorial practices)
in remote colonial locations. Rather, this custom derived from the relationship between
the practice of sartorial display in sixteenth-century Spain and New Spain and the fact
that items of Morisco clothing were fully recognized components of the greater Iberian
visual language of the sixteenth century. While the use(s) and context(s) of Morisco
cloth and clothing undoubtedly were changing and had diminished considerably during
this time, specific garments that had been incorporated entirely into Northern Iberian
culture as early as the thirteenth century continued to be used well into the seventeenth
century throughout Spain and the colonies.13
Other items, such as the toca, also enjoyed a long life in public contexts, in
addition to their pervasive use in daily life, thanks to their continuous use in official
celebrations, such as festival reenactments of historic victories during the Christian
Conquest (more commonly, and somewhat generically, called “batallas de moros y
cristianos”) and of military engagements against the Ottoman Empire (or “fiestas del
Gran Turco”). These public celebrations had taken place across the Spanish world since
12 The nomenclature changes in the study o f costume. Interestingly, the literature on the subject refers to
Iberian “ethnic” clothing as Morisco costume, not as Mudejar. This may be a result o f the modem
historians’ appropriation o f its designation in the documentary sources as “vestidos de moros” or “de
moriscos.” The academic detachment o f “Morisco” clothing from Iberian bodies, irrespective o f religious
affiliations, reinforces the value of such designations. For the purpose o f this work, however, the term
“Morisco clothing” makes use o f the established nomenclature, problematic as it is, simply to designate
sartorial items o f Andalusi derivation still in use during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
13 Andalusi textiles and items o f clothing were fully integrated into the Northern Iberian sartorial repertoire
since early medieval times, not to mention in European clothing as a whole. See Feliciano, “Muslim
Shrouds.” See also, Ruth Matilda Anderson, Hispanic costume, 1480-1530. New York: Hispanic Society
o f America, 1979; Carmen Bemis Madrazo, Indumentaria medieval espanola. Madrid: CS1C, 1956; Jesusa
Alfau de Solalinde, Nomenclatura de los tejidos espanoles del siglo XIII. Madrid: Real Academia de la
Lengua, 1969. Reinhart P. Dozy, Dictionnaire detaille des noms des vetements chez les arabes.
Amsterdam: J. Muller, 1845.
134
the late medieval period, as important vehicles of regal display, and survive in lesser
numbers to this day in the form of popular festivals.14 During the same time, items of
Morisco clothing were used routinely as select components of courtly attire and as
theatrical apparel in jousting matches held to celebrate joyful occasions, such as
triumphal entries and royal births and marriages. Sartorial items commonly called
“Morisco,” therefore, oscillated between the realms of Iberian clothing (daily wear) and
costume (theatrical, performance-oriented), depending on the wearers, the circumstances

1^
and the intended audience.
On the surface, the seemingly inconsistent use of items of Morisco clothing veils
the Hapsburg state’s resolute effort to control a potentially disloyal minority by means of
restricting a long-standing pan-Iberian cultural practice. With this in mind, I situate the
interpretation of Morisco clothing within the historical context(s) of the process of
cultural reorientation that took place in Spain throughout the sixteenth century, as well as
within the reality of a new empire that simultaneously waged military and cultural
struggles in its own soil, in the Americas, and across the Mediterranean. The use of
carefully selected sartorial items often negotiated momentous episodes of conflict,
14 There is a sizeable corpus o f historical and ethnographic work on the subject. See, among many others,
Gisela Beutler, La historia de Fernando y Alamar: contribution al estudio de las danzas de moros y
cristianos en Puebla (Mexico). Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden, 1984; Josb Antonio Gonzalez
Alcantud and Marlene Albert-Llorca, M oros y cristianos: representaciones del otro en las fiestas del
Mediterrdneo occidental. Toulouse-Granada: Presses Universitaires du Mirail and Diputacion de Granada,
2003; Max Harris, Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals o f Reconquest in Mexico and Spain. Austin:
University o f Texas Press, 2000; Hector Abraham Pinto, Moros y cristianos en Chiquimula de la Sierra.
Guatemala: Departamento de Arte Folklorico Nacional, 1983.
15 Throughout this investigation, the employment o f the term “costume” refers particularly to its use in
specific theatrical contexts in the Iberian world, rather than generically to clothing in the context o f
traditional societies and ritual functions (the opposite o f “fashion,” which refers to the use o f clothing in
modernity). See Patricia Calefato, “Fashion and Worldliness: Language and the Imagery o f the Clothed
Body” in Fashion Theory 1:1 (1997), p. 70. The issue o f “clothing” and “costume” is also taken up in
Beatrix Bastl, “Clothing the Living and the Dead,” pp. 358-359 and Daniel Roche, The Culture o f
Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
135
subversion, control, and allegiance across the Spanish Empire. These, in turn, were
employed in equally significant arenas in Iberia and her territories. Recognizing the
specific use and meaning of Iberian clothing within these contexts allows for a nuanced
dissection of the changing, if deep-rooted, role of Morisco clothing in the greater Iberian
world. Acknowledged clearly as a component of the Iberian cultural experience of the
sixteenth century, spanning Atlantic and Mediterranean geographies— simultaneously
representing the subject of conquest and being used as the tools of colonization—the very
concept of otherness that the term “Morisco clothing” implies also opens for re
interpretation.
As is evident from the above-cited works on the Codex Yanhuitlan, there has been
no integration of the Morisco chapter of Iberian costume history into that of the early
colonial period. This separation not only made Morisco clothing exotic and removed it
from the mainstream of Iberian costume studies, but it also has had an impact on the
study of viceregal material culture. Far from suggesting that colonial clothing was a
direct inheritor of the Morisco clothing tradition, this chapter argues for an inclusion of
both sartorial practices into the greater Iberian costume history. Similarly, it explores its
use in each specific context, the Peninsular and the viceregal, in order to ascertain the
extent of its influence, but also that of its meanings across the Iberian world.
Recognizing the continuity of Morisco costume in the cultural life of Iberia is
especially useful to understand how some typologies of Morisco dress survived well into
the seventeenth century, and even traveled as tools of acculturation to Iberia’s colonial
territories, all the while articulating diverse significance and cultural value. The
endurance of Morisco clothing in Iberian society resulted from the facility with which
136
each cultural group adapted its forms and reformulated its meanings. From the
unambiguous message of “Castilian” identity projected by the use of Andalusi textiles in
courtly life and ritual in the medieval period to the use of Morisco items of clothing in the
Oaxacan Mixteca to signify Spanish-ness during the early colonial period, it seems clear
that Andalusi, and later Morisco items of clothing were conduits for the expression of
various Iberian cultural selves.
Yet, Morisco clothing also suffered a transformation in its use that originated
outside of its woven fabric, in Iberia’s sixteenth-century socio-cultural climate. Although
Morisco fashion had long ceased to mean otherness to Iberian consumers, outside of its
use as costume in public celebrations it had begun to fall into disuse or to be devalued as
clothing of lower-class and rural status. As discussed earlier, the place of Morisco dress
was changing quickly on account of the wealth of Northern and Western European cloth
and clothing that flooded Iberian cities across the empire. But the bleak socio-political
reality of the Morisco population during the sixteenth century also exerted great influence
over this stylistic development. The enduring materiality of Morisco cloth and its
shifting nature, then, faced the rapidly changing fate of the Morisco population in Spain
and coincided with the burgeoning period of the Viceroyalty of New Spain.
Consequently, the enforcement of anti-Morisco sumptuary laws at the same time that
select items of Morisco clothing were employed in Iberian cultural displays in New Spain
must be situated within the greater Hapsburg state-making enterprise of the sixteenth
century. As an effort in an agenda of forced assimilation, the imposition by means of
sumptuary legislation of a Spanish Catholic lifestyle on the Morisco population is
diametrically opposed to the use of sumptuary restrictions in the American territories.
137
Although Amerindians also were expected to follow Catholic lifestyles and
rituals since the onset of the colonizing process, they were nonetheless barred from
wearing European items of clothing, especially costly ones, except by direct royal
appointment. The seemingly contradictory (but synchronized) royal policies of cultural
exclusion towards the indigenous populations and of assimilation towards the Morisco
minority had roots beyond the obvious perceived threat that each ethnic minority posed to
the imperial effort. These procedures also stemmed from the realities and needs of each
discrete context, the Peninsular and the viceregal. On one hand, the Hapsburg monarchy
deemed the Moriscos to be a liability to the safety of its empire. As detailed in Chapter 1,
their purported refusal to assimilate to the Spanish Catholic mainstream and their
suspected loyalty to the menacing Ottoman Empire and Maghrebi pirates were hotly
debated issues among the political class throughout the century.16 On the other hand, the
Amerindian population was a distinct majority in the American territories. The Iberian
settlers’ necessity to impose and legitimize their rule by means of exclusivity and
restricted access to socio-cultural signifiers responds to a larger strategy of colonial
submission.17 The direct efforts to control the exploitation of sartorial signs, or to situate
16 See, for example, Louis Cardaillac, “Morisques et turcs au XVI siecle” in Actes du I Congres
International d ’Histoire Maghrebine. Zaguan: Fondation Temimi, 1974; J. Deny, “Les pseudo-propheties
concemant les turcs au XVI siecle” in Revue des Etudes Islamiques, X (1936), pp. 201-220; S. Garcia
Martinez, “Bandolerismo, piraterla y control de moriscos en Valencia durante el reinado de Felipe II in
Estudis, I (1972), pp.; Hess, “The Moriscos”; Monroe, “A Curious Morisco Appeal”; Joan Regia
Campistol, “La cuestion morisca y la coyuntura intemacional en tiempos de Felipe II” in Estudios de
Historia M oderna (1953), pp. 217-234.
17 This included the physical removal o f indigenous communities from the re-drawn city centers, the
segregation o f indigenous communities in the hinterlands and rural areas (the reducciones de indios, also
known as congregaciones) as well as sumptuary and dietary restrictions (especially regulated was the
native consumption o f alcohol) among many others. For a general introduction to Iberian colonial
institutions, see Charles Gibson, Spain in America. New York: Haper Row, 1966. See also James
Lockhart, The Nahuas after the Conquest. A Social and Cultural History o f the Indians o f Central Mexico
Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994. In addition, see Magnus
Momer and Charles Gibson, “Diego Munoz Camargo and Segregation Policy o f the Spanish Crown” in
138
it upon the arm of the state according to a hegemonic agenda, reveals the
government’s explicit recognition of the efficacy and risks inherent in the use of sartorial
symbols in the nation-building process. The requirements of the Iberian socio-political
experience of the sixteenth century framed the use and meaning of costume in the
articulation of identities during the height of Iberia’s empire-building period.
As a result of this historical, geographic, and cultural interrelation, this chapter
unavoidably combines two narratives, that of the history of Morisco clothing during the
sixteenth century in Spain and that of the place of Morisco clothing within the sartorial
repertoire of the early colonial period in New Spain. The first half serves as a necessary
introduction to the history of sixteenth-century cloth and clothing in the Iberian
Peninsula, providing much-needed historical perspective on the process of transference of
sartorial information to the New World. It addresses the changing use and meaning(s) of
Morisco costume through an in-depth analysis of the role of the government and the Holy
Office in the establishment and enforcement of sumptuary legislations against the
Morisco population until the expulsion of the early seventeenth century.
Although the struggle to control Morisco clothing was a hotly debated subject
throughout the period, both among the legislators and the leaders of the Morisco
communities, modem scholarship generally has treated the issue as secondary to the
seemingly greater and more pressing problems that the Moriscos faced during more than
a hundred years after the fall of Granada.18 Only the work of Rachel Arie has
Hispanic American Historical Review 42 (1962), pp. 558-568; Walter Mignolo writes on the “colonization
o f the voice” in his chapter “Nebrija in the New World” in The Darker Side o f the Renaissance. Literacy,
Territoriality, and Colonization. Ann Arbor: University o f Michigan Press, 1995, pp. 29-69.
18 The bulk o f the rich production o f historical, literary and political works on the subject focus on the
impact o f Inquisitorial activity upon the Moriscos’ socio-cultural and religious lives, the curtailment o f civil
139
consistently addressed the issue of Morisco dress in relation to the structure and
transformation of the social life and customs of the members of the minority, albeit in
strictly descriptive terms.19 Juan Martinez Ruiz’s attention to the lexicographic richness
of Morisco testamentary practices (making detailed use of the wealth of archival evidence
in the Archivo de la Alhambra) does in fact “open the door to the Morisco home.”20 Yet,
his main objective, the development of a Morisco lexicon, while tremendously
informative, stops short of providing socio-cultural insight as to how Moriscos lived and
• 91
made use of visual symbols. For its part, the historiography of Spanish costume has
shown only a passing interest in Morisco dress, assessing its relevance solely in relation
to its function as a source of inspiration for “traditional” Spanish dress (that is, Castilian
Catholic). 22 Furthermore, the strict opposition of Morisco versus Spanish/Castilian

•
liberties, such as the Moriscos’ right to bear arms, their inability to move freely throughout the Peninsula
and the conditions and repercussions o f their expulsion, among many others. For a thorough bibliographic
and historiographical overview o f the major themes in Morisco studies, see Miguel Angel Ladero Quesada,
Los Moriscos en elpensam iento historico: Historiografia de un grupo marginado. Madrid: Catedra, 1983;
and Jose Maria Perceval, Todos son uno. Arquetipos, xenofobiay racismo. La imagen del morisco en la
Monarqula Espahola durante los siglos X V I y XVII. Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1997.
19 See Rachel Arie, “Acerca del traje musulman en Espafla desde la caida de Granada hasta la expulsion de
los moriscos” in Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islamicos de Madrid, XIII (1965-66), pp. 103-118;
“Quelques remarques sur le costume des musulmans d’Espagne au temps des Nasrides” in Arabica, XII
(1965), pp. 244-261; “Le costume des musulmans de Castille au XHIe siecle d’apres les miniatures du
Libro del A jedrez" in Melanges de la Casa de Velazquez, 2 (1966), pp. 59-66; Etudes sur la civilization de
I'Espagne musulmane. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990.
20 Juan Martinez Ruiz, Inventarios de bienes Moriscos del Reino de Granada (siglo XVI). Linguisticay
civilizacion. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 1972, p. 8. Martinez Ruiz’ work is
closely followed by that o f Joaquina Albarracin Navarro, who also shares a deep philological interest in the
historical documentation o f the Moriscos. See, for example, Joaquina Albarracin Navarro, “Nueve cartas
moriscas de dote y arras de Vera (Almeria) (1548-1551) in A ct as del Congreso “La Frontera Oriental
Nazar I como Sujeto Historico (s. XIII-XVI). Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses y Diputacion de
Almeria, 1997, pp. 517-528.
21 This is not to say that his linguistic interest lacked meaningful historical application. His comparative
work, for instance, was influential in the reinterpretation o f Gines Perez de Hita’s “fabricated” descriptions
o f Morisco costume as, indeed, accurate descriptions o f the Moriscos’ cultural practices. See Juan Martinez
Ruiz, “La indumentaria de los moriscos segun Perez de Hita y los documentos de La Alhambra,” in
Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 3 (1967), pp. 55-124.
22 The work o f Carmen Bemis Madrazo exemplifies this approach. Her description o f the hybrid nature o f
fifteenth and sixteenth- century Spanish dress acknowledges the influence o f Andalusi styles, but its
analysis is absent from her important contributions to the study o f Iberian costume. Her focus on
140
clothing has not permitted the development of a critical awareness of an interwoven
Iberian sartorial repertory. Instead, the phenomenon is reduced to provide evidence of
Castilian “maurophilia,” or the taste for the “exotic,” and the consequent appropriation of
“Oriental luxury.”23
Owing to the marginal treatment of Morisco costume by modem scholarship, this
analysis underscores the currency of the issue throughout the sixteenth century by delving
into the role of power structures in the enforcement of anti-Morisco sumptuary laws and
the motivations of the Moriscos’ continued resistance against them. It explores the
imposition of cultural behavior as a system of forced assimilation in the state-making
agenda of the Hapsburg Monarchy, as well as the tools of negotiation of social freedom
amongst conquered and conqueror in order to highlight their hegemonic meaning.
The resulting disintegration of the remaining links of the Morisco population to its
cultural life, or the inability to prolong already reduced cultural practices, is fundamental
to understand the position of Morisco clothing in its colonial context. Furthermore, the
dire socio-cultural situation of the Moriscos and its relationship to costume expands the
issue of the transference of sartorial items of Andalusi origin in two new directions; it
“European” clothing forced her to “leave aside the dress o f Moors and Jews.” Carmen Bemis Madrazo,
Indumentaria Medieval Espahola, Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez, 1959, p. 36; See also Indumentaria
espahola en tiempo de Carlos V. Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez, 1962; and Trajesy modas en la
Espaha de los Reyes Catolicos, Vol. I-II, Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez, 1979. Like Bemis Madrazo’s
contributions, Ruth Anderson’s work shies away from critical analysis. Its careful presentation o f the
visual evidence is thus limited by a fundamentally descriptive methodology. See Ruth Mathilda Anderson,
Hispanic Costume, 1480-1530. New York: Hispanic Society o f America, 1979.
2j In an otherwise helpful article (also chiefly concerned with the formal and lexicographic presentation o f
items o f Morisco costume), Bemis Madrazo begins her work by citing Menendez Pidal’s belief in the
“exotic” quality o f Hispano-Muslim culture for the Castilian victors as her motivation to undertake the
study o f Morisco costume. Citing Menendez Pidal in Espaha y su historia, Bemis Madrazo lays the ground
for her investigation as follows, “aquel lujo oriental en el vestuario, aquella esplendida omamentacion de
los edificios, aquella extrana manera de vida... la maurofilia, en fin, se hizo moda.” From the onset, then,
the author sees the two sartorial traditions as separate and— more problematically— “strange” to one
another. See Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “Modas moriscas de la sociedad cristiana espanola del siglo XV y
principios del XVI” in Boletln de la Real Academia de la Historia 144 (1959), p. 199.
141
emphasizes the inherent Iberian significance of those typologies still current in
Iberian life during the sixteenth century, while it also highlights the need to look within
specific Iberian contexts to arrive at the meaning behind the use of widely-disseminated
items laden with seemingly incompatible significance, such as the toca, or headwrap. For
both Peninsular and colonial societies, the relationship between social and sartorial
practices demonstrates that, indeed, the symbolic space through which items of clothing
traveled had a direct link to both fixed patterns of use and the performance of public
rituals. Moreover, it also shows a distinct connection between items of Morisco clothing,
the bodies of the wearers, their social value, and the meanings projected by the display.
The second half of this narrative, then, explores the role of items of Morisco
clothing in their early-colonial context and focuses on their use as signifiers of Iberian
identity, as well as on their use as tools of its performance in New Spain. This dual
examination also situates the role of Morisco clothing in the discourse on colonial luxury
discussed in Chapter 2. In the role of products of the Iberian conquest culture—in form
as well as in function—the cultural information that items of Morisco fashion conveyed
was instantly recognizable by members of viceregal society in their role as Iberian
cultural signifiers, not as visual evidence of socio-religious difference. As in the Iberian
Peninsula, not all “Morisco” clothing stood to project the same meaning (otherness) or
was employed in the same manner.
The historical documentation of the early colonial period in New Spain, for
instance, indicates that pieces such as jubones (doublets) were ubiquitous items of
clothing across social classes and geographies, while others, such as the zaragiielles,
142
survived largely among the rural or urban poor populations.24 Following Bernal Diaz
del Castillo’s narrative of the arrival of Heman Cortes in the Yucatan, for example, we
learn that the first welcoming gesture towards Jeronimo de Aguilar was to find him
suitable attire. Cortes’ crew had found Aguilar, who had survived a shipwreck eight
years earlier, wearing the clothes of the Maya community that took him in as a slave.25
Upon identifying him as a “Spaniard” Cortes “ordered to give him a shirt and a doublet,
pants {zaragiielles), a pointed cap (caperuza), and canvas shoes (alpargatas), because
there were no other available items of clothing.”26 This episode, which constitutes a
simple, but fascinating ritual of cultural re-investiture, as it were, was facilitated by the
most basic, if not humble, of Iberian sartorial items. Although there was nothing lavish
for Aguilar to wear, he was welcomed officially as a “Spaniard” by virtue of the newly
bestowed outward signs of appearance.
The ordinary nature of the camisa-jubon-zaraguelles combination is further
illustrated in Diego Munoz Camargo’s (1529-1599) representation of the early
missionary process in the Description de la Ciudad y Provincia de Tlaxcala (ca. 1585,
24 Covarrubias defines aljuba orjubon as a “genero de vestiduras moriscas.” See Covarrubias, “Tesoro,” p.
66. Dozy, on the other hand, expands the scope o f its use. The term, derived from the Arabic was used
interchangeably with the word marlota to designate a long robe widely used throughout the Islamic world
and Europe. See Dozy, “Dictionnaire,” pp. 113-114. Brian Reade alludes to the ubiquitous presence o f the
jub o n in the Iberian wardrobe in The Dominance o f Spain, 1550-1600. London: George G. Harrap, 1951,
p. 10. Zaragiielles were long and pleated pants worn by men and women over the aljubas. From the Arabic
J ju,_ See Dozy, “Dictionnaire,” pp. 203-209. It seems that, in time, the term also became a
generic designation for long pants.
25 This, o f course, is one o f Diaz del Castillo’s most famous passages. The chronicler describes Aguilar’s
appearance as follows, “porque el Aguilar ni mas ni menos era que indio.” Bernal Diaz del Castillo,
Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espaha (1568). Introduction y notas de Luis Sainz de
Medrano. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1992, p. 78.
26 “Y luego le mando dar de vestir camisa e jubon, e zaraguelles, e caperuza, e alpargates, que otros
vestidos no habia...” Diaz del Castillo, “Historia verdadera,” p. 79. Interestingly, this account is preceded
by a passage reminiscent o f Cervantes’ “The Captive’s Tale.” Because Aguilar had arrived with a group o f
Mayans, suntanned and dressed in Maya clothes, and because he had remained silent upon encountering
Cortes, confusion ensued. “Pues desque Cortes lo vio de aquella manera, tambidn pico como los demas
soldados y pregunto al Tapia que que era del espanol. Y el espafiol como lo entendio, se puso en cuclillas,
como hacen los indios, e dijo: “Yo soy.” Ibid, p. 78.
143
also known as the Relation Geogrdfica de Tlaxcala,). In the plate entitled On how
the natives took on robes, shirts, doublets and pants like they still use today, and how
they cut their hair like we do, at the behest o f the friars, [Fig. 11] briefly discussed in
Chapter 2, these unsophisticated items of Iberian clothing are not only symbolic of
religious conversion, a topic that will be undertaken later in this chapter, but also are
directly associated with New Spain’s rural population. Archival documentation suggests
that New Spain’s urban poor and working class made use of the same basic items of
clothing. As late as 1604, for instance, the carpenter Diego Calbo agreed to take on a
Francisco, a young apprentice, into his Mexico City workshop for the duration of four
years. The contract stipulated that the master carpenter was to provide the young man
with “a wardrobe of local cloth, comprised of pants, underwear, a short cape, stalkings,
shoes, a hat, two shirts, and doublet.”
Munoz Camargo’s illustrations, in turn, recall Christoph Weiditz’ depictions of
the Moriscos of Granada in his famous Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz von
7o
seine Reisen nach Spanien (1529) und den Niederlanden (1531-1532). While Weiditz’
travel account, presented in the form of a costume book, offers a foreign traveler’s
perspective on the sartorial practices of the Iberian Peninsula, Das Trachtenbuch includes
eleven illustrations devoted to the sartorial repertoire of the Granadan Moriscos. A
canonical set of images in the study of Morisco costume, Weiditz’ depictions typically
27 “dalle im bestido de pafto de la tierra de cal?on, ropilla y herreraelo, raedias, capatos y un sombrero y dos
camisas y un jubon” Carta de contrato (1604). Archivo Historico de Notarlas de la Ciudad de Mexico,
Not. 3, Vol. 6, f. 14v.
28 The original manuscript is housed in the German National Museum, Nuremberg. Throughout this
discussion I will refer to the following facscimilar edition: Christoph Weiditz, Authentic Everyday Dress o f
the Renaissance. A ll 154 Plates the “Trachtenbuch ” (1927), ed. Theodor Hampe. New York: Dover
Publications, 1994.
144
7Q
are used to illustrate different and unique aspects of Morisco clothing. Here,
however, I would like to stress its pan-Iberian dimensions. In the images entitled Morisco
Dance [Fig. 15] and Morisco Traveling with Wife and Child in the Kingdom o f Granada
[Fig. 16], for instance, the only “exotic” elements are those provided by female
clothing.30 Above all the large veil, the ample marlota covering and equally wide jubon,
and the particular manner in which Moriscas wrapped the zaragiielles thickly around
their legs, speak specifically and undeniably of Andalusi tenets of feminine modesty. But
male clothing recalls the information provided by Diaz del Castillo and Munoz Camargo.
The Moriscos are shown wearing jubones, capas, and alpargatas. Coincidentally, the
violin player in the Morisco Dance is shown wearing a caperuza, or conical hat, similar
to the head adornment that Aguilar received from Cortes. The fact that Weiditz
represented the Moriscos wearing calzas, rather than long pants, or zaragiielles, further
supports the notion that what the artist saw and portrayed as “Morisco” was defined
O T
almost exclusively by the body (or the ethnicity) of the wearers.
Ultimately, the fine quality of the textiles out of which common items of clothing,
such as jubones, were fashioned, in addition to the level of refinement of the tailoring and
the adornments, dictated the degree of sumptuousness of such ubiquitous garments.
29 A perfunctory presentation o f Weiditz’ Morisco section in Das Trachtenbuch is common to all the major
works on the subject o f Morisco dress. Similarly, these images are found regularly in historical and literary
studies that focus on the Morisco period. Yet, a detailed study o f Weiditz’ travels in Spain is sorely needed,
especially as it concerns his “anthropological” and artistic eye and, thus, the creation of the Trachtenbuch.
30 Barrios Aguilera offers a succinct, but informative, study of the male and female images in Das
Trachtenbuch in relation to the levels o f Morisco cultural assimilation across gender lines. See Barrios
Aguilera, “Religiosidad y vida cotidiana de los moriscos” in “Historia del Reino de Granada,” pp. 407-411.
31 To date, Christoph Weiditz’ pioneering and influential work has not been undertaken in detail. It falls
beyond the scope o f this work to expound on the Trachtenbuch’s almost ethnographic character, or even to
position the Morisco plates in relation to the greater context o f the book itself or to the artist’s agenda and
motivations.
145
Figure 15
Morisco Dance. Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz von seine Reisen nach Spanien
(1529) und den Niederlanden (1531-1532)
Figure 16
Morisco Traveling with Wife and Child in the Kingdom of Granada. Das Trachtenbuch des
Christoph Weiditz von seine Reisen nach Spanien (1529) u n d den Niederlanden (1531-1532).
On the other hand, other items of clothing, because of their long association with power
elites, maintained their exclusivity and their sphere of influence. The headwrap, in its
widespread use by the influential class across Iberia, and in its direct connection with
public performances, was one of them. Evidence of the pervasiveness of the head wrap
146
across the Iberian cultural map is the extensive vocabulary used to identify its use,
and quite possibly its appearance, across social groups. The generic term toca, so
commonly found in Peninsular and colonial documentation of the sixteenth century,
Identified the same items of clothing, as did the terms alfilem, ahareme, alfareme,
almalafa, and almaizar found in the Morisco historical documentation.32 Strips of cloth
of different qualities commonly adorned the heads of Iberian men and women, without
exotic connotations.33 Whether in the role of clothing or costume, Morisco items also
had a definite place in the sartorial practice of the early viceregal period. Their value as
effective transmitters of Spanish cultural information responded to the needs of the
greater Iberian colonial project and, in the role of Iberian social symbols, played a
significant role in the development of New Spain’s visual language.
Throughout the sixteenth century, the place of Morisco costume in the sartorial
tradition of the Iberian Peninsula was attached precariously and, to a great extent,
awkwardly to the tradition of use and manipulation of Andalusi items of clothing across
social strata and cultural groups, as well as to the customs and the bodies of the members
of the Morisco minority. As a result, inconsistencies in royal sartorial practices, changing
social attitudes, and state-wide anti-Morisco legislations punctuated the history of
32 Other terms included farha, minjafo, algaxabra, m arxaf and malafa. The great amount o f hispanized
terms stems from the use o f at least three Arabic roots to designate a head wrap: tiL J j . Ibid, pp.
45-46, 401-403,419. O f alharemes, almaizares and tocas de camino, Carmen Bemis Madrazo writes,
“estas tocas solian llevarse envolviendo un rollo que se encajaba en la cabeza; una de las puntas colgaba o
cruzaba el cuello, y servia para cubrir el rostro.” See Carmen Bemis Madrazo, Trajesy modas en la
Espaha de los Reyes Catolicos. Las mujeres. Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez, 1978, p. 17. See also
Ibidem, Modas Moriscas, pp. 203-211; Joaquina Albarracin Navarro, “Nueve Cartas,” pp. 521, 522, 524;
Juan Martinez Ruiz, “Inventarios”; Covarrubias defines the toca as, “El velo de la cabeza de la mujer. ..En
algunas partes de Espana no traen los hombres caperuzas ni sombreros, y usan de unas tocas revueltas en la
cabeza...Los moros usan las tocas encima de los bonetillos; y estas algunas veces son de sedas de colores,
como almaizares.” Covarrubias, “Tesoro,” p. 923.
33 Bemis Madrazo notes the almost “national” character o f the head wrap in Iberia, “Entre los espanoles,
por el contrario, estas tocas no tenian caracter exotico; casi podemos decir que llegaron a ser un tocado
nacional.” Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “Modas Moriscas,” p. 203.
147
Morisco costume. Paradoxically, while the state’s interest in the disintegration of
Morisco cultural structures was evident, the crown and the nobility continued to use the
luxurious textiles and items of clothing that modem scholarship has come to associate
with the legacy of Iberian Islam, but that for centuries had been closely associated with
the sartorial tradition of Iberia’s “three cultures.” Nonetheless, textual and visual
evidence indicates that, indeed, legislations against Morisco dress were often at odds with
royal taste.
Inquisition records and historical sources also suggest that a strong economic
interest in the dissolution of Morisco capital, both in fiscal and strategic terms, was an
important factor behind the issuance of sumptuary legislations.34 No doubt, the
motivations to legislate against Morisco clothing were complex at best, fitting perfectly
with a mounting and state-sanctioned project of cultural erasure. Still, the sixteenth
century witnessed great confusion, experimentation and debate regarding the socio
cultural (not to mention religious) fate of the Morisco population throughout the Iberian
Peninsula. As a visual means to assert and maintain the identity of a beleaguered
minority, perceptions of Morisco clothing played an important part in the debates
Indeed, sumptuary legislations aided to control the M oriscos’ access to luxury and to curve the prosperity
o f the merchant class, which relied on the production o f “illegal” cloth and clothing for their economic
success. However, in carrying out anti-Morisco activities in general, the arm o f the Holy Office reached
deeply into Morisco pockets in a methodical effort to dissolve their economic, and hence lobbying, power.
The story o f the prominent and prosperous Qafar family from Huesca illustrates this point. See, Anchel
Conte Cazcarro, “La decadencia de la aristocracia morisca: El caso de los (Jafar de Huesca,” in Sharq al-
Andalus 14-15 (1997-98), pp. 177-199. As late as 1611, moreover, the goods left in the Peninsula by the
expelled Moriscos were still used to pay Imperial expenses. In a document dated July 1611, Melchor de
Prado, appointed overseer o f the Morisco section o f the Sevillian treasury, was instructed to use “el dinero
sacado de los bienes de moriscos para pagar diversas cosas, como gastos de artilleros, herreros, etc. del
Presidio/Fortaleza de Alarache.” El Jurado Melchor de Prado, Receptor del area de llaves, y del dinero
procedido de la hazienda que dejar on los moriscos quando su expulsion de estas provincias, AGI,
Contratacion, 4553, Num. 1, fs. lr-9v. See also Henry Kamen, “Confiscations in the Economy o f the
Spanish Inquisition” in The Economic History Review, New Series, 18:3 (1965), pp. 511-525.
148
regarding the true nature, and ultimately the fate of Moriscos as subjects of the
Hapsburg state, as well as in the planned process of assimilation itself.
Although the history of sumptuary legislations against religious minorities was
not new to the sixteenth century, the crown’s strong position concerning the Moriscos as
a socio-cultural problem did effect a drastic turnaround in their use and function during
this period. Not coincidentally, when Alfonso X issued sumptuary legislations against
Muslims and Jews before the Cortes de Sevilla in 1252, the Northern Iberian kingdoms
had already embarked on a successful and systematic campaign of conquest and
colonization of Andalusi territory, especially of its most emblematic cities.35
Fundamental to this early process of empire building, Alfonso X ’s legislation was aimed
towards the control, not the assimilation (through religious conversion or cultural
imposition), of the Mudejar population.36 Unquestionably, such a segregationist
mentality hinged on the establishment of socio-cultural differences. This approach
permeated the legislative agendas of Iberian monarchs until the beginning of the sixteenth
century. Throughout this period, the pursuit of a unified state by means of an imperial
quest to achieve religious purity unleashed an increasingly unyielding project of
acculturation that, in turn, led to the intensification of xenophobic sentiment among the
conquering population and culminated In the expulsion of 1609. In this socio-cultural
35 After issuing these sumptuary legislations before the Cortes de Sevilla, Alfonso X reissued them in 1258
before the Cortes de Valladolid, and again in 1268 before the Cortes de Jerez. See Gonzalez Arce,
“Apariencia y poder,” pp. 171-173. For a detailed account o f the military conquests o f the thirteenth
century, see Joseph F. O’Callaghan, A History o f Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975,
pp. 333-381.
36 Gonzalez Arce argues convincingly that sumptuary legislations, as put forth by Alfonso X and repeatedly
amended until the fifteenth century, implemented a system o f social control, however effective, by way o f
standardizing outward signs o f ethnicity and religious creed throughout the late medieval period. See
Gonzdlez Arce, “Apariencia y poder,” pp. 170-178.
149
' landscape, the Moriscos’ perceived dangerous adhesion to Islamic customs became a
central subject of persistent deliberation.
The debates on the condition and control of the Morisco population began at the
turn of the sixteenth century, soon after the conquest of the city of Granada, prompting
one of the most dramatic, if not life-altering, episodes in the history of the Hispano-
Muslim population, the forced conversions of the Castilian Mudejares of 1500-1501. As
early as 1514, in an open statement of dissent with anti-Morisco statutes, Inigo Lopez de
Mendoza, the Count of Tendilla, condemned an early attempt to ban Morisco dress. He
connected the histories of “Morisco” and “Spanish” clothing in a direct appeal to the
king, asking, “What clothing did we use to wear in Spain until the coming of King Henry
the Bastard, how did we wear our hair... ? Did the Kings cease to be Saints because of
this?” In this manner, the Count of Tendilla acknowledged the Castilian regal use of
Andalusi textiles at court, at church and in public ceremonial since the medieval period.
As the patriarch of one of Spain’s most influential noble families, and certainly the most
closely tied to the Morisco population, his observation also spoke directly (or at least
struck very closely) to the crown’s contemporary practices.38
’’Henry Kamen, Spain 1469-1714: A Society o f Conflict. Essex: Longman Group Limited, 1983, p. 220.
■
38 Helen Nader suggests that the root o f Tendilla’s tolerant attitude towards Morisco cultural practices lay
not only in the long-standing tradition of the Mendoza family, but also in his antagonistic relationship with
the increasingly powerful Cardinal Jimenez de Cisneros. In her words, “The hostility between Tendilla and
Cisneros on this issue had existed since the uprising o f the Albaicin in 1499. By 1514, it had become a
battle to see who could control the decisions o f the Consejo Real, the city council o f Granada, and the
nobility o f Andalucia.” See Helen Nader, The M endoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance, 1350-1550.
New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979, p. 46. On the subject o f the Mendozas, see also “The
World o f the Mendozas” in Power and Gender in Renaissance Spain, ed. Helen Nader. Chicago:
University o f Illinois Press, 2003; Juan Manuel Martin Garcia, Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, el Conde de
Tendilla. Granada: Editorial Comares, 2003; Emilio Meneses, Correspondencia del Conde De Tendilla
(1508-1513). Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, 1973; Jose Szmolka, Epistolario del Conde de Tendilla
(1504-1606), Vols. 1-2. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1986.
150
Given the monarchy’s interest in establishing “Catholic” socio-religious
practices across the realm, courtly ritual since the time of the Catholic Kings (the first
Iberian monarchs to distrust the place of the Moriscos’ socio-cultural life in the Iberian
Imperial strategy) seems incompatible with the controversial anti-Morisco legislations.
Items of daily wear labeled “Morisco” were commonplace in Gonzalo de Baeza’s
inventory of Queen Isabella’s wardrobe, for instance. In addition to the presence of
items of Morisco clothing in the monarchs’ private lives,40 the royals also made
ceremonial use of the same sartorial items in the public realm. In 1502, for instance,
Ferdinand and Archduke Philip set out to commemorate the fall of Toledo dressed “in the
Moorish style with turbans on their heads,” their long garments worked in embroidery “a
la morisca.” Each participant had also a red cloak and a great scimitar.” 41 Similarly, in
1527, Charles V celebrated the birth of his son Philip with a customary juego de canas, or
reed-spear throwing contest. Although the monarch’s policy towards the preservation of
Morisco traditions was intolerant (if irresolute, as will be discussed later), for the festivity
in Valladolid the riders wore yellow and brown velvet marlotas, or short capes of
Andalusi derivation.42 Throughout the sixteenth century, public courtly display made use
39 Gonzalo de Baeza, Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza, tesorero de Isabel la Catolica, ed. Antonio de la Torre
and E.A. de la Torre. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Patronato Marcelino
Menendez Pelayo, 1955.
40 Charles V ’s wardrobe, as inventoried upon his death in Yuste, shows a fair share o f items o f Morisco
clothing. Among them, zaragiielles and jubones, and even Tunisian sumptuous goods such as fine leather
goods and an albornoz (a hooded cape designed for ease o f riding. Among the Christian elites, albornoces
were adopted as sumptuous items o f clothing). See Vicente de Cadenas y Vi cent, Hacienda de Carlos V al
fallecer en Yuste. Madrid: CSIC/Hidalguia, 1985. For a detailed description o f the uses o f the albornoz at
the turn o f the century, see Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “Trajes y Modas,” pp. 54-55. See also Covarrubias y
Orozco, “Tesoro,” pp. 44-45. For the use o f the albornoz across the Mediterranean world, and specially in
al-Andalus, see in R. Dozy, “Dictionnaire,” pp. 73-80.
41 See Ruth M. Anderson, Hispanic Costume 1480-1530. New York: The Hispanic Society o f America,
1979, p. 15.
42 Ibid, p. 27. Charles V ’s Imperial Ambassador described the festivities as follows, “tourneys and ventures
like those described in the Amadis, but far more daring and accomplished than those in the book, so that
151
of the Morisco sartorial tradition, both in the use of costume and in the enjoyment of
Andalusi-derived leisurely activities (such as the juego de caiias).
Of course, by mid century, this manner of royal entertainment was already wholly
Iberian in character. Juan Cristobal Calvete de Estrella’s accounts of Philip IPs travels
through Italy, Germany, and the Low Countries in 1548 include revealing comparative
information pertaining to pan-European practices of courtly life and entertainment.43 In
his chronicle, the juego de canas emerges as a distinctly Iberian pastime. In fact,
Morisco costume plays a central role in defining the Iberian-ness of these scrimmages.
Calvete de Estrella recounts the details of the juego de canas that took place to close the
festivities of the Prince’s entrance in Milan. On the day of the Epiphany, the Milanese
aristocracy turned en masse to witness this foreign display,
The juego de canas, which was held in the palace courtyard on the day of
the Feast of the Epiphany, was ideal to close the festival. It was extremely
well received. Princess Molfeta and her daughter were especially pleased,
as were all the ladies, because this festival was new and seldom seen in
that land.44
The chronicler’s attention to the details of costume is, indeed, as meticulous as his
attention to the list of noble participants, which included personalities such as the
neither before nor since had such celebrations been held.” As cited by Henry Kamen, Philip o f Spain. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1998, p. 2. Dozy traced the origin o f the Spanish word marlota to the
Arabic a wide robe also commonly called aljuba, or though he also stressed the Coptic origin o f
the word. Covarrubias identified it as a “vestido de xnoros, a modo de sayo vaquero; bien consta ser
arabigo, que en su propia term ination se dice melutatum del verbo leveta, que significa apretarse, porque
cine al cuerpo; y asi marlota esta corrompido de meluta.” See Dozy, “Dictionnaire,” p. 412-13; and
Covarrubias Orozco, “Tesoro,” p. 738.
43 Juan Christoval Calvete de Estrella, El felicissim o viaje del muy alto y muy poderoso Principe don
Phelippe (1552), ed. Paloma Cuenca. Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoracibn de los Centenarios
de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001.
44 “Estava aparejado para remate de las fiestas un juego de canas, el qual se hizo en el patio de
palacio el dia y fiesta de los Reyes. Fue cosa que en estremo parecio bien. Diose gran
contentamiento con esto a la Princesa de Molfeta y a su hija, y a todas aquellas senoras y dam as,
por ser fiesta nueva y que pocas vezes se vee en aquella tierra.” Calvete de Estrella, “Felicissimo
viaje,” p. 75.
152
Admiral of Castile, the Count of Olivares, and the Count of Luna. The Prince and the
Duke of Alva witnessed the event, also gallantly dressed, from the balcony of the Duke’s
private quarters. Calvete de Estrella observed,
. ..and thus they arranged themselves in one area of the field to allow the
knights, who were richly adorned and dressed a la morisca, to enter riding
beautiful Spanish horses richly adorned with ribbons and pectorals. Two
by two they began to race with shields and lances with multicolored flags,
all with great ease and order.45
The six teams (each consisting of eight knights) wore marlotas of different colors (white
and red, blue and gold, yellow, yellow and black, yellow velvet and gold, red velvet and
gold). Over the riding coats, they wore matching capellares, or Morisco-style capes that
were traditionally paired with marlotas in the juegos de canas.46 But, uniformly, all the
riders wore a distinctive white head wrap “in the Morisco style.”47 That the capellar was
used by appointment of the king (“por librea”) and in direct connection to the use of the
marlota, as Covarrubias indicates, suggests the theatrical nature of the use of Morisco
costume in the juego de canas. In relation to the white tocas, the almost exclusive
participation of Iberian noblemen in the display, and the two-team scrimmage that
45 “Y luego se pusieron a una parte del patio para dar entrada a los cavalleros, los quales con muchos y muy
ricos aderezos, a la morisca vestidos y en muy hermosos cavallos espanoles a la gineta con ricos jaezes y
petrales entraron en la carrera de dos en dos con adargas y lanâs con vanderetas de colores en las manos
con mucha ligereza y concierto.” My italics. Ibid, p. 76.
46 Covarrubias describes the capellar as “la cubierta a la morisca, que sacan en los juegos de canas por
librea, de marlota y capellar.” Covarrubias Orozco, “Tesoro,” p. 263. Although Dozy defines the capellar
as a hooded cloak, it remains unclear whether the term or P a was used to designate only the hood or
the hooded cloak. See Dozy, “Dictionnaire,” pp. 349-351.
47 “Todos ellos yvan con tocas blancas en la cabega a la morisca.” Calvete details the members that
conformed each team as well as specific information pertaining to the embroideries and decoration o f each
team’s costume. For example, “con marlotas de terciopelo amarillo y negro y capellares de damasco
Amarillo con rapazejos de oro.” Ibid, p. 76.
153
characterized the games, there most have been no doubt to the Milanese spectators
that this was a re-enactment of a Castilian conquest battle scene.48
The Iberian-ness of the juegos de canas also becomes clearer in comparison with
other games held along the Prince’s travels. For instance, three weeks later, in Trent, in a
remarkable “Festival of Fire and Castle Combat,” four centaurs and soldiers dressed “a la
turquesca” guarded the entrance to the castle along with four giants. Eight soldiers
wielding swords, followed by a Hercules (who, in turn, led a fire-spewing lion), engaged
the enemy in a long scrimmage.49 The good and evil imagery played out in the form of
Turks and centaurs against Hercules and brave soldiers brandishing swords (“armas
blancas”) also had a distinctively Italian flavor. In contrast, the tournament that took
place in August in the city of Binche (Bins in the text), organized by Mary of Hungary in
honor of the Emperor and the Prince’s entrance, was rooted in the fantastic world of
medieval chivalry novels. Its theme, “The Enchanted Sword and the Tenebrous Castle,”
followed an intricate plot and a great many characters, whose distinct and complex
missions and concealed identities made costume descriptions inconsequential. Calvete de
48 Using Codex CL. VIII in the Biblioteca Querini-Stampalia, Saxl has highlighted the prominent role o f
M ilanese tailors in the preparations for Philip IPs entry in Milan, organized by Viceroy Ferdinando
Gonzaga. In this instance, not surprisingly, the Turkish element provided the model o f the “enemy o f the
Faith/State.” Albanian and Hungarian costumes were also present in the public display, adorning such
eminent public figures as Federigo Gazzino, Captain o f the Viceregal Guard, and the Commander o f the
Imperial Guard. Saxl believes that “the power o f the Hapsburgs is symbolized, as it were, by
representatives from the farthest and most contested frontiers o f the realm.” F. Saxl, Costumes and
Festivals o f Milanese Society under Spanish Rule. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1936, p. 9-12.
49 “y luego salieron quatro centauros con algunos soladados vestidos a la turquesca. ..porque eran los que
les guardavan y defendian, y luego parecieron quatro gigantes en forma de salvajes muy fieros y
espantables... Despues d’esto salieron de un lado de la plafa ocho armados de armas blancas con almetes en
las cabezas y por cimera en ellos un Hercules, que con fuer?a descarrillava un leon, el qual echava por la
boca centellas y llamas de fuego...” Ibid, p. 103.
154
Estrella included but a few, privileging instead a detailed narrative of fierceness in
battle.50
Given this pattern of monarchic consumption of Morisco clothing, it seems
surprising that already in 1526, Charles V gathered the most prominent theologians in
Granada, eager to reach an agreement on a series of socio-cultural reforms that would aid
in the process of assimilation of the Morisco population. Owing to their first-hand
knowledge of Morisco communities throughout the kingdom, the assemblymen stressed
the importance of promoting cultural changes among the minority in order to promote
religious ones, arguing, “While they dressed and spoke as Moors, they would maintain
the memory of their religion and they would not become good Christians.”51 The threat
of apostasy was clearly associated with Morisco cultural life. Therefore, the Catholica
Congregation, as this group became known, laid a practical ground plan that would lead
c'y
to the dissolution of Morisco cultural display. Curbing everything from the use of the
Arabic language to the practice of circumcision, these stipulations served as the blueprint
r i
for Philip II’s watershed edict of 1565. Although a strong opposition from the
Moriseos and their agreement to pay a tax ("Tarda”) to erase the imposition freed them
from an immediate enactment of the law, the debate on the Moriseos’ cultural integration
and the role of costume in obstructing the imperial agenda remained alive.
50 Calvete de Estrella, “Felicissimo viaje,” pp. 330-334

51 “Y, visto todo, hallaron que mientras se vistiesen y hablasen como Moros, conservarian la memoria de su
secta y no serfan buenos cristianos.” As cited by Antonio Gallego y Burin from Luis del Marmol Carvajal,
Historia del rebelion y castigo de los moriseos del Reyno de Granada (Lib. II, Cap. II) in La Capilla Real
de Granada. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientlficas, 1949, pp. 133-135.
32 Juan Antonio Vilar Sanchez, 1526. B o d a y luna de miel del emperador Carlos V. Granada: Universidad
de Granada, 2000, pp. 93-95.
For a detailed list o f the prohibitions, see Ibid, p. 93-94 and Gallego y Burin, “La Capilla,” pp. 200-202.
155
It is worthy of note, however, that the presence of the Moriseos during the
Emperor’s honeymoon (1526) in Granada did not cause offense to him or his new wife,
the Empress Isabel. On the contrary, the Moriseos’ active contribution to the display of
communal loyalty to the king and the state were recorded in detail as evidence of the
general population’s joyfulness in such a momentous occasion. Morisco clothing and
Morisco customs (musical performances, dances, and, not surprisingly, scrimmages) did
enjoy a prominent place throughout the performance of political allegiance. The rare
sight of each other reinforced the direct proximity of the body of the emperor to those of
the Moriseos. Contrary to what his legislative tendencies indicate, the spectacle of
Morisco cultural life did not detract from Charles Y ’s enjoyment of the city that became
the center of Iberian political life during more than six months in 1526.54
The topic of Morisco customs was revisited once again in 1530, while Charles V
traveled in Northern Europe. Inquisition officials pressured the Empress to issue an edict
prohibiting Morisco dress. Her rules were precise and, making use of moralistic
language, clearly indicated her desire to assimilate the Moriseos (but especially the
Moriscas) into the Spanish Catholic mainstream by means of the imposition of
“Christian” costume, prompting them to “take off such dishonest clothes, which give
such bad examples. Moriscas should wear skirts and shawls and hats like Christian
women.”55 The problem of Morisco costume was a great concern for the Queen, who in
34 For detailed documentary and literary descriptions o f the events that took place during this period, see
Vilar Sanchez, “Boda y luna de miel.”
55 “Y, aunque despues, en el ano de mil quinientos treinta, estando el Emperador ausente destos reynos, la
Emperatriz Nuestra Sra. Mando despachar sus reales cedulas al Arzobispo de Granada, al Presidente y
Oidores y a los propios moriseos, encargandoles y mandandoles que diesen orden como se quitasen aquel
trage deshonesto y de mal ejemplo y que las moriscas traxesen sayas y mantos y sombreros como
cristianas...” As cited by Antonio Gallego y Burin from Luis del Marmol Carvajal, “Historia de Rebelion”
in “La Capilla Real,” p. 135.
156
multiple letters to the Archbishop of Granada, reminded, corrected, and inquired
about the state of Morisco clothing in the region.56 As in the past, the Moriseos lobbied
successfully and convinced Charles V to reverse the decree. The emperor countered the
edict in exchange for the usual payment from the population.
Francisco Nunez Muley, perhaps the most famous Morisco voice of this
embattled period, stresses the continuous production and repeals of anti-Morisco
legislations throughout the sixteenth century, to the extent that even protection laws for
Moriseos and their clothing were simultaneously issued during this time.57 Above all,
Nunez Muley describes a community under siege, whose struggle for cultural and
economic survival included important investments in cloth and clothing. His well-known
Memorial was a reaction to Philip IFs harsh laws of 1567 and served as a first-hand
account of Morisco history (and especially, anti-Morisco actions) by a respected elder of
the community, one experienced in mediating the needs of the two worlds, to the
President of Granada’s Real Audiencia. Repeatedly questioning the legality of Philip IFs
most recent edict in light of the protection granted to the conquered population by the
Capitulaciones of 1492, Nunez Muley defended the traditions threatened by anti-Morisco
legislations on various grounds. Firstly, he identified traditional costume as an important
56 Curiously, in a letter addressed to the Archbishop o f Granada (dated June 25, 1529), the Queen reminds
him o f the conclusions o f the Catholica Congregation o f 1526, with the exception o f “almalafas,” or head
wraps, which the King overturned (for unspecified reasons). The Queen revisited the subject o f Morisco
clothing on 22 February 1530 and 1 July, 1530 (twice). As cited by Gallego y Burin, “Los Moriseos,” pp.
214-220.
57 “Antes en el dicho ano o despues fee probeyda por su alteza una probision entre otras probisiones en
fauor de los naturales deste rreyno en que en efecto mando que qualquiera de los cristianos viejos de
qualquier calidad que sea de qualquiera que allegase a descubrir la cara de alguna morisca o almalafa o su
sauana, o le dixese malas palabras yendo en las prosisiones o en las calles, plazas, o en otros cabos pena de
tantos dias en la cargel y de gierta pena contenida en la dicha probision...” Francisco Nunez Muley,
“Memorial” (1567) in Revue Hispanique 1899, pp. 205-239. Also in Kenneth Garrad, “The Original
Memorial o f Don Francisco Nunez Muley” in A t alante 2:4 (1954), pp. 168-226.
157
link to Morisco cultural history, “la memoria Antigua,” rather than to religious
affiliation.58 Moreover, he defended Morisco clothing as nothing less than a traditional
type of regional Iberian dress.59 Another recurring theme throughout the Memorial is
Nunez Muley’s belief that the imposition of anti-Morisco legislations had little to do with
the danger hidden underneath such sartorial display, but rather with a covert economic
interest in Morisco capital masked by a racially prejudiced political agenda. Nunez
Muley denounced this policy blatantly and accusatorily,
We have not only seen it but have also dealt with the manner in which the newly
converted are still repudiated by the Old Christians, imprisoned by force and sent to the
galleys. Their properties are lost to the royal officials, who confiscate them through
lawsuits, fines, and even bribery with the unreserved endorsement o f the ecclesiastic and
secular courts. This is a well-known and clear fact.60
The Memorial identified an official policy aimed towards the disappearance of
Morisco cultural and financial capital, and therefore social bargaining power, where
costume, as an investment, was particularly vulnerable. In 1566, for instance, the
wedding dowry of Isabel Romaymia comprised a marlota trimmed with gold accents and
buttons, velvet sleeves and seed pearls as well as a second marlota in decorated red
velvet. Her dowry, confiscated along with her silk-merchant husband’s patrimony, had
considerable value even in a period when wearing it was increasingly difficult, if not
illegal.61 Valuable items such as Isabel Romaymia’s inherited wardrobe undoubtedly
58 “y todo esto se obligo y obligaron por quedar en sus abitos y costunbres y calcado, no perjudicando en
cosa alguna a la santa fee catolica...” Nunez Muley,“Memorial,”, p. 211.
59 “porque el abito y traxe y calpado no se puede dezir de moros ni que es de moros; puedese de dizir ques
traxe del rreyno y provinpia, como en todos los rreynos de castilla; y los otros rreynos y probinpuas tienen
los traxes diferentes unos de otros y todos c r is tia n o s .I b id , p. 215.
60 “No lo emos visto sino tratado e como los nuevamente convertidos en todo e sino todavia apartados de la
conformacion de los cristianos viejos y presos por un quchillo y enuiallos a galeras, y perderse sus
haziendas y los ofipiales de la justipia gozando de sus haziendas ansi en pleitos y en condenapiones como
en cohechos, y en semejantes casos persuadiendoles por lajusticia seglar como por la escresiastica por
todas vias; y esto es muy notorio y claro...” Ibid p. 217.
61 Anderson, “Hispanic Costume,” p. 217; Vincent and Dominguez, “Historia,” p. 126.
158
served as currency for a social group struggling for survival.62 Socially, as the
economic well-being of the Moriseos dropped and their inherited possessions became
their main source of wealth, public opinion (that of the “old Christian” majority) dipped
accordingly as xenophobic sentiments inundated public discourse.
The Moriseos were widely accused of deceiving the old Christian population by
hoarding valuable possessions, all the while claiming poverty. Miguel de Cervantes
described the old Christian attitude towards the re-settled Morisco in El Coloquio de los
P erros. The dog Berganza describes his new Morisco master as a virtual plague,
A marvel it is to find one amongst so many o f them that rightfully believes in the sacred
Christian law; all that they intend is to mint and hoard money, and to do so they work and
do not eat, and when money arrives they condemn it to a dark prison and to unending
darkness, therefore it is always saved and never spent and they com e and amass the
largest quantity o f money in Spain...they take it all, hide it all and swallow it all... they
steal from us and from the fruits o f our inheritance that they resell to us, they become
rich...63
The experience of the sixteenth century, as a result of State and Church-
sanctioned legislations, gave rise to a new level of repudiation of the Moriseos. Disgust,
as a newly institutionalized sensibility to outer signs of “impurity,” marked a drastic
departure from the Iberian cross-cultural experience since the medieval onset of the
Christian conquest. Fueled by this mentality and bolstered by anti-Morisco sumptuary
legislations, the Morisco body, especially when covered in Morisco clothing, became the
target of aggression as well as of the resulting socio-cultural exclusion.64 In 1597, for
62 A fact acknowledged by Nunez Muley, “No se habla en los vestidos de sus bodas y plazeres, porque
aquellos vestidos tienen los guardados para los tales dias, y los heredan en tres o quatro herenpias para
gozarse e aprobecharse dellos para aquellos tiempos o para quando de necesidad los bienen a vender o a
enpenar...” Nunez Muely, “Memorial,” p. 216. Document L-64-10 o f the Archive de la Alhambra, as cited
by Martinez Ruiz, reinforces Nunez Muley’s observations. When Diego de Benavides accepted his w ife’s
dowry, he acknowledged its purpose, “para sustentamiento de las cargas del matrimonio entre vos y mi
contraydo enjoyas y ajuar y preseas de casa...” See Juan Martinez Ruiz, “Inventario de Bienes,” p. 225.
63 Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El coloquio de losperros. Madrid: Libros del Autor, 1993, pp. 99-100.
O f course, the theme o f distrust and suspicion against the Morisco population has been taken up in detail in
earlier works. Most notably in Dominguez Ortiz and Vincent, “Historia de los moriseos,” pp. 124-130.
64 Surprisingly, however, an interpretation o f cloth and clothing is absent from Jose Maria Perceval’s
provocative discussion o f the role o f disgust, “asco,” in the socio-cultural development o f the Morisco
problem throughout the sixteenth century. See Perceval, “Todos son uno,” pp. 125-181.
159
instance, the Cobblers’ Guild of Valencia demanded proof of purity of blood from its
members as the product of a clear sentiment of repulsion towards Morisco bodies,
To avoid the damages and problems that could arise between fellow cobbler
guild members and those people as w ell as the scandal and mockery that would
ensue if the townspeople saw a slave, or the son o f a slave, black, or Moor in
processions, performances and other public acts. Turmoil and commotion would
arise if the population witnessed their intermingling among honorable and well-
dressed p eop le...65
Morisco involvement in any aspect of public life became, quite literally, a stain on the
Iberian-Christian social fabric. At the basic visual level, the Moriseos were perceived to
be badly dressed and unsightly. Interpreted through the contemporary moralizing
discourse and a pervasive socially-established sense of revulsion, their presence was
“dishonorable,” and thus the possibility of transgression was met with a visceral reaction
from the general population.
The crown’s unsettled mind regarding the Morisco problem, coupled with an
escalating and widespread anti-Morisco sentiment, resulted in the “radical repression” of
the Moriseos.66 Philip IFs decree of 1567, to which Nunez Muley responded in the
Memorial, included strict prohibitions against Morisco clothing, forbidding tailors from
fashioning Morisco costume and goldsmiths from creating decorations in the Morisco
style. It also forbade the use of the Arabic language (spoken, read, or written), the
65 “Para evitar los danos e inconvenientes que pueden originarse entre cofrades zapateros y las
tales personas y por la infamia y burla que causaria al pueblo el ver en procesiones, muestras
generates y otros actos publicos un esclavo o hijo de un esclavo, negro o moro, a causa de las
cuestiones y tumultos que se produclan al ver mezclados aquellos entre personas honradas y bien
vestidas...” As cited from Tramoyeres, “Capitulo VI” in Instituciones gremiales de Valencia
(1889) by Dominguez Ortiz and Vincent, “Historia de los Moriseos,” pp. 117.
66Kamen, “Crisis and Change,” p. 173.
160
celebration of Morisco festivities (zambras), and the use of baths, among others.67
The edict of 1567 presented for the first time a resolute attempt (that is, without the
possibility of economic negotiation for the Moriseos) on the part of the monarchy to erase
the Moriseos as a culturally-distinct group. Almost a year later, Philip IFs legislation
gave rise to the bloodiest and fiercest revolt of the sixteenth century. The Rebellion of
the Alpuj arras held out for two years and, as previously discussed, its repercussions,
especially the relocation of Granadan Moriseos throughout Castile, echoed continuously
until the expulsion of 1609.68 Above all, through the forced dispersal of entire
communities through the Castilian realm, this measure sought to prevent Morisco access
to an organized circle of socio-cultural or economic power. While demanding that
Moriseos shed all cultural traits and markers, Old Christians refused to make
corresponding concessions, not only by singling out the Moriseos at every level but,69
for the purpose of this study, by accepting a remarkable change of meaning in items of
Morisco clothing that did not touch Morisco bodies, dressing and identifying “Christian”
bodies instead.
The fact that the monarchy remained keenly interested in outlawing traditional
Morisco cloth and clothing points to a thorny, if unacknowledged, relationship between
the cultural value of Morisco dress and the perceived social quality of the bodies that
67 See the detailed discussions o f the prohibitions in Dominguez Ortiz and Vincent, “Historia de ios
Moriseos,” and Julio Caro Baroja, Los moriseos del Reino de Granada. Ensayo de historia social. Madrid:
Editorial Alianza, 1976.
68 The Uprising and the consequent relocation o f the Morisco communities had detrimental socio-cultural
and economic repercussions. The Granadan silk trade, an important economic activity for the region and in
the state’s system o f international exchange o f luxury goods, suffered tremendously. See K. Garrad, “La
industria sedera granadina en el siglo XVI y su conexion con el levantamiento de las Alpujarras” in
Miscelanea de Estudios A ra b esy Hebraicos 5 (1956), pp. 73-104; A. M. Vera, “El levantamiento mudejar
y su incidencia en los tributes de la seda” in A etas del III Simposio Internacional del Mudejarismo. Teruel:
Institute de Estudios Turolenses, 1986, pp. 145-152.
69Kamen, “Crisis and Change,” pp. 176-77.
161
wore it. That is, when associated with or displayed by powerful members of society,
the foremost symbols of orthodox Iberian Catholicism and imperial authority, Morisco
clothing ceased to be “Islamic” and became “royal.” On the opposite end of the social
spectrum, however, the bodies of the Moriseos reflected contemporary feelings of disdain
and fear that translated into an institutionalized sentiment of revulsion. In relation to
their bodies, then, costume became nothing short of a visual reminder of the Moriseos’
own status as a literal and stubborn social blemish. Put another way, not all Morisco
clothing stood to project the same meaning. Its significance changed depending on the
associations made with the bodies, and thus the cultural value, of the wearers.70
This distinction is fundamental to further our understanding of the role of Morisco
clothing in the viceregal Mexican context, where the absence of Morisco bodies erased
the discriminatory associations that characterized its physical connection to members of
the minority in the Iberian Peninsula. Instead, what remained in New Spain were the
bodies of the powerful, the living symbols of the new imperial order, who made use of
unequivocally Iberian (or, to make use of contemporary discourse, “honorable”) sartorial
symbols. On the receptive end of the colonial display of items of Morisco clothing were
other Spaniards and the Amerindian populations, for whom the sumptuous presentation
was equally legible.71 As items introduced to New Spain in consequence of the Iberian
70 While, of course, this interpretation o f visual symbols, especially as it pertained to royal bodies, was
long-established in Iberia, the sixteenth century added an unprecedented level o f disgust to the construction
o f meaning around items o f Andalusi clothing.
71 The use o f sartorial display in the performance o f colonial authority differs from its symbolic
manipulation during the first pronouncements o f power after conquest. Mainly, there is a clear
acknowledgment o f the indigenous population as a participant, and indeed an important audience, in the
process o f hegemonic formation, and thus in the creation o f meaning. Still, even at the moment o f first
contact, ignoring the act o f visual consumption, and thus o f tacit participation, o f the conquered before the
conqueror, as does the following statement by Patricia Seed, begs reinterpretation, “Symbolically enacting
colonial authority meant that ceremonies, actions, speeches, and records primarily targeted their fellow
162
conquest, items of Morisco clothing supported the construction and preservation of
Iberian hegemony in the new territories. In this new role, and in connection to Iberian
colonial authority and the new visual order that resulted from its establishment, items
currently identified as Morisco stood to signify Iberian-ness. Furthermore, as sumptuous
goods, they simultaneously challenged imperial authority and facilitated the reaffirmation
of the colonial establishment by visually supporting imperial notions of cultural
supremacy.
The wealth of Morisco textile and costume references found in the viceregal
historical documentation of the sixteenth century ought to be interpreted within these
parameters. For instance, Don Melchor de Robles’ belongings, catalogued upon his
death in Puebla de los Angeles in 1586, confirms the unambiguous place of Morisco
clothing in viceregal sartorial practice.72 A reflection of the social status of his owner,
Robles’ wardrobe was well-appointed. His patrimony included three slaves, fourteen
Dutch-painted canvases, ten chairs, two rugs (also imported), silver, gold jewelry and an
ample wardrobe, among many other objects.73 Amid descriptions of sumptuous items of
clothing made of velvet, cotton, and silks of many kinds, are included five turcas and two
jubones.14 Although the terminology references the sartorial practices of the Ottoman
Europeans. It was above all their own countrymen and political leaders that colonists had to convince o f
the legitimacy o f their actions, not indigenous people.” Patricia Seed, Ceremonies o f Possession in
E urope’s Conquest o f the New World 1492-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995, p. 11.
72 Inventario de bienes de M elchor de Robles (11 de octubre de 1586), Archivo Judicial de Puebla, Libro 3
(Testados), ff. 15r-18v.
73 “Yten Una negra llamada maria con dos hijos suyos negros llamados melchor y anbrosio/yten diez sillas
las seys grandes e buenas y las demas biejas/ yten dos alfombras: una grande y otra chica traidas.” Ibid, p.
15r. The silver pieces included plates, jars, utensils, cups and a salt shaker, in addition to gold and silver
jewelry (f. 16v.). The description o f his wardroble spans ff. 15v-16.
Melchor de Robles’ turcas were particularly sumptuous,’’yten, una turca de tafetan de castilla guamecida
de pasamanillo de oro/yten una basquina y turca de saya atrapada traida/yten una turca de tafetan labrado
negra guamecida con un pasamano nego/yten una turca blanca de sinabafa bieja/yten una turca de damasco
pardo guamecida de oro/yten una turca azul de tamasquillo (sic.) de la china con su pasamano de oro y
163
Empire and the Andalusi past, the nomenclature did not render these items exotic.73
Rather, as common items of Iberian costume ubiquitous throughout the empire, the
official document identified the objects by their typology, but stressed their worth in
terms of their status as items of foreign import (“de castilla”), made of or decorated with
valuable materials (“guamecida de oro”). That some items found a place in the inventory
even if they were not all new (some are described as “traidos,” (used) or even old,
“viejo”) underscores their value as investments. In no way, therefore, was Melchor de
Robles dressing as—or in the manner of—a foreign other. Instead, turcas and jubones
were essential accessories in his Iberian self-fashioning and public socio-economic
display.
Don Melchor de Robles’ inventory also includes “una colcha morisca” in the list
• 7 fi
of items of home decoration. Though there is no detailed description of this object of
home decoration beyond minimal typological information, documentary evidence of the
sixteenth century suggests that colchas moriscas were colorful quilt-like coverlets,
arranged and sewed from different pieces of fabric, from humble cottons to sumptuous
77
silks. Melchor de Robles’ bedspread, like so many other items in his home, was a
seda.” The jubones were similarly luxuriuos, “yten dos jubones de telilla de oro traidos/'un jubon biejo de
olanda.” Inventario de Bienes de Melchor de Robles, ff. 15v-17.
75 Benitez described the “turca” as an item o f private use, or a house robe. “Hacia las veces de bata
modema y se usaba de preferencia para el descanso y la siesta.” Benitez, “El Traje y el adomo,” p. 50. Juan
de Alcega’s tailor’s treatise G eom etrlapraticay traga (Madrid, 1589) confirms this interpretation, as its
patterns are identified as “ropa turca para levantar.” See, Juan de Alcega, Tailor’s Pattern Book 1589.
Facsimile, transl. Jean Pain and Cecilia Bainton, with an introduction and notes by J.L. Nevinson. New
York: Costume and Fashion Press, 1999, ff. 45v-47. Nevinson describes them as “ Turkish coats used as
dressing-gowns for informal wear in the mornings.” See J. L. Nevinson, “Introduction” in “Tailor’s Pattern
Book,” p. 11.
76 “yten una colcha morisca,” Inventario de Bienes de Melchor de Robles, f. 17.
77 See Juan Martinez Ruiz, “Inventario de Bienes,” pp. 93-94. The following documents, cited by Martinez
Ruiz, are especially informative, “quatro pedacos de pano de muchos colores para hazer cobertor de colcha
morisca,” 15 de agosto 1568, Almeria, L-248-43, f. 1Or; and “una colcha, la cara de seda carmesi y las
orillas de seda amarillo y el enves de la colcha azul y las otras dos de pano,” Notaez, L-64-22.
164
costly imported good—and was plainly labeled as such. Within this context, then, the
term “morisca” should be interpreted as a designation of its value as an import, projecting
the same meaning as a descriptor such as “de Castilla.”
The prominence of imported items of sumptuous quality is clearly illustrated in
the public auction (almoneda publico) of the goods belonging to Benito de la Vega’s
lavish estate. In 1586, the first two items sold in Mexico City’s center square, chosen
from a long list of remarkable goods, were two new Turkish rugs.78 Their price of 37
pesos paid in gold coins not only competed in price with some silver pieces sold in the
same auction. More importantly it reveals the rugs’ economic and social value, as well as
their complete detachment from any negative Ottoman association. The same holds true
for Melchor de Robles’ colcha morisca, although it is particularly significant that almost
20 years after Philip IFs crucial anti-Morisco edict such a textile item was present in a
viceregal home. It is especially meaningful, however, that this object was seamlessly
integrated into the rest of the items in Melchor de Robles’ patrimony, and even registered
in a legal document. Turcas, jubones and colchas moriscas, and even Turkish rugs, were
integrated into a distinctly Iberian taste.
The sartorial information so effectively depicted in the image of the two
encomenderos in the Codex Yanhuitlan, the seemingly indefinable headwrap in
particular, belongs squarely in this category of meaning. Unlike the visual sources
conventionally used to interpret the distinctive elements of Morisco costume of the
sixteenth century, such as the low-relief carving depicting the forced conversions of 1501
78 “Primeramente se rremataron dos tapetes de turquia nuevos en Alsonso Ximenes en treinta e siete pesos
de oro comun.” Autos hechos sobre el cumplimiento de el testamento de Benito de la Vega” AGN, Bienes
Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 16, f. 24v.
165
in the Cathedral of Granada and Christoph Weiditz’s illustrations of Granadan
Moriseos in Das Trachtenbucher, the Codex Yanhuitldn served an important purpose
specific to the American colonial situation. The Codex offered confirmation of
ownership of a profitable estate in the Oaxacan Mixteca. It could have been commission
as an effort to legitimize the de las Casas family as rightful owners of the land, labor, and
tribute of the region. But it also served as evidence of the native elite’s claim to their
share of benefits and rights to the land.79 For this purpose, it was essential to distinguish
the Iberian encomendero from the Amerindian caciques, and, in a wider scale, the elite,
whether European or Mixtec, from the rural masses. Visual symbols, especially costume,
became particularly important in the representation of Iberian and Amerindian socio
political relationships. Unquestionably, the items of Morisco clothing represented in the
Codex Yanhuitldn fall squarely on the Iberian.
In contrast to the image of the encomenderos, the use of costume in the narrative
panels of the Retablo Mayor of the Capilla Real of Granada (Felipe Bigamy, ca. 1521)
SO
stands as an indication of the ultimate defeat of Iberian Islam. Of particular interest are
the low-relief representations of the mass conversions of 1501 [Fig. 17-18], where two
anonymous masses of Mudejares (men and women) crowd around a baptismal font while
79 Already in 1653, the text and images o f the Codex seem to have been in use by the Mixtec elites as proof
o f cacicazgo before the colonial authorities in Mexico City. See Heinrich Berlin, “Fragmentos
desconocidos,” 1947. See also M aria Teresa Sepulveda y Herrera, “Codice de Yanhuitldn,” p. 54. :
80 Although the Capilla Real was commissioned and funded by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel in 1504,
it was completed by Charles V in 1519. Work on its decoration lasted well into the 1520’s. It is located
adjoining the Cathedral o f Granada and was built as the royal pantheon o f the Catholic monarchs. In
addition to Ferdinand and Isabella, Queen Juana and her husband, Philip, are buried there as well. For
details on the history, construction, and decoration o f the Capilla Real, see Gallego y Burin, La Capilla
Real de Granada. Madrid: CSIC, 1952.
166
Figure 17
Baptism of the Male Mudejares
High Altarpiece of the Capilla Real, Granada
Figure 18
Baptism of the Female Mudejares
priests administer the sacrament. In these depictions, costume acts as the main religious
and ethnic signifier and, indeed, depicts otherness. The reliefs represent one of the most
167
pivotal moments in Castilian socio-religious history—the beginning of the spiritual
conquest of Granada, or the instant when Mudejares officially became Christians, or
Moriseos. The relationship between the panels’ historical subject matter and their
location in the main altarpiece of Granada’s royal pantheon [Fig. 19], one of the most
symbolic Iberian religious monuments of the sixteenth century, is fundamental to
understand the prominent role of costume in the compositions.
Figure 19
The two baptismal scenes provide a literal foundation to the decoration and
spiritual fabric of the highly emblematic architectural unit that houses them. The
altarpiece, including the low-relief polychrome carvings depicting the History o f

O1
Granada, is the work of the prominent Burgundian sculptor Felipe Bigamy. The panels
81 Isabel del Rio de la Hoz suggests that the hispanized name Felipe Bigamy could have derived from the
French Philippe Bigame or Bigueme. Regardless, Bigamy was a highly respected sculptor who worked for
the Catholic Monarchs, Charles V, and the Constables o f Castile, among many other powerful patrons,
from 1498 until his death in 1542. His works include emblematic altarpieces and choir stalls in the
cathedrals o f Toledo, Burgos, Palencia, and Granada, in addition to other important works across Castile.
168
that comprise the narrative follow a sequence that includes a scene representing the
Catholic Kangs triumphal approach to Granada, accompanied by Jimenez de Cisneros
[Fig. 18], the defeated Boabdil surrendering the keys to the city of Granada [Fig. 19], and
the Baptism of the male and female Mudejares. The two baptismal scenes, respectively,
present a group of women and men that, while publicly embracing Catholicism, still
adhere to Islamic standards o f public behavior and modesty by veiling their faces,
keeping beards, wearing headwraps, and dressing in traditional clothing. This “history of
Granada,” therefore, does not recognize the Nasrid history preceding the conquest, but
rather sees Granada’s historical beginning in the final Castilian offensive against the
Islamic kingdom. In the Granadine context, not surprisingly, the effort of conversion, as
both a final act of conquest and the beginning of evangelization, takes on a decidedly
heightened meaning.
Figure 20 Figure 21
Triumphal Entry of the Catholic Kings Boabdil Surrenders the Keys to Granada
High Altarpiece of the Capilla Real High Altarpiece of the Capilla Real, Granada
For a detailed study o f the scope o f Bigamy’s work, see Isabel del Rio de la Hoz, El escultor Felipe
Bigam y (h. 1470-1542). Salamanca: Junta de Castilla y Leon, 2001.
169
The composition of the altarpiece itself emphasizes the importance of this
significant act of submission. The narrative panels of the History o f Granada support the
larger representations of the Holy Trinity, the Passion, the Evangelists, and the Adoration
of the Magi, among others, that constitute the Retablo Mayor , 8 2 In addition, the sculpted
praying figures o f the Catholic monarchs rest strategically atop the panels. Specifically,
King Ferdinand’s sculpture sits over the reliefs representing military conquest, while
Queen Isabel’s is positioned over the baptismal scenes, representing the spiritual
0-3
conquest of Granada. As the literal foundation of Christianity in the newly converted
kingdom, and arguably in the newly-unified Iberia, Bigamy’s History o f Granada panels
rest at eye level, framing the altar.
In their obvious ritual function, the representations of Morisco costume in the
baptismal, or conversion, scenes becomes a fundamental element of the visual language
of conquest in the Retablo Mayor. The fact that the depiction of the Mudejares at the
moment of baptism presents, above all, yards of cloth covering bodies, faces, and heads
suggests the government’s initial commitment to preserve the socio-religious liberties of
the conquered population under the surrender treaty, or Capitulaciones de Granada.84
82 Rutas de una reina viajera. Itinerarios de Isabel la Catolica, eds. Susana Calvo Capilla and Juan Carlos
Ruiz Souza. Madrid: Acento Editorial, 2004, pp. 482-484.
83 This arrangement is consistent with the historical perception o f the role o f each monarch in the process of
conquest. Ferdinand’s sword, for example, was bequeathed to the Capilla Real upon his death by his
widow, Germana de Foix. Isabel’s concern for the spiritual dimensions o f the conquest enterprise (and the
evangelization o f the Americas) almost immediately granted her a reputation o f sanctity which motivated a
process o f canonization (ongoing since 1958).
84 Among the many guarantees agreed upon by the Catholic Monarchs in the Capitulaciones, “Que ningun
moro ni mora seran apremiados a ser cristianos contra su voluntad... Que no mandaran sus altezas ni el
prlncipe don Juan su hijo, ni los que despues dellos sucedieren, para siempre jamas, que los moros que
fueren sus vasallos traigan senates en los vestidos como los traen los judios... Que el rey Abdilehi y sus
alcaides, cadis, alfaquis, meftis, alguaciles, sabios, caudillos y escuderos, y todo el comun de la ciudad de
170
Yet, Bigamy completed the altarpiece twenty years after the Catholic Monarchs had
broken the accord, at a time when the Moriseos had already become a full-fledged
legislative and ecclesiastical problem. By this time, the issue of Morisco clothing already
had become a focus of controversy. The History o f Granada panels, therefore, served as
a reminder of the apostolic and imperial responsibility that the Moriseos embodied as
well as the burden that they represented.
Yet, the baptismal scenes did not serve only as a moralistic tool depicting highly
symbolic historical milestones that took place during the reign of the Catholic monarchs.
After all, the audience at the high altar of Granada’s Royal Chapel was decidedly select.
The History o f Granada panels, therefore, also offered an eloquent, if subtle, political
commentary regarding the unraveling of the Morisco question that resulted from the
forced conversions. It is not far-fetched to imagine that for several decades after 1501,
liturgical rituals of all types across the Kingdom of Granada still resembled Bigamy’s
polychrome reliefs. With such a contemporary resonance, then, the conversion scenes in
the Retablo Mayor continued to remind Granada’s most influential elites that the full
assimilation of the Moriseos remained a critical but still unreachable step in the success
of Iberian unity. Although Bigamy completed the panels two decades after the mass
Granada y del Albaicin y arrabales, y de la Alpujarra y otros lugares, seran respetados y bien tratados por
sus altezas y ministros, y que su razon sera oida y se les guardaran sus costumbres y ritos, y que a todos los
alcaides y alfaquis les dejaran cobrar sus rentas y gozar de sus preeminencias y libertades, como lo tienen
de costumbre y es justo que se les guarde...Q ue sus altezas y sus sucesores para siempre jam as dejaran
vivir al rey Abi Abdilehi y a sus alcaides, cadis, meftis, alguaciles, caudillos y hombres buenos y a todo el
comun, chicos y grandes, en su ley, y no les consentirdn quitar sus mezquitas ni sus tones ni los
almuedanes, ni les tocaran en los habices y rentas que tienen para ellas, ni les perturbaran los usos y
costumbres en que estan...Que los moros sean juzgados en sus leyes y causas por el derecho del xara que
tienen costumbre de guardar, con parecer de sus cadis y jueces...” Luis del Marmol Carvajal, Historia del
rebeliony castigo de los moriseos del Reino de Granada (1600). Malaga: Editorial Arguval, 1991, pp. 147-
150.
171
conversions took place, there is no evocation of a glorious future. This, of course,
was the obligation of those who officiated and attended mass at the Capilla Real.
In New Spain, Diego Munoz Camargo’s (1529-1599) representations of the
indigenous conversions in Tlaxcala share a similar political statement with Bigamy’s
History o f Granada panels. The two baptismal images in his Descripcion de la ciudad y
provincia de Tlaxcala (ca. 1580-85) depict the voluntary conversion of the four caciques
(lords) of Tlaxcala [Fig. 22] and the general conversion of the population after the
85
military conquest. [Fig. 23] Not only do they reveal comparable formal characteristics,
but the depiction of sartorial information also provides the viewer with essential clues
regarding the ethnic origin and social position of each group at the moment of baptism.
Figure 22 Figure 23
Baptism of the Four Lords o f Tlaxcala The Natives’ General Baptism and Conversion
Who Wished to become Christians Descripcion de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala
Descripcion de la ciudady provincia
de Tlaxcala
85 The classic and most exhaustive studies o f Munoz Camargo’s work, also known as the Glasgow
Manuscript (after its repository, the Glasgow University Library), are Descripcion de la ciudady provincia
de Tlaxcala de las Indias y del M ar Oceano para el buen gobierno y ennoblecimiento deltas, ed. Rene
Acuna. Mexico: UN AM, 1981; Relaciones Geograficas del siglo XVI: Tlaxcala. Vol. 4, Part 1. Ed. Rene
Acufia. Mexico UN AM, 1984.
172
Like Bigamy’s panels, Munoz Camargo’s images depict a critical moment in
the consolidation of imperial rule: the strengthening of a vital tactical allegiance between
Iberian conquerors and Tlaxcalan nobles through religious conversion and the subsequent
confirmation of political loyalty by means of the baptism of the population. But the
Descripcion also highlights the thorny relationship between the use and display of
“ethnic” costume and its connection to American idolatrous practices and the threat of
political duplicity. Munoz Camargo’s work wrestles with Iberian and viceregal worries
and realities as it weaves an intricate pictorial and historical (if decidedly biased)
narrative of life after the Spanish conquest.
Munoz Camargo wrote the text and commissioned the illustrations in the
Descripcion at the behest of Alonso de Nava, alcalde mayor (mayor) of Tlaxcala, in
response to the printed questionnaire known as the Relaciones Geogrdficas (1578).86 The
author dedicated the manuscript to Philip II. In 1585, the monarch received the text and
its illustrations directly from a Tlaxcalan delegation headed by the author himself.87 In
addition to the influence exerted by the royal recipient of the work, the relationship
between the textual information, its ink-drawn illustrations, and Munoz Camargo’s
personal interests and self image make the Descripcion an ostensibly paradoxical opus.
86 The Relaciones Geogrdficas, a survey authored by Juan Lopez de Ovando and Juan Lopez de Velasco,
the first cosmographer in Philip II’s service, consisted o f a detailed questionnaire on the subjects o f
geography, languages, climate, population, and native flora and fauna, among many other topics. Although
only 167 responses to this survey remain extant, colonial administrators throughout the Americas produced
a total 191 replies between the years 1578 and 1585. For a detailed study o f the visual, scientific and social
implications o f the Relaciones Geogrdficas, see Barbara E. Mundy, The M apping o f New Spain:
Indigenous Cartography and the Maps o f the Relaciones Geogrdficas. Chicago: University o f Chicago
Pres, 1996.
87 See Rene Acuna, “Introduccion” in “Relaciones Geogrdficas,” pp. 13-14; Salvador Velazco, Visiones de
Andhuac. Reconstrucciones historiograficas y etnicidades emergentes en el Mexico colonial: Fernando de
A lva Ixtlilxochitl, Diego Munoz Camargo y Hernando Alvarado Tezozdmoc. Guadalajara: Universidad de
Guadalajara, 2003, pp. 135-141.
173
The author at once endorses the Iberian conquest and exalts Tlaxcala’s central role in
its success. The historian Salvador Velazco maintains that Camargo’s inherent “in
between-ness” as a first-generation Spanish-raised mestizo allowed him to argue and,
quite literally, work to advance the interests of both groups.88 The prominent place of
cloth and clothing in the illustrations that accompany the Descripcion, therefore, stand
astride imperial and local histories. Thus, they provide an intermediary space between
the content and use of Bigamy’s polychromed reliefs and the images of the
encomenderos in the Codex Yanhuitldn.
The son of a Spanish father and a native Tlaxcalan mother, Munoz Camargo was
raised in Mexico City as a Spaniard and explicitly identified himself as such.89 He
returned to Tlaxcala around 1545 to administer’s his father’s cattle business, married a
noblewoman from the influential town of Ocotelulco in 1555, and began a career in
public service in 1573.90 Aided by his dual ancestry—though neither was particularly
aristocratic—Munoz Camargo exploited his ability to travel through colonial spaces for
Q1
economic and political purposes. His interests were linked closely to Tlaxcala’s
colonial reality. In particular, the historiographic content of the Descripcion was a
reminder to Philip II o f Tlaxcala’s importance as a military ally to Cortes’ armies. As
such, the text, and its accompanying images were intended to support the local
88 “Nepantlismo” (in between-ness) is how Velazco calls the intermediate (and ever-changing) cultural state
o f the so-called early “mestizo” writers. He suggests a re-interpretation o f these early chronicles as
“transcultural,” rather than as “mestizo,” since they were informed as much by Amerindian culture as by
“Christian” rethoric and European mentalities. Velazco, “Visiones de Anahuac,” pp. 24-25.
89 See Acuna, “Relaciones geogrdficas,” p. 13; Diego Munoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala, ed. German
Vazquez. Madrid: Historia 16, 1986, pp. 43-56; Velazco, “Visiones,” pp. 131-135.
90 Ibid, p. 132.
91 In Velazco’s words, “En suma, Munoz Camargo es el comerciante, el explotador de ganado, el minero,
en fin, el colono que posee esclavos indigenas y negros, que prefigura el surgimiento de una clase
capitalistanovohispana del temprano periodo modemo/colonial.” Ibid, p. 133.
174
government’s lobbying efforts to preserve the royal privileges (fueros reales) granted
92
after the conquest.
The images of conversion and baptism, therefore, support the author’s perception
of the Tlaxcalans as faithful collaborators. The pervasive use of native costume in both
scenes, however, reminds the viewer of the text’s decidedly pro-Spanish partiality. The
image entitled Baptism o f the Four Lords o f Tlaxcala who Wished to become Christians
[Fig. 22] is represented as a pious scene of richly attired indigenous bodies humbly
93
kneeled before a Franciscan priest as the first drops of holy water begin to pour. Seated
on a chair directly above them, a richly clad Fleman Cortes holds a crucifix while his
interpreter, Malintzin (Malinche or Dona Marina), stands behind him. On the left, two
unidentified indigenous men and one Spaniard, perhaps Diego de Alvarado (Cortes’
second-in-command) or Jeronimo de Aguilar (the famous Spanish interpreter rescued in
the Yucatan) witness the event. Yet, the text contrasts the holiness of the scene, as it
makes clear that the acceptance of baptism was a politically-motivated decision on the
part of the four lords of Tlaxcala. Munoz Camargo attributes the following pledge of
allegiance to Mexicatzin, one of the rulers, as follows,
Think about what our duty will be, tell us if you want anything from our
land, and because of the friendship that we have shown you, we will
dutifully do anything that you ask. Our peace and friendship will be
eternal and will endure the coming centuries. Therefore, think of what you
want, because we are at the ready each and every time that you or your
brave companions should need us, whether in peace or at war. You can
convey this message to the great Lord that sent you.94
92 These, in essence, allowed Tlaxcala to remain a relatively self-governed realm, free from taxation and the
encomienda system. For a detailed list o f the privileges and the difficulty in seeing them upheld by
colonial authorities, see Charles Gibson, Tlaxcala in the Sixteenth Century. Stanford: Stanford University
Press, 1967, pp. 158-189.
93 The four lords o f Tlaxcala were Tlehuexolotzin, Maxizcatzin, Xichotencatl and Chilalpopocatzin.
94 “Mira lo que ha menester de nosotros, dines si quiere algo de las cosas de nuestra tierra, que por la
amistad que le tenemos y a ti te hemos cobrado, lo haremos muy deversas cumplidamente, porque esta
175
Munoz Camargo made further use of the complex relationship between
religious conversion and political convenience in his textual explanation of the process
and motivations of the general conversion of the Tlaxcalan population. The author
recounts how the four lords cautiously approached their communities,95
“[Cortes] has told us that he wants to give us a new religion, pure and
precious, and that for this reason we would be wise to accept another
God.” And this [the lords] had promised Cortes, and nobody should
interfere or fight it. Instead, we should let [Cortes] do what he wants since
he is here to help us and to favor us...It does not behoove us to be
belligerent, rebellious, or treacherous, because his friendship is most
important for our people to live in peace.96
In Munox Camargo’s representation of the large scale consummation of the Spanish-
Tlaxcalan coalition by means of mass baptisms, clothing is emblematic of a thorny and
potentially dangerous alliance. The drawing entitled The Natives ’ General Baptism and
Conversion to Our Holy Faith through the Preaching o f these Friars [Fig. 23] presents a
Franciscan priest anointing a male with holy water, as a group of kneeling male and
standing female Tlaxcalans looks on. The pious and submissive portrayal of the
Tlaxcalans balances the prominent presentation of their clothing and the referential use of
pre-Hispanic architecture as a backdrop to the baptismal scene. Once again, despite the
act of conversion, the threat of heterodoxy, labeled idolatry in this context, loomed large
nuestra paz y amistad ha de ser para siempre etema y perdurable hasta la fin de los siglos futuros y
advenideros. Por tanto mira lo que quieres, que aqul estamos muy prontos para todas las ocasiones que se te
ofrecieren a t iy a tus valerosos compafieros, ansi en la paz como en la guerra, como se lo puedes decir al
gran Seftor que te ha enviado.” As cited from Diego Munoz Camargo, Historia de Tlaxcala. Mexico:
Ateneo Nacional de Ciencias y Artes de Mexico, 1947, pp. 209-221 by Carlos Sempat Assadourian and
Andrea Martinez Baracs, Tlaxcala Textos de su historia. Siglo XVI. Tlaxcala: Gobiemo del Estado de
Tlaxcala, 1991, p. 128.
95 “porque sus gentes no se alborotacen,” Ibid, p. 129.
96 “porque nos ha dicho que nos quiere dar otra nueva ley, limpia y loable, e que para esto tengamos por
bien que recibamos otro Dios.”...Y esto le habian prometido de seguir, y que ninguno se lo estorbase ni le
fuese a la mano, sino que le dejemos hacer lo que el quisiere, pues viene a ayudamos y favorecemos, por lo
cual no nos conviene que le seamos contumaces, ni rebeldes, ni traidores...m as a nosotros nos conviene su
amistad para que nuestras gentes vivan en paz.” Ibid, p. 131.
176
in the Iberian mind.97 Indeed, Munoz Camargo’s written text is explicit regarding the
need to replace Tlaxcalan cultural expressions with Iberian ones in order to ensure the
no
' success of the missionary project.
The ominous combination of symbols of Tlaxcalan cultural difference found in
the baptismal scene, together with the natives’ acceptance of Iberian items of clothing at
the request of the friars [Fig. 13] and the explosive representation of the Franciscan-led
destruction of idolatrous implements, entitled Bonfire o f the Clothes, Books, and
Adornments o f the Idolatrous Priests Burned by the Friars, [Fig. 24] offer proof of the
QQ
powerful symbolic nature of clothing in Munoz Camargo’s narrative. The bonfire
scene is particularly telling, as two Tlaxcalans dressed in jubon and zaraguelles stand on
the right, behind the friar, assisting the Franciscans in the destruction of idolatrous
paraphernalia, where bodily adornment figures prominently. For Munoz Camargo,
therefore, a good Christian was a “well-dressed” convert.
97 Gruzinki has correctly acknowledged that, “one did not remain an idolator, one became one. And this
new colonial identity was only one o f the many repercussions o f a Christianization that produced an
irremediable rupture in the religious homogeneity o f the Mesoamerican world. Within the context o f this
first colonization— which was above all, religious in nature— it was the Christian/idolator schism, more
than the Spanish/Indian one, that affected the indigenous elites, shattered the ancient consensus, and
favored the emergence o f a counteridentity, that o f idolator.” See Serge Gruzinski, “The Net Tom Apart:
Ethnic Identities and W esternization in Colonial Mexico, Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century” in Ethnicities and
Nations: Processes o f Interethnic Relations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, eds. Remo
Guidieri, Francesco Pellizi and Stanley J. Tambiach. Austin: University o f Texas Press, 1988, pp. 29-46.
This is a model that can certainly be applied to the Morisco problem.
98 “Les comenzaron a quitar las muchas mujeres que tenian y los otros demas ritos de idolatria y otras
muchas supersticiones...Quitandole, ansimismo, que trajeran orejeras los hombres ni las mujeres, ni
bezotes, y otros abominables usos y costumbres que tenian. Y que se quitasen los bragueros que traian y se
pusiesen zaraguelles y se vistiesen camisas, que era traje mas honesto...” Munoz Camargo, “Historia de
Tlaxcala,” p. 234.
99 The author, o f course, drew from his own localized knowledge, which derived from his life experience in
New Spain. But Mufloz Camargo also presumed that Philip II, the recipient o f the text and images, would
find the same clarity in the sartorial signs depicted in the manuscript.
177
Figure 24
Bonfire o f the Clothes, Books, and Adornments
Descripcion de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala
Although the works of Felipe Bigamy, Diego Munoz Camargo and even
Christoph Weiditz developed out of wholly different contexts, motivations, geographies
and audiences, the role of cloth and clothing in their artistic production underscores the
multivalence of sartorial display in sixteenth century Iberian life and ritual. The
centrality of clothing in the image of the encomenderos in the Codex Yanhuitldn,
therefore, must be interpreted as another example where sartorial symbols stand to
project an easily legible, but context-specific message. Thus, the interpretation of Don
Gonzalo’s toca, must exclude any notion of the “Oriental,” “Islam,” heterodoxy, or of the
presence of members of a persecuted minority, the Moriscos, from its analysis. Instead, it
should refer directly to its roots in common Iberian and viceregal sartorial practice, as
well as in the practice of public ceremonials of imperial power in the New World.
Contemporary historical documentation shows a copious amount of references to
178
head adornments of many types across the urban and rural landscape ofNew Spain.
Within this sartorial category, tocas made of different fabrics and colors, in different
sizes, were undoubtedly a common item of viceregal wardrobes. In 1598, for example,
the inventory of Isabel de Limpias’ numerous possessions, taken upon her death in
Puebla de los Angeles, details nine tocas of different degrees of sumptuousness,

1no
including five made of imported textiles from China and Bengal. The inventory also
mentions a decorative piece, or sobretoca, made of blue beads, as well as two elaborate
and colorful cofias, or hairnets.101 Isabel de Limpias’ choices of head adornment
belonged in a truly luxurious wardrobe (and household), where a full array of Iberian
sartorial items and international market products, from Europe to Asia, were represented.
The same sumptuousness characterizes the items included in the inventory of Pedro de
109
Narbaez’ estate, which was recorded upon his sudden death in 1590. Among them
1OT
were included eleven tocas, mostly of Chinese textiles, and five hats (sombreros).
Other inventories show no particular preference for tocas over other adornments.
In the Inquisitorial case against Nuno Silva, for example, the list of confiscated
100 “Una toca delgada labrada de negro/dos tocas de rred de china/una toca de rreyna/dos tocas de la
china/una toca de mengala de dos baras/dos tocas biejas” Ynbentarios formados por fallecimiento de Isabel
de Limpias viuda de Francisco Medel” (1598), Archivo Judicial de Puebla, Archivo Historico en
MicropeMcula (MNAH), Rollo 15, f. l-10v. It should be noted that by the seventeenth century the term
“mengala/bengala” was synonymous with a thin, veil-like fabric. See Covarrubias Orozco, “Tesoro de la
Lengua,” p. 180.
101 “Una sobre toca de quentas azules delgadas e gordas/dos cofias de muger labradas de azul y negro de
muchos colores guamecidas.” Ibid, f. 6r-6v. According to Covarrubias, cofias were a type o f head covering
made o f netting. “Es cierta cobertura de la cabeza hecha de red, dentro de la cual las mujeres recogen el
cabello” He mentions the adjective “escofiado” to denote men who covered their bald heads with a cofia.
He also suggests, Arabic (quehfia), Hebrew (cafaf) and French (coeffe) terms to designate a hairnet.
Covarrubias, “Tesoro,” p. 328.
102 “Documentos relativos al intestado Pedro de Narvaez” in Jorge Palomino y Caftedo, Los protocolos de
Rodrigo Hernandez Cordero, 1585-1590. Escribano publico de Guadalajara. Guadalajara: Ediciones del
Banco Industrial de Jalisco, 1979, pp. 84-87.
103 “Iten, dos sombreros uno de terciopelo rrizo y otro de tafetdn de borlilla/Un sombrero de tafetan de
borlilla/Qtro sombrero de fieltro, viejo/ Iten, ocho tocas de la China y de rred/Iten, otras tres tocas de la
China/Un sombrero de fieltro negro.” Ibid, pp. 85-87.
179
household goods included three hats, a bonnet, four tocas and one capirote (a cross
between a toca and a hat).104 It also mentions an unspecified head cloth (pano de cabeza)
and two lengths (dos baras) of tocas de sombrero, presumably the raw material to fashion
the head wrap. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this list of goods is its description
of the tocas as agafranadas. Such yellow-color headwraps were the most directly related
to Andalusi and North African fashion.105 Nonetheless, Nuno Silva collected and wore
them in the same manner as he did hats and bonnets. A similar document from
Guadalajara details the inventory of household goods of Hernando Espino (1590) and
shows a very well-appointed wardrobe that included three sumptuous tocas, a cap (gorra)
and an imported hat.106 As was the case with Nuno Silva’s possessions, hats, caps and
headwraps had a recognized place in a fashionable viceregal gentleman’s attire.
Although popular and commonplace among wealthy viceregal citizens, not all
viceregal wardrobes favored tocas as a choice of adornment. Acknowledging this
absence is also of particular importance, for it aids to locate the place of the head-wrap
more accurately within the map of viceregal taste. For instance, in 1553, Diego de
Carvajal’s shipment of merchandise from Seville to New Spain included a great amount
of silk threads, ribbons, and fabrics, not to mention items of clothing, chairs, hardware,
104 “un sonbrero de tafetan nuevo/dos sonbreros de fieltro-uno nuevo y otro biejo/ un bonete negro de aguja
digo de pafio/un paflo de cabeca/un capirote de pano/quatro tocas apaffanadas/dos baras de toca de
sonbrero” Proceso contra Nuno Silva (1580), AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 119, Exp. 4, f. 62r-62v. About the
capirote, Bemis Madrazo has identified its typology as, “una rosea o rollo relleno de lana o dej uncos, que
se encajaba en la cabeza, rosea de la que salla una especie de cresta. ..y una “beca” o “chia,” elemento
colgante que se cruzaba sobre uno de los hombros.” See Bemis Madrazo, “Trajes y modas,” p. 29.
105 “Alharemes y tocas tunecies se hacian de telas de lino, como el lienzo o la holanda, blancas o
amarillentas.” Ibid, p. 28.
106 “yten, una gorra de rizo en su gorrero nueba/yten, un sombreor de fieltro traydo/yten, dos tocas de
encajes y puntas/yten, otra toca rrazada de oro con su sobre copete” Inventario de Hernando de Espino,
Archivo Historico de Guadalajara, Protocolos de Rodrigo Hernandez Cordero, Vol. II, f. 644v, 646r.
180
and even rice.107 But the account only included four dozen caps and two dozen
bonnets.108 A similarly varied, but even more extensive merchandise inventory was
recorded in Queretaro around 1599.109 Only nine lined hats from the native market and
six small hats were recorded.110 These merchandise logs echo the contents of the Pedro
Escobar’s relatively modest wardrobe, which only included three hats upon his death in
1588.111 In contrast, the long description of Bernardino Ossorio’s sumptuous household
detailed but four hats and two caps.112 It is evident that tocas existed in the same sartorial
realm as a selection of several other items of head dress. Ultimately, however, personal
taste kept the selections in circulation through viceregal urban and rural spaces during the
sixteenth century, aiding in the display of items of Iberian conquest culture while in a
constant exchange of value with the very Iberian bodies that exhibited them.
In light of the wealth of documentary information confirming the unexceptional
place of head-wraps in the sartorial vocabulary of the Iberian world during the sixteenth
century, it is more accurate to speak distinctively of an Iberian toca than of a turban in the
general sense. In its association with foreign sartorial vocabularies, the term “turban”
inaccurately characterizes as exotic an item of clothing that, without a doubt, was
thoroughly Iberian. This classification is understandable, given that the bulk of academic
107 R elation de las mercaderias que Francisco Bernal tiene registradas,” (1553) AGI, Pasajeros, L. 3, E.
2373, f. 3r.
108 “Quatro dozenas de gorras. Dos dozenas de bonetes.” Ibid, f. 3r.
109 Memoria de las rropas que se entregan a! senor Joan de Echevarria, Archivo de Notarias de Queretaro,
Fondo Notaria 5, Protocolos, fs. 285r-288r.
110 “nueve sombreros del tiangues aforrados a 6 tomines cada uno/seis sonbreros chicos en tafetan a 1 peso
1 tomin” Ibid, f. 286v
111 “yten, un sonbrero negro/yten, un sombrero de paja/yten, un sonbrero pardo biejo.” Intestado Pedro
Escobar, AGI, Contratacion 231, N. 4, Ramo 13, fs. 3-15r.
112 “un sombrero de fieltro aforrado en tafetan traido/ytem otro sombrero de tafetan viejo con una trenza de
plata dorada vieja/ytem una gorra de terciopelo negro traida/ytem un sombrero de paja hecho en
portugal/una gorra de milan vieja/ytem un sombrero de paja” Inventario de bienes de Bernardino Ossorio
(1582), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 27, s/n.
181
production on the subject of “Oriental” influence upon Renaissance, especially Italian
and Northern European, dress deals almost exclusively with the impact of the Ottoman
and Mamluk Eastern Mediterranean.113
Far from exotic, however, Iberian tocas were commonly found at the center of
the Hapsburg court, adorning highly visible public figures. For instance, the inventories
of the regidores (mayors) of Madrid, during the reign of Philip II attest to its continued
use throughout the second half of the sixteenth century.114 Moreover, the quality of the
textiles employed to fashion tocas, underscore their quality as sumptuous items of
clothing.115 Although the use of head-wraps declined progressively during the second
half of the century, it was founded upon a sartorial tradition that was deeply rooted
among the royalty and the powerful elites since at least the reign of the Catholic
Monarchs.116 Christoph Weiditz’ representation of a Castilian peasant in Das
Trachtenbuch [Fig. 25] also offers visual evidence of the widespread use of the headwrap
113 Among them, Jardine, “Worldly Goods”; Jardine and Broton, “Global Interests”; Rosamond Mack,
From Bazaar to Piazza. Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600. Berkeley: University o f California
Press, 2002, pp. 149-170; Julian Raby, Venice, Diirer and the Oriental Mode. London: Islamic Art
Publications, 1982; Ibid, “The European Vision o f the Muslim Orient in the Sixteenth Century” in Venezia
e I'Oriente Vicino, Atti del primo congresso intemazionale sull’arte veneziana e l’arte islamica, ed. Ernst J.
Grube. Venice: Edizioni 1’Alta Riva, 1989, pp. 41-46.
114 These examples provide an especially meaningful context for the use o f tocas as items o f common wear.
As Guerrero Mayllo argues, the regidores ’ deeply established roots in the community o f Madrid largely
preceded its establishment as a capital city and center o f court. In addition to this legitimating fact (in
terms o f Castilian identity and pedigree), the nature o f the position of regidor, as an often inherited, but
potentially bought political title, made for a great competition in terms o f material display and outwards
signs o f distinction. That tocas figured in this show o f wealth and prestige reinforces the notion o f their
innate Iberian-ness. See Ana Guerrero Mayllo, F am iliay vida cotidiana de una elite de poder. Los
regidores madrilehos en tiempos de Felipe II. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1993, pp. 1-10.
115 “Paftos procedentes de Segovia, rajas y bayetas, cueros y antes para las prendas de abrigo, telas que, en
ocasiones, vern'an desde Milan para los jubones, rasos de Florencia, tafetanes, terciopelos, camelote de
aguas, sedas de Valencia— gurbion, damasco, espolin, gorgoran— beatillas o linos para las tocas.” Ana
Guerrero Mayllo, “Familia y vida cotidiana,” p. 332.
116 Berm's Madrazo cites the travel accounts o f Lorenzo Vital, who accompanied Charles V in his first visit
to Spain in 1517. Vital mentions the use o f the toca among all members o f society, but especially among
prominent noblemen, such as the Marques de Villena. Bemis Madrazo also describes King Ferdinand’s
visit to his son-in-law Philip the Fair with the King and his entourage all donning tocas for the special
occassion. with See Carmen Bemis Madrazo, “Trajes y modas,” pp. 27-29.
182
among the Iberian rural population. A comparative viceregal example, albeit from
Peru, is the Guaman Poma de Ayala’s depiction of The Mestizo Sons o f the Priest in the
Nueva coronica i buen gobierno (ca.1613-1615). [Fig. 26] Here, Guaman Poma labeled
the man wearing the headwrap a “hired Spanish muleteer.”117 The presence of the toca as
a head adornment for the wealthy and poor alike throughout Iberia and the Iberian
Empire, then, spanned the sixteenth century and existed as a practical and unambiguous
sartorial choice
— ll^M
. - ^ naif*
I k+ *t
Figure 25 Figure 26
Castilian Peasant The Mestizo Sons of the Priest
Das Trachtenbuch des Christoph Weiditz N ueva coronica i buen gobierno (ca.1613-1615)
that was also the product of personal taste. Tocas, as previously stated, were an
alternative in an extensive assortment of head adornments. Viceregal and peninsular
117 “Hijo de los padres dotrinantes mesticillos y mesticillas lo lleva un harriero espanol alquilado a la
ciudad de los reyes de lima media docena de nios lo lleva.” See Guaman Poma de Ayala. The Colonial A rt
o f an Andean Autor, ed. Mercedes Lopez-Baralt. New York: The Americas Society, 1992, p. 103. The
most up to date study and facsimile o f the Nueva Coronica is Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, E l primer
nueva coronica y buen gobierno (c. 1615), eds. Rolena Adorno and John V. Murra. Madrid: Historia 16,
1987.
183
documentation indicate that personal choice was a strong motive in their selection,
undoubtedly in consequence of shifting fashion trends as the century drew to a close.
Yet, the toca also could take a threatening significance. For instance, when a
blasphemous encomendero well-known for profane activities wore a toca while engaging
in suspicious, if not disturbing, behavior, an Inquisitorial official took note of his choice
of costume. Francisco del Valle Marroquin harassed Indians during Catholic holidays
while also failing to observe, or impeding the observance of Catholic holidays. In
addition to these and other transgressions, such as failing to take communion, del Valle
also owned a dog that accompanied him to mass, with whom he allegedly communicated
and which, upon seeing the presentation of the host, reportedly let out loud howls.118 But
Francisco del Valle found himself at the center of a particularly unsettling episode: In the
town of Copanovaztla at midnight on Good Friday, two native women found him at the
foot of their bed, mumbling incomprehensible words. The women described him wearing
a white shirt and zaraguelles, with a tocado covering his head.119 Although this scene
obliquely hints at the practice of an illicit Islamic ritual (the white clothes, the
unintelligible murmuring and the head wrap, not to mention his use of the cover of night),
Francisco del Valle Marroquin was surprisingly not processed for heterodox behavior.
Instead, the story of the perturbing nighttime performance is woven into a longer and
greater list of grievances of such dimensions that Cristobal de Morales Villavicencio, the
118 Proceso contra Francisco del Valle Marroquin por no guardar las fiestas (1579). AGN Inquisicion,
Vol. 85, Exp. 2, fs. 31-32.
119 “En Copanavaztla pueblo desta provincia viemes santo en la noche a media noche, se entro este valle un
un aposento donde dormian dos mugeres principals y puesto a los pies de la cama comemjo a hablar
ciertas palabras entre si como de [illegible] y despertando las mugeres dieron bozes y el valle todavia se
estava murmurando entre dientes hasta que ellas apelaron la casa conciendo a Valle que estava en camisa
faragiielles blancos con un tocado en la cabeza y le conocieron que hazla la luna muy clara y asi se salio
del aposento y al salir Mzo una cruz en la pared, testigos, Dona Barbara Solorzano y Dona Florentina.”
“Proceso contra Francisco del Valle Marroquin,” f 31v.
184
official who filed the report, shortened it “so as not to tire” his readers.520 Instead, del
Valle Marroquin was deemed more dangerous for his habitual disregard of the Catholic
ritual calendar and his forays into “pueblos de yndios.” The discrepancy between the
reported anti-Catholic acts of Francisco del Valle Marroquin, even visually suspicious
ones, found themselves at odds with the body of a ruthless Spanish encomendero of
considerable influence. Consequently, del Valle Marroquin was not suspected of
crypto-Islamic practices. Instead, his actions were deemed blasphemous, some even
demonic, but not heterodox.
In contrast to the concern for detailed descriptions of sartorial items characteristic
of the European testamentary tradition, the native documentation of the sixteenth century
focused instead on issues of land tenure.122 Relatively few indigenous documents
incorporated descriptions of household goods, and even fewer mentioned items of
clothing, especially European.123 Furthermore, head adornment was rarely incorporated
into the testamentary information. When they are mentioned, and in contrast to the
varied taste in head adornment that characterized Iberian wardrobes, indigenous
testaments in both Spanish and Nahuatl show an exclusive use of hats, albeit in very
limited amounts.
120 “No trato de otras muchas cosas que se dizen del por no cansar a vuestras mercedes.” Ibid, f. 32r.
121 Cristobal de Morales described him as, “hombre es encomendero y que tiene bienes y hazienda.”
Proceso contra Francisco del Valle Marroquin, f. 32r.
122 For a detailed discussion o f the significance and value o f land and land titles in the native tradition, see,
among others, James Lockhardt, Arthur J.O. Anderson and Frances Berdan. Beyond the Codices: The
Nahua View o f Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University o f California Press 1976 and Yanna Yannakakis,
Indios Ladinos: Indigenous Intermediaries and the Negotiation o f Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca. Ph.D.
Dissertation, University o f Pennsylvania, 2003.
12j Teresa Rosa Rabiela, Elsa Leticia Rea Lopez y Constantino Medina Lima, Vidas y bienes olvidados.
Testamentos indigenas novohispanos, Vols. 1-3. Mexico: CIESAS, 1999-2000. On Amerindian
testamentary traditions, see also Susan Kellogg and Mathew Restall, D ead Giveaways: Indigenous
Testaments o f Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes. University o f Utah Press, 1998; and S. L. Cline,
Colonial Culhuacan, 1580-1600. A Social History o f an Aztec Town. Albuquerque: University o f New
Mexico Press, 1986.
185
Don Gabriel de Guzman, cacique of Yanhuitlan, dictated his will from his
deathbed in 1591.124 His material possessions reflected the economic means
characteristic of the chief of a prosperous region, included silk clothes, a gilt silver
service, many silver pieces and jewels, as well as homes, animals and agricultural
produce.123 Unlike his predecessor, represented wearing a feathered hat in the Codex
Yanhuitlan, there is no mention of a single item of head adornment in the document. On
the opposite end of the social scale, Agustin Tecpantepetzin’s testament, recorded in
Nahuatl in the town of Ocotelulco, included very few belongings apart from land and a
house. 126 Nonetheless, it included two chairs from Michoacan and a hat with a higher
• *
recorded value than his own modest house.127 While the reasons for the dearth of head
adornments in indigenous wardrobes remain unclear, it is apparent that Amerindians were
not the core market for Europe an hats, bonnets, caps or tocas. Their role as important
spectators of the performance of Spanish-ness by means of sartorial display simply
cannot be undervalued.
Passive as their role may seem, Amerindians quickly became partners in the
Iberian system of consumption and display of cultural signs, as well as key players in the
generation and articulation of colonial meanings. Iberian head adornments, like Iberian
fashion, were part of a greater system of visual display of obvious importance in the
establishment of imperial order. Items of Morisco clothing, therefore, functioned at this
hegemonic level. Amerindians as well as fellow Spaniards understood these socio
124 Testamento de don Gabriel de Guzman, cacique y gobernador de Yanhuitlan, AGN, Tierras, Vol. 400,
exp. 1, cuad. 2. fs. 55r-60r. See its full transcription in Rosa Rabiela et al, “Vidas y bienes,” Vol. 1, pp.
147-153.
125 Ibid, pp. 149-151.
126 Ibid, pp. 279-282.
127 Rosa Rabiela et al, “Vidas y bienes,” Vol. 1, p. 280.
186
cultural implications, recognized their legitimacy, and exploited them in their struggle
to assert their place in the new order. While sartorial performance aided Spaniards in
their quest to establish control of the viceregal realm, its recognition and selective
appropriation aided native elites in their effort to survive political and economic change
and thrive as recognized socio-cultural actors.
Throughout the sixteenth century, the relationship between seeing and displaying
Iberian bodies dressed in items of so-called “Morisco” clothing had a wide range of
associations across the Hapsburg Empire. In fact, the visual and documentary evidence
indicates that the relationship between Morisco clothing and Moriscos was neither
exclusive nor distinct. Likewise, its association with luxury was directly dependent on
the circumstances of its display. Confusing the typological derivation of items of
Morisco clothing, such as tocas, jubones and zaraguelles, with their cultural significance
limits the interpretation of their meanings and clouds the ability to perceive and interpret
their uses. In Spain, Kings, nobles, government officials, peasants, and, of course,
Moriscos counted such garments in the wardrobes. In New Spain, powerful
encomenderos, Amerindian caciques, urban dwellers, and rural inhabitants of various
ethnic backgrounds also exchanged visual information through the display of items of
Morisco clothing. In a moment of need, they even served Heman Cortes to “Hispanize”
the sun-tanned and Maya-looking Jeronimo de Aguilar. No doubt, Cortes was fully
cognizant that Morisco clothing was, above all, an indicator of the Iberian self.
187
Chapter 4
Sixteenth-Century Viceregal Ceramics

and the Creation of a Mudejar Myth in New Spain
With Talavera I always feel safe, that’s why the first

thing I bring into all my houses is my Talavera dinner
service. One o f the yellow and blue ones, for fifty
people. It costs a fortune nowdays, but in those days
it was thought a bit vulgar. Everyone had Bavarian
china, not rough, breakable pottery from Puebla.
-Catalina Guzman in Arrdncame la vida (1 9 8 8 )1
This short passage from Angeles Mastretta’s novel, set in post-revolutionary
Mexico, expressively describes the development of the modem Mexican attitude towards
its renowned ceramic tradition, better known as Talavera Poblana.2 Its main character,
Catalina Guzman, a poblana like the author, identified with Talavera at a folkloric and
nostalgic level. Bom to a humble family in Puebla, her connection to the city’s pottery
craft preceded and rose above trends. It spoke of her origin, her sense of self and, in a
way, of her nobility despite her role as the wife of a corrupt revolutionary general turned
politician. After the European craze that characterized consumption during the Porfiriato
(1876-1911), Catalina observed a renewed admiration for Talavera Poblana, even
becoming status symbols at the onset of the nationalist period. But, as she well knew,
these “new” luxury items were still “rough breakable pottery from Puebla.” For Catalina,
Talavera symbolized home. Yet, the enjoyment, value, and uses of Mexican ceramics for
long have been subject to varying patterns of perception.
1 Angeles Mastretta, Arrdncame la vida {Mexican Bolero), trans. Ann Wright. New York: Penguin, 1989,
p. 134.
Throughout this chapter, the generic term “viceregal ceramics” defines tin-glazed opacified (also called
stanniferous) wares at use in New Spain. The choice to refrain from using the more common appellatives
"talavera poblana,” “loza blanca de Puebla,” or “Mexican maiolica” stems from this investigation’s focus
on questions o f consumption, consumer behavior and cultural meaning, rather than on issues o f provenance
and technique.
188
Since the turn of the twentieth century, art historical investigations on the subject
of viceregal ceramics have been rooted in—and limited to—narrowly constructed notions
of stylistic derivation and basic patterns of cultural transference. Its research, bound
mostly to the field of museum studies (and, to a lesser extent, to archaeology) has not
incorporated in-depth historical investigation of primary sources in favor of the aesthetic
appraisal of ceramic decoration. Thus, a solid tradition of connoisseurship has been
produced. On the other hand, an understanding of the role of ceramics as socio-cultural
signifiers in a complex colonial setting has not been developed to the same degree. Most
importantly, the conventional approach to the study of viceregal ceramics has failed to
position ceramic wares in the context of the viceregal conquest culture or in its greater
pattem(s) of conspicuous consumption. Removed from the sphere of cultural
significance— and, thus, interpretation—in favor of a strict practice of aesthetic
appreciation, the study of viceregal decorative ceramics remains disconnected from the
greater colonial historical discourse. In fact, a historical perspective seldom extends
beyond the cursory presentation of basic documentation pertaining to guild regulations
and Galeon de Manila trade descriptions.
3 The classic study on viceregal guild structures, is Francisco del Barrio Lorenzot, O rdenamas de gremios
de la Nueva Espaha. Mexico: Secretarfa de Gobemacion, 1920. Also, see Manuel Carrera Stampa, Los
gremios mexicanos. La organizacion gremial en la Nueva Espaha, Mexico: EDIAPSA, 1954; Francisco
Santiago Cruz, Las A r te s y los Gremios en la Nueva Espaha. Mexico: Editorial Jus, 1992. Historical works
on the Manila Galeon include Fernando Benitez, E l Galeon del Padfico: Acapulco-Manila, 1565-1815.
Guerrero: Gobierno Constitutional del Estado de Guerrero, 1992; Jean-Pierre Berthe. Estudios de Historia
de la Nueva Espaha: De Sevilla a Manila. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara and Centre d'Etudes
Mexicanes e Centramericaines, 1994. Art historical work on the subject is largely museological. See, for
instance, Beatriz Sanchez Navarro de Pintado, Marfiles cristianos del oriente en Mexico. Mexico: Fomento
Cultural Banamex, 1985; Museo Franz Mayer, Los palacios de la Nueva Espaha. Sus tesoros interiores.
Mexico: impresiones Gant, 1990; George Kuwayama, Chinese Ceramics in Colonial Mexico. Los Angeles:
Los Angeles County Museum o f Art, 1997.
189
As a result, stylistic and typological studies focused on issues of visual derivation
and adaptation have not deepened our understanding of the uses and meanings of
viceregal ceramics, whether imported or locally produced, beyond the acknowledgment
of artistic practices at the imperial center and their presence in the colonial periphery.
For the purpose of interpreting New Spain’s lived environment and the role of decorative
ceramics therein, the conventional descriptive approach has proven inadequate. Fine
ceramics circulated widely through colonial social spaces and were portable transmitters
of cultural information. Yet, the social dimensions of viceregal ceramic display during
the early colonial period remain an unexplored subject.
Placing sixteenth-century viceregal ceramics at the center of an exercise in
cultural history, therefore, is not only a conscious departure from the methodology that
has typified ceramic studies to date, but it is also an essential part of my proposed shift in
the discourse of the American Mudejar. In this approach, formal components and
aesthetic characteristics are secondary to the patterns of use and the place of ceramic
wares in the wider map of viceregal consumption during the sixteenth century. I contend
that the meaning behind the choices (whether to buy, display, or discard) and the uses of
ceramics during the early colonial period underscore a great variety and keen awareness
of accessible luxury objects since very early in the colonial enterprise. Positioned
opposite the historiographic construction of the Talavera Poblana myth, the study of the
viceregal consumer’s selective values highlights a similarly constructed hierarchy of
material culture informed only by formally-defined values. Central to our discussion,
therefore, is the acknowledgement that the cultural choices made during the early
190
colonial period responded to issues of socio-political formation in New Spain, in addition
to a profusion o f contemporary pan-European aesthetic information dictated by market
forces, not to mention by consumer desire and personal taste. In short, the map of
viceregal ceramic consumption during the sixteenth century is far more intricate than the
clear-cut boundaries that formal analysis suggests.
In this chapter, sixteenth-century viceregal ceramics serve as both a case study of
the production of a Mudejar discourse in the field of Spanish colonial art history and as
an effective heuristic device of Iberian colonial cultural analysis. Although they have
been considered the quintessential “Moorish” medium, viceregal ceramics are
nonetheless a problematic paragon of Mudejarismo in the Americas. Scholarship
presumes a certain purity in the design, typology, and taste for colonial ceramics that
links them directly to the arts of al-Andalus and pays little attention to broader issues of
cultural transformation and to the development of colonial, not to mention Iberian,
identities and tastes. Art historians also have come to understand decorated glazed
ceramics as essential items of well-appointed viceregal households. This methodological
scope is limited to fractional historical information. It also has failed to position
sixteenth-century viceregal ceramics in relation to the wealth of material goods and
aesthetic information that flooded the viceregal as well as the European markets.
Viceregal ceramics are studied in isolation or, at best, are compared directly to the
sources from where they seemingly derived. A traditional concern, for instance, is the
technical and stylistic derivation of Talavera Poblana from Talavera de la Reina wares.4
4 For a succinct presentation o f the origins o f the term Talavera Poblana as a result o f its alleged derivation
from the ceramic production o f Talavera de la Reina, see Margaret Connors McQuade, Talavera Poblana:
191
Consequently, they remain to be incorporated into the context of the sixteenth century’s
influx of desirable, transcontinental luxury goods, where the commodification of ceramic
wares, among other media, implied the wide circulation of technical and aesthetic
information. Once integrated into the greater systems of Mediterranean and Atlantic
commercial exchange, the study of the consumption of glazed ceramics becomes less tied
to the direct influence of particular Iberian potters and pottery towns but instead to a
well-established pattern of consumption that is reflective of early-colonial cultural value
systems.
The ahistorical methodology that has characterized the field of viceregal ceramic
studies to date makes it surprising to note that early-colonial ceramics were rarely
included in inventories as part of well-appointed homes. In fact, the historical
documentation reveals an intriguing discrepancy: it highlights an apparent scarcity of
ceramics, ornamental and utilitarian, recorded in private settings during the sixteenth-
century, although it confirms their presence in the commercial arena. On the other hand,
silver services decorated in Renaissance motifs and imported from several European
locations were mentioned routinely and painstakingly described, weighed, and measured.
Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Chinese porcelains also appear in greater
numbers than ceramics, although less frequently than silver pieces. The preference for
the latest European and Far Eastern styles in decorative objects stands against commonly
held notions of early colonial taste, which remain tied to a monolithic paradigm of late-
medieval aesthetics. Indeed, ceramic wares commonly identified as “Mudejar” are not
Four Centuries o f a Mexican Ceramic Tradition. New York: Americas Society, The Hispanic Society o f
America, Museo Amparo, pp. 13-16.
192
found anywhere in the documentation. Moreover, ceramic goods of any kind are difficult
to find in significant numbers in the historical record pertaining to private life.
The detailed inventory taken by the Holy Office after Pedro Suarez de Toledo’s
death in Guatemala (1571), for instance, describes the sumptuous home of a provincial
alcalde mayor.5 In addition to his political appointment, Suarez de Toledo also traded in
transatlantic luxury items. Upon his death, the merchant Pedro de Mendoza owed Suarez
de Toledo an unspecified sum for “the principal and profits of many types of high value
merchandise that [Suarez de Toledo] claims that he brought from Spain, of which Pedro
de Mendoza has not paid the outstanding percentage.”6 The inquisitorial investigation
reported a great amount of luxury items in the possession of friends and associates which
included exquisite garments, devotional paintings, bed linens and items of home
decoration. While ceramics do not figure anywhere in the list of valuables, elaborate
silver services appear several times. Most prominently, the Inquisitorial search described
a flannel-lined storage chest with two locks and inside a bag containing
two hundred and sixty-plus silver coins, in addition to four silver plates,
and two other medium-sized silver plates valued at three marcos each, and
three silver bowls, and three sauce boats, and two silver spoons, and a
candleholder with scissors, also of silver, and a cup of gilded silver, and an
Agnus Dei gilded in gold as big as the communion host and the weight of
the gold is as heavy as twelve silver pesos from the mines.7
5 Memoria de los bienes que dexo Pedro Quarez de Toledo (1571), AGbl, Inquisicion, Vol. 76, Exp. 7, ff.
48r-54r.
6 “Primeramente que dize que dio a Pedro de Mendoza mercader vezino de la villa dela Trinidad que es la
dicha provincia para que vendiese de su tienda, y le acudiese con principal y ganancias muchos generos de
cosas y mercadurias que dize truxo de Espana de mucho valor de las quales cosas el dho Pedro de Mendoza
no le ha dado quinta ni acudido con ninguna cosa del principal y ganancias.” “Memorial de Pedro Xuarez
de Toledo,” f. 48r.
7 “y un cofre de dos Haves aforrado de bayueta (sic.) q. tenia dentro una talega con doscientos y sesenta y
tantos tostones, y mas quatro platos de plata y otros dos platos de plata medianos de a tres marcos cada uno
y tres escudillas de plata y tres salseros de plata y dos cucharas de plata y un candelero de plata con sus
tijeras de plata y una taga de plata toda dorada y un Agnus dey guamegido de oro tan grande como una
hostia que el oro de que esta guamegido pesa doce pesos de m inas...” Ibid, f. 48v. A smaller but also
tremendously sumptuous silver set was found in the hands o f Alvaro de Paz, executor o f Pedro Suarez de
193
The complete absence of ceramics from Suarez de Toledo’s recorded property
also defines Cristobal de Salazar’s belongings, sold in public auction after his death in
Mexico City (1569). While Salazar’s estate was decidedly humble compared to Suarez
de Toledo’s, and particularly full of items of cloth and clothing (even if often described
as “viejo” and “mal tratado”), the few items of home use mentioned in the document
include a small silver cup, a silver stamp, and even an old plate made of peltre, or a rather
humble allow of zinc, tin and lead.8 Certainly, a household with such few metal objects
made regular use of ceramic dishes and cooking utensils. But the fact that an old metal
plate is mentioned in an inventory that otherwise lacks a single mention of decorative or
utilitarian ceramics indicates the common status of viceregal wares. When ceramics are
mentioned, such as they are in the testament of Bartolome Solano (1594), they tend to
have a storage function, or to be valuable imports. Solano’s unimpressive estate
mentions three small white jars, two large earthen vats and four glazed storage jars.9 It
also mentions two imported porcelain, or “china,” plates, although one is described as
“slightly cracked.”10 Together with a single filigreed candle holder made of unspecified
metal—certainly not silver—the china wares, imperfect as they were, provide the only
examples of valuable items of home decoration. In contrast, the rest of the ceramic
Toledo’s estate, “yten deve y esta en poder de Albaro de Paz vezino de la dha cibdad de guatemala y
alba?ea del dho Pedro Cuarez quatro platillos de plata de a marco cada uno, y un salero de dos piecas con
su pimentero como sobre copa de plata todo dorado, y un candelero de plata, y un cubilete de plata...” Ibid,
f. 50v.
8 “una tasilla de plata que peso un marco e quatro onzas/un plato de peltre viejo/un sello de plata.”
Testamento de Cristobal de Salazar (1569), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 344, Exp. 2, s/n.
9 “yten dos tinajas.. ./yten quatro jarros de barro bedrados (sic.) de una cuartilla y un enbudo grande y otro
pequeno y un medio quartillo/” Autos hechos sobre el cumplimiento del testamento de Bartolome Solano,
vezino de las Minas de Temazcaltepec (1594), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 20, f. lOv.
10 “yten dos platos de la china el uno quebrado un poco y el otro sano.” Ibid, f. 1 lr.
194
objects in Salazar’s inventory were functional coarse wares that could not be confused
with refined goods.
The prominent status of silverware stresses a discrepancy between the modem
academic production and the reality of viceregal ceramic consumption during the
sixteenth century. The inconsistency between academic interpretation and the content of
the archival records also highlights the constmction of a Mudejar category of viceregal
consumption that, once again, compels an interrogation of the role of Mudejarimso in the
development of Iberian identities. Generalized affirmations of the continued existence of
“Mudejar” wares in New Spain speak of taste as a cultural survival without addressing
aesthetic choice as a meaningful social practice.
The inadequate treatment of Mudejarismo in the study of viceregal ceramics also
stems from the failure to think of material culture, in this case stanniferous wares, in
terms of the interaction of form, taste, and function within a system of cultural
transmission. This interpretative limitation is still evident in the literary output after the
sudden rise of ceramic exhibitions and catalogues organized in the United States since
1990. By repeating the tenets of the early writers on the subject of viceregal ceramics,
recent studies also have failed to take the subject of Mudejarismo out of a limited late-
medieval Iberian construction and into the greater context of the European commodities
trade and the reality of Morisco history in the sixteenth century.11 The formalist
11 The extreme example o f this non-revisionist approach is the content o f the exhibition catalogue Maiolica
Ole. Though published in 2001, Florence Lister acknowledged, “the original draft o f this manuscript was
prepared in 1975-76. Inasmuch as little archaeological or historical research has been accomplished since
then, other than our own work, and few relevant specimens have been added to this collection, we feel the
date and observations presented in this publication remain current.” While the repetitive nature o f recent
publications on the subject o f viceregal ceramics make Florence Lister’s assertion only partly true, her
treatment o f Iberian ceramics and history, especially o f the Mudejar and Morisco periods, belie the author’s
195
methodologies espoused by Edwin Atlee Barber and Robert and Florence Lister,
supporting a direct relationship between Andalusi ethnicity/religion and a Mudejar
aesthetic production, still provide the main approach to the study of viceregal ceramics.12
Likewise, the latest surge of academic activity on the subject of viceregal ceramics
continues to focus on the production rather than on the use and meaning of ceramic wares
in New Spain.13
Where the Mudejarismo question is concerned, the specter of the clandestine
Morisco looms large in the scholarship, signaling further the Mudejar’s exotic flair and
its disconnection from the “purely” Iberian. While the hypothetical involvement of
Moriscos in viceregal ceramic production continues to be asserted as an obvious
necessity for the manufacture of ceramic wares in sixteenth-century New Spain, the
question of consumption remains to be raised. This model renders the imaginary Morisco
artisans, rather than Iberian consumers, solely responsible for setting the rhythms of taste
lack o f awareness o f important archaeological, not to mention documentary and literary, contributions o f
the past two decades. Lister reaffirmed that “during the fifteenth century Christian potteries turned out a
wide range o f domestic wares... When covered with a thin, tin-opacified glaze and if decorated at all, the
bore a band o f debased cufic inscriptions... The only special sort o f pottery produced by non-Muslims
during this period was some cuerda seca or cuenca tiles and plates.” Yet the archaeological and
documentary work o f Francois Amigues, for instance, indicates that between the years 1350 and 1429, the
very active Valencian pottery workshops saw a marked increase o f Christian potters. Indeed, by the mid
fifteenth century, the distribution and commercialization o f Valencian pieces rested almost entirely in the
hands o f Christian merchants. There is no reason to believe that this trend was exclusive to the Aragonese
realm. From a traditional museological perspective, Balbina Martinez Caviro also has expressed her belief
in the meaningful participation o f Christian potters in the production o f “Mudejar” ceramics. See Franfois
Amigues, “Potiers mudejares et chretiens de la region de Valence” in Archeologie M am ique 3 (1992), pp.
129-167; Florence Lister, “Maiolica Ole,” pp. 14, 21; Balbina Martinez Caviro, Ceramica
hispanomusulmana andalusiy mudejar. Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 1991, p. 128.
12 For a detailed historiographic review o f viceregal ceramic studies, see Appendix 4. The direct link
between viceregal ceramic production and Morisco potters is taken as a fact— or, at least, as a very likely
possibility— by specialists o f colonial ceramics. See, Edwin Atlee Barber, The Maiolica o f Mexico.
Philadelphia: Printed for the Museum, 1908; Robin Farwell Gavin and Florence Lister, “Maiolica Ole”;
Margaret Connors McQuade, “Talavera Poblana,” p. 24; Kuwayama, “Chinese Ceramics,” p. 23.
13 See, for example, Effain Castro Morales, “Loza centenaria. Puebla y la Talavera a traves de los siglos” in
Artes de Mexico 3 (1995), pp. 20-29.
196
and consumption in both the Iberian Peninsula and the American territories. It also
reduces the Iberian settler or, more commonly, the “Christian” conqueror, to a position of
passive receptor, or even of unconscious imitator, of a foreign aesthetic that apparently
reveals more about its makers than about its users.14
Although much has been written about the general history of viceregal ceramics,
the fact remains that, outside of archaeological shards, there remain very few surviving
sixteenth-century examples.15 Nonetheless, given that ceramics (mainly from the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries) outnumber Mexican silver pieces in museum
collections, they have been regarded as the classic example of a surviving and dominating
taste for Mudejar goods among the viceregal ruling classes. The myth of the
preeminence of ceramics as sumptuous objects of desire has been constructed out of the
extant examples produced during and after the mid-seventeenth-century “boom” of the
ceramic industry of the city of Puebla de los Angeles.
14 This position is most evident in Robin Farwell Gavin’s introductory essay to the exhibition catalogue
Cerarnica y Cultura. In this piece, there is no acknowledgement o f the role o f the Iberian consumer in her
description o f the transformation o f Iberian ceramics during the sixteenth century. Instead, she mentions
external (foreign) forces that included a “first expulsion o f Muslims from Spanish soil, in 1502,” the final
expulsion o f the Moriscos in 1609, the increasing “fervor” for limpieza de sangre, the arrival o f Italian
“merchants, artists, and potters,” and the opening o f Portuguese maritime trade with Asia. The
misrepresentation o f the forced conversions o f 1501-1502 (Castile) and 1525 (Aragon) as a “first
expulsion” and the timely arrival o f Italian artisans, presumably to fill the void left by the Moriscos,
together with the fact that Gavin does not acknowledge the well-documented role o f “Christian” artisans in
the production o f “Islamic art forms,” indicate a historical construction meant to support an aesthetic
supposition. Nonetheless, Gavin summarizes the importance o f these events as follows, “The popular
appeal o f the Chinese ceramics, the loss o f innumerable Islamic artists, and the introduction o f Renaissance
art combined to transform the appearance o f what had been a predominantly Islamic art form into an
international one. And from this time forward, ceramic artistic traditions in Spain and Mexico were
inexorably linked.” Robin Farwell Gavin, “Introduction” in “Ceramica y Cultura,” pp. 5-6.
15 To my knowledge, these are limited to a few tile examples in the collection o f the Museo Franz Mayer in
Mexico City. Their sixteenth-century dating, however, is an approximation based on formal elements, as
there is no provenance information.
197
An examination of the literature pertaining to Mexican colonial ceramics
emphasizes the need for a reassessment of this model as it applies to the sixteenth
century, a period that is noticeably absent from the studies completed to date.16 Just as
importantly, a critical interpretation of the scholarship underscores the problematic fact
that our understanding of colonial Mexican ceramics currently owes more to the
development of museum and private collecting in the United States at the turn of the
twentieth century than to the reality of their use and meaning during the viceregal
period.17 The legacy of almost a century of viceregal ceramic studies focused on stylistic
and typological analysis continues to produce investigations that reveal more concern for
questions of attribution and chronology than for the socio-historical impact of the
transmission of modes and manners in a colonial context.
In the essay “Style and Culture Contact,” Jon Muller addressed methodological
concerns on the use of style to trace patterns of cultural exchange.18 With particular
concern for the taxonomic approach that allows for the formulation of “diffusionist
explanations,” he notes that scholars, especially archaeologists and anthropologists, often
have failed to link formal and non-formal elements in their interpretative effort.19 In the
case of viceregal ceramics, this description also applies to the work of art historians who,
along with archaeologists, have not paused to assess the superficiality of the formal
relationships drawn, and thus of the “inadequacy of the taxonomic procedures
16 Margaret Connors McQuade’s soon-to-be-completed dissertation, The Making o f a Spanish Colonial

Tradition: Loza Poblana and Its Emergence (Art History Department, CUNY Graduate Center), will offer
much-needed insight into the world o f sixteenth century viceregal ceramic production.
17 See Appendix 4 for an examination o f the impact o f collecting upon the academic construction o f
Talavera Poblana.
18 Jon Muller, “Style and Culture Contact” in Man across the Sea. Problems o f Pre-Columbian Contacts,
eds. Carroll Riley, J. Charles Kelley, et al. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971, pp. 66-78.
19 Ibid, 67-69.
198
20
employed.” In the viceregal record, there is no scarcity of historical documentation
with which to corroborate our assessment of the stylistic information. It is possible,
therefore, to develop an analysis of the style “as it operated.”21
By characterizing the value of viceregal ceramics following such “intra-aesthetic”
definitions, the field has failed to determine the medium’s cultural significance during the
• 22 • *
early colonial period. As items of daily use, ceramics were present regularly in the
course of viceregal life. Even when their role was solely decorative, their place in the
home implied a constant interaction not just with the members of the household and its
visitors, but also with other surrounding objects, which were subject, in turn, to the same
scrutiny and socio-cultural measurement. The meanings extracted from these physical
and visual exchanges, therefore, remain essential to expand our understanding of the
experience of the lived viceregal environment.23
Baxendall and Geertz have stressed the role of the consumer, or “beholder,” of
works of art in identifying and, by doing so, imbuing objects with cultural meaning.24
For Geertz, such construction and recognition of meaning is inherently the product of
20 Ibid, p. 69.
21 Or, at the very least, to approximate it. In M uller’s words, “it is not possible fully to treat a change in a
style without understanding the style as it operated.” Ibid, p. 76.
22 Geertz, “Local Knowledge,” p. 97.
23 Or, what Geertz describes as the “way o f being-in-the-world” that art (in this case, material objects)
“promotes and exemplifies.” Ibid, p. 97.
24 Throughout his text, Baxandall calls this process “gauging” (and the resulting phenomenon “the period
eye”), while Geertz has interpreted it simply as “the capacity o f [an] audience to see meanings in pictures.”
Although Baxandall’s concept refers specifically to the ability o f middle-class, fifteenth-century Italians to
apply basic mathematical knowledge (estimation o f volume) to enhance their perceptual field and increase
their comprehension o f images, it is highly applicable for the study o f material culture as well. See,
Michael Baxandall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1988; Geertz, “Local Knowledge,” p. 108. On the reaction to Baxandall’s theory, especially in the fields o f
anthropology and sociology, see Allan Langdale, “Aspects o f the Critical Reception and Intellectual
History o f Baxandall’s Concept o f the Period Eye” in A bout Michael Baxandall, ed. Adrian Rifkin. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 17-35.
199
9^
local practice; “meaning is use, or more carefully, arises from use.” In the case of the
colonial dimension of viceregal ceramics, especially during the formative years of the
sixteenth century, the local geography of cultural knowledge extended to the Iberian
Peninsula. In this context, the use—not to mention the technical knowledge—of glazed
ceramics had long transcended socio-religious boundaries to become a pan-Iberian
medium. In New Spain, ceramic wares served to propagate Iberian modes and manners.
Yet, even as effective diffusers of Iberian cultural hegemony, they still existed in relation
to a great amount of material objects of greater socio-economic value. Though routinely
overlooked in the scholarship, it is against this backdrop that consumers derived
knowledge, developed taste and, ultimately, positioned ceramic wares.
The established idea upholds the ceramic tradition of the Castilian town of
Talavera de la Reina as the model followed by potters in New Spain, largely due to its
well-documented rise as a major artisanal center at the end of the sixteenth-century.
Seville, as the gateway to the Americas and the home of a deep-rooted pottery tradition,
is regarded as the second most influential center for the development of the craft in New
Spain. Yet, the map of Iberian ceramic production and consumption throughout the first
three quarters of the sixteenth century is tremendously diverse technically and
geographically. Extant material evidence indicates that at least three major pottery
centers were active producers throughout the sixteenth century in the Iberian Peninsula.
The kilns at Valencia, Toledo, and Seville, produced ceramic wares that were admired
throughout the Iberian Peninsula, the Mediterranean, and across the Atlantic. Together,
they are of fundamental importance to understand the stylistic diversity that characterized
25 Geertz, “Local Knowledge,” p. 118.
200
Iberian production and consumption of material goods. The study of the pottery
production of these centers is essential to understand the development of Iberian ceramic
taste in New Spain, particularly since new documentary evidence points to the fact that
Talavera de la Reina-Puente del Arzobispo did not become a key producer of luxury
ceramics until 1580, at the earliest.26
Of particular importance to this investigation, however, is the fact that the study
of the most emblematic Iberian pottery centers also sheds light on the role of the potter,
whether Christian, Mudejar or Morisco, not only in the process of manufacture but also in
the visual consumption of the finished products. A multi-ethnic environment of varying
degrees characterized most Iberian workshops. Therefore, so-called Mudejar ceramics,
in all of their aesthetic variety, emerge as products that the Iberian consumer for long had
understood to be both trademarks of each local production center and distinctively Iberian
objects. Once transferred to or replicated in New Spain, the message of Iberian-ness
remained attached to the objects as well as to the daily rituals that they facilitated.
More than any other Iberian ceramic product, Valencian lusterwares were the
most closely associated with the luxury market. Highly coveted across Iberia and the
Mediterranean throughout the medieval period, Valencia’s lusterware workshops, which
were mainly located in the towns of Manises and Patema, counted kings, queens, and
77 •
popes among their patrons. Maria de Castilla, queen consort of Aragon, is perhaps the
26 Anthony Ray, Spanish Pottery, 1248-1898, with a catalogue o f the collection in the Victoria and Albert
Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Publications, 2000, p .158.
27 The study o f the Valencian pottery tradition is also the most fully developed archaeologically and
historically. Here, however, I will focus on the sixteenth century. Among the many works on the subject o f
Valencian pottery o f the medieval period are Frangois Amigues, “Potiers mudejares et chretiens de la
region de Valence” in Archeologie Islamique 3 (1992), pp. 129-167; Ibid, “La ceramica gotico-mudejar
valenciana y las foentes de inspiracion en sus temas decorativos” in Spanish M edieval Ceramics in Spain
201
most famous client. In 1454, for instance, she wrote to Pere Boil, Lord of Manises, to
order a sumptuous table setting that she was careful to describe in detail.28 A few pieces
bearing Maria de Castilla’s heraldic symbols survive in museum collections and provide
evidence of the extreme refinement characteristic of the Valencian trade [Fig. 27]. Other
extant examples show Pope Leo X ’s (Giovanni de’ Medici, 1513-1521) coat of arms, and
even that of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs, [Fig. 28]
indicating the continuing demand for Valencian lusterwares during the late fifteenth
century and the early sixteenth century.29 Although the development of Italian wares
Figure 27
Lusterware basin with the armorial shield of Maria de Castilla
Manises, Valencia (ca. 1430-50’s)
and the British Isles. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1995, pp. 141-158; Alice Wilson
Frothingham, Lusterware o f Spain. New York: The Hispanic Society, 1957; Luis M. Llubia, Cerdmica
M edieval Espahola. Barcelona: Editorial Labor S.A., 1967; Balbina Martinez Caviro, Cerdmica
hispanomusulmana andalusly mudejar. Madrid: Ediciones El Viso, 1991; Leopoldo Torres Baibas, “De
ceramica hispanomusulmana” in Al-Andalus IV (1939), pp. 412-431.
28 “dos platos para dar agua a manos, platos grandes para servir y llevar vianda, platos para comer,
escudilla, escudillas delgadas para beber caldo, jarras delgadas para servir agua, que esten todas doradas,
vasos para flores con dos asas doradas, morteros, media docena, que sean grandecitos, escudillas y obra
menuda, escudillas para hacer sopas secas.” The queen goes on to request that they be fine and thin (“obra
prima”) and decorated as a set (“entre tota sia cosi”). As cited from the Archive General del Reino de
Valencia, Documentos del Real Registro, Num. 16, “Reginalle XIII1” by G. J. de Osma, La loza dorada de
Manises en el aho 1454, Vol. 1. Madrid, 1906, pp. 7-25.
29 Martinez Caviro, “Ceramica hispanomusulmana,” pp. 185-190; Anthony Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” p. 128.
202
Figure 28
Lusterware bowl with the coat of arms of
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile
Manises, Valencia (ca. 1468-1492)
meant a steady decline in Valencian exports later in the period, the Iberian demand for
lusterwares remained strong.30 Indeed, it has been suggested that “the Italian
Renaissance had little effect on the potters and the challenge of Seville and Talavera only
came in the last two decades of the century.”31
A “dilution of the Mudejar tradition” characterizes the artistic repertoire of
sixteenth-century Valencian ceramics.32 That is, throughout the period, the floral,
epigraphic and geometric motifs, some including sgraffito, that defined the products of
the fifteenth century, survive with many variations. [Figs 29-30] Typologically, the
influence of gold and silver vessels upon pottery production, a trend that had begun in the
last decade of the fifteenth century, continued to produce increasingly bulging plates.33
[Fig. 31] In light of the tremendous aesthetic variants described above, Anthony Ray
j0 Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” p. 127.

31 Ibid, p. 127.
32 Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” p. 128.
33 Martinez Caviro, “Ceramica hispanomusulmana,” p. 183.
203
cautions that dating lusterware pieces other than those bearing identifiable heraldic
information remains “inevitably conjectural” and “problematical.”34
Figure 29
Sixteenth century lusterware plates with sgraffito decoration
Manises, Valencia
Figure 30 Figure 31
Fifteenth century lusterware plate Sixteenth-century lusterware plates
Reads “Ave M a ria G ra[tia] Plena” influenced by gold and silver vessels
M anises, Valencia Manises, Valencia
Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” p. 128.
204
That the sixteenth century brought about a subtle transformation of traditional
motifs and typologies may respond to an increasing “old Christianization” of the pottery
workshops. That is, as the artisanal workforce and certainly also the merchant class
became ever more dominated by old Christians, unavoidable changes began to take place.
Although “new Christians” continued to dominate production after the forced
conversions of the Mudejares of Aragon in 1526, old Christians shared in the production
with Morisco potters by nearly half.35 Nonetheless, despite the changes, the prices of
lusterware remained the highest among ceramic products and were produced in
remarkably high quantities throughout the century. But, in the end, the ethnicity of the
potters was not the deciding factor in the enduring popularity of Valencian lusterware.
Not only were the consumers of such luxury goods almost entirely old Christian, not to
mention inherently elite, they also hailed from different geographies across the Iberian
Peninsula. The technical quality and the aesthetic repertoire, therefore, had to appeal to
and speak effectively of the buyers’ lifestyles.
Although the strong impact of Valencian lusterware upon Iberian markets is
undeniable, there is no way to ascertain its direct influence upon the viceregal workshops.
While there are lusterware pieces in Mexican museum collections, most notably in the
Franz Mayer Museum, they lack a clear provenance record. The fact that there are no
35 Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” p. 128. Although there is overwhelming evidence to support important old
Christian participation in the lusterware craft o f the Aragonese town o f Reus, for example, it is nonetheless
difficult to tell Moriscos apart from Christians on the account o f their names alone. Supported by
documentary evidence (Archive Historico Municipal de Reus, Leg. Varia, 13), Luisa Vilaseca Borrhs
suggests that the Moriscos o f the Aragonese towns o f Tivisia and Muel, two important lusterware centers,
were sufficiently assimilated into the Catholic mainstream that they were not expelled from the region after
1609. Those o f Benisanet and Benifallet, furthermore, counted on the Bishop o f Tortosa to help them prove
their Old Christian status. See Luisa Vilaseca Borras, Los alfarerosy la cerdmica de reflejo metdlico de
Reus de 1550-1650, Vol. 1. Reus: Asociacion de Estudios Reusenses, 1964, pp. 163-168.
205
extant, intact, lusterware vessels that can be connected to a viceregal context only
complicates the matter. Furthermore, the archaeological record indicates a great scarcity
of sumptuous lusterware shards from sixteenth century sites.36 Similarly, there is no
archaeological or documentary evidence that a reduction kiln of the type needed to
produce lusterwares ever existed in New Spain. Yet, the lasting influence of Valencian
lusterwares is patent in some extant pieces dated to the seventeenth century, such as the
Metropolitan Museum’s famous lebrillo. [Fig. 32-33] Until we learn more about the
presence of lusterwares in New Spain, we can only deduce that the strength of the
Valencian visual model was the product of the transmission of aesthetic, rather than
technical, knowledge at the workshop level.
W:
M S
Figure 32 Figure 33
Lebrillo/Basin (ca. 1650) Lusterware lebrillo/basin (ca. 1425-50)
Reads “SOY PARA LABAR LOS Manises, Valencia
PURYFYCADORES Y NO MAS”
Puebla de los Angeles, Mexico
36 See Appendix 4 for a discussion o f the absence o f lusterwares from the viceregal archaeological record.
206
In contrast to the well-developed documentary corpus pertaining to ceramic
production in Valencia during the sixteenth century, historical work on the contemporary
pottery trade of Seville and Toledo remains inadequate. Most of the investigations on the
ceramic tradition of Seville have concentrated on tile decoration, especially of the Italian
Renaissance style made popular after the mid sixteenth century.37 In addition to a similar
focus on tile work, the study of ceramic material from Toledo also has been eclipsed by
the later rise of Talavera de la Reina-Puente del Arzobispo as an important center.38
Most recently, Anthony Ray has argued convincingly, if succinctly, that Toledo’s pottery
workshops surpassed Talavera’s production until late in the period. He argues that,
indeed, the Toledan wares were so highly regarded that half of the tiles commissioned for
the decoration o f El Escorial were made in Toledo.39
For both Seville and Toledo, however, our knowledge regarding the production of
blue and white, often called blue and purple, utilitarian vessels is limited at best. Only
37 The classic study o f Sevillian ceramics (inclusive o f vessels) is Jose Gestoso y Pdrez, Historia de los
barros vidriados sevillanos, desde sus origenes hasta nuestros dias (1903). Sevilla: Excelentxsimo
Ayuntamiento de Sevilla, 1995. See also, among many others, Manuel Casamar, Azulejos sevillanos,
toledanosy aragoneses (cuerda s e c a y arista). Museo de Pontevedra (XXXVI), 1983; Antonio
Pleguezuelo, Cerarnicas de Triana. Coleccion Carranza. Sevilla: Fundacion el Monte, 1996; Ibid
Pleguezuelo Hemdndez, Antonio. Ceramicas de Triana. Coleccion Carranza. Sevilla: Fundacion el Monte,
1996; Ibid, Azulejo sevillano. Catdlogo del Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares de Sevilla. Sevilla:
Padilla Libros, 1986; Ibid, Cerdmica de Triana (s. XVI-XIX). Granada: Caja General de Ahorros, 1985;
Antonio Sancho Corbacho, La cerdmica andaluza. Azulejos sevillanos del siglo XVI, de cuenca. Casa de
Pilatos. Sevilla: Laboratorio de Arte, 1954.
38 On Toledan pottery, see Jose Aguado Villalba, La cerdmica hispanomusulmana de Toledo. Madrid:
CSIC, 1983; Manuel Escriva de Romani, Conde de Casal, Cerdmica de la ciudad de Toledo. Madrid:
Tipografias Blass, 1935; R. Ramirez de Arellano. Catdlogo de artifices que trabajaron en Toledo. Toledo:
Imprenta Provincial, 1920.
39 Anthony Ray, “Sixteenth-century pottery in Castile: A Documentary Study” in The Burlington Magazine
133: 1058 (1991), pp. 298-305.
207
fifteen examples (tin glazed, decorated in blue and manganese) dated to the fifteenth
century survive in Museum collections.40 [Fig. 34] It is not known if these objects were
Figure 34
Fifteenth century plates from Sevilla
produced in various local pottery centers by “Mudejar” potters, or if they originated in a
single locality. Anthony Ray suggests that this group of wares provides evidence of the
type of coarseware manufactured in Seville in great quantities for export to the
Americas.41 The decoration that characterizes these vessels is decidedly unsophisticated.
In Ray’s words, “the glaze is an impure white, and the colours, a brightish blue and a
wine-lees purple, have run in places, blurring the design slightly. The reverses are
undecorated and show many impurities in the somewhat thinner glaze, together with
40 These have been loosely attributed to the pottery town o f Calatayud. See Anthony Ray, “Fifteenth-
Century Spanish Pottery: The Blue and Purple Family” in The Burlington Magazine 129:1010 (1987), pp.
306-308.
41 Ray’s assessment is made on formal elements alone. Of course, only petrographic analysis o f the pieces
would elucidate questions o f precedence. Ray, “Fifteenth-Century Spanish Pottery,” p. 307.
208
flecks of colour, including copper green.”42 The distinction between extant fifteenth and
sixteenth century pieces [Fig. 35] is visually indistinct and academically unclear.
Although a few more refined polychrome cuerda seca plates attributed to Seville also
survive [Fig. 36], it is the blue and white coarse wares that are commonly found in
archaeological contexts throughout the Americas. Called “Isabela Polychrome” by
Goggin, the concentric geometric designs that characterize their decoration earn them the
titles “Morisco” and “Mudejar.”43 [Fig. 37]
Yet, it is impossible to determine the level of direct Morisco involvement in the
production of Sevillian pottery. Above all, by the early sixteenth century the Morisco
population had diminished greatly in the city.44 The picture only becomes more muddled
at the workshop level. As Jose Maria Sanchez Cortegana states, “it is very difficult to
calculate the number of workshops active in Seville during the sixteenth century because
we lack of official documents (census data, catastral registers, etc) that could provide
concrete and exact data.”45 We do know, however, that the Sevillian workshops
42 Ibid, p. 306.
43 Ibid, p. 306-307; John M. Goggin, Spanish Majolica in the New World. Types o f the Sixteenth through
the Eighteenth Centuries. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968, pp. 126-128; Lister and Lister,
“Andalusian Ceramics”; Ray, “Spanish Pottery,” pp. 156-157. Not surprisingly, this is the same type o f
decoration that presumably adorned Talavera de la Reina wares until the late sixteenth century. Balbina
Martinez Caviro, for instance, suggests that “los alfareros de Talavera y de Puente fabricaron,
probablemente durante todo el siglo XVI, un tipo de platos bastos, hechos a tomo y decorados
exclusivamente en azul oscuro, que vienen considerandose como ejemplo de la tradicion mudejar.” Italian
and Netherlandish models began to influence the decorative repertoire towards the second half o f the
century. See, Balbina Martinez Caviro, Cerdmica de Talavera. Madrid: CSIC, 1969, pp. 12-16.
44 See Francisco Morales Padron, Historia de Sevilla. La ciudad del quinientos. Sevilla: Universidad de
Sevilla, 1977, p. 92.
45 “Resulta diffcil cuantificar el numero de ollerias existentes en Sevilla en el siglo XVI, pues faltan
documentos de caracter oficial (censos, catastros, etc.) que nos pudieran dar cifras concretas y exactas.”
Josb Maria Sanchez Cortegana, El oficio de ollero en Sevilla en el siglo XVI. Sevilla: Diputacion Provincial
de Sevilla, 1994, p. 71.
Figure 35
Sixteenth-century blue and white ceramics
Seville
>r &
»
i
T- ■■».
J.;-*.
Figure 36 Figure 37
Sixteenth-century cuerda seca ceramics Sample o f sixteenth-century
Seville Sevillian shards recovered from
Mexican archaeological contexts
210
produced tremendous quantities of common wares and that they counted the Spanish
Armada as one of its most loyal patrons.46 So-called “Morisco” wares from Seville,
therefore, were Sevillian goods to the Spanish navy, hardly an unclear message.
The increasingly limited cultural impact of Moriscos throughout the sixteenth
century, undertaken in detail in Chapter 1, the active role of Iberian “Christians” in the
production of works of art traditionally associated with an Andalusi “other,” and the
growing influence of Northern and Italian Renaissance as well as Far Eastern items of
trade towards the last decades of the sixteenth century no doubt had a real effect on the
life of the so-called Mudejar wares.47 But cultural meaning is also forged at the level of
use, at the moment when the objects are intentionally desired, sold, acquired, inherited,
and even discarded. Fundamental personal and socio-cultural forces inform each of these
acts— or, rather, choices. Yet, the study of these “collectively shared values” and their
transformation in the American colonial environment has been absent from viceregal
48
ceramic studies to date. At best, the movement of glazed and decorated ceramics has
been presented as the product of a simple process of aesthetic transference, disconnected
from socio-political exchanges.49 I propose, therefore, that we position fine ceramics in
46 See C. I. M. Martin, “Spanish Armada Pottery” in International Journal o f Nautical Archaeology and
Underwater Exploration (1979), pp. 279-302.
47 In spite o f obvious cultural, geographic and historical connections, Northern European, Mediterranean
and Iberian stylistic sources are still interpreted as disconnected and unfamiliar. George Kuwayama, for
instance, called these connections “disparate.” In his words, “Colonial Mexican majolica has roots in such
disparate sources as Islamic, Spanish, and Italian Renaissance pottery making.” Kuwayama, “Chinese
Ceramics,” p. 23.
48 Arjun Appadurai, “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics o f Value” in The Social Life o f Things.
Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 30.
49 Disregarding the complexity o f colonial cultural formation, and the role o f material culture therein,
Robert and Florence Lister asserted, “As with most aspects o f colonial life, [the ceramics tradition] was a
case primarily o f resuming an old craft in a new environment for the benefit o f migrant Spaniards, not o f
diffusing it to a new people. In a real sense, it was just a territorial transfer.” Lister and Lister,
“Andalusian Ceramics,” p. 219.
211
relation to the social reality o f the urban centers of New Spain, as well as in terms of the
wide circulation and intense commodification of Iberian goods through viceregal
spaces.50
For this purpose, the cultural—rather than the material— quality of ceramic wares
during the early colonial period remains a crucial issue. Historical sources point to a
rather basic value of ceramics as facilitators of Iberian lifestyles in the Americas. With
minimal and formulaic descriptions that lacked stylistic information, the language
employed in the documents that consistently mention ceramics (mainly shipping logs)
makes no explicit visual distinctions among the Iberian wares. Instead, the pieces were
simply described as “loza,” (ceramics) and sometimes more precisely as “loza basta”
(coarse wares), “vasos de loza” (ceramic cups), “loza blanca y azul hecha en Triana,” and
“loza de Valencia,” among others.51 In the case of Asian trade goods, descriptions are
limited to the similarly brief term “loza de china.” Although there is a dearth of
documentation pertaining to the early patterns of consumption of locally-produced wares,
the same lack of decorative description applies to the records of the early seventeenth
century. For instance, in a business agreement settled in Guadalajara in 1619, the
merchants Diego de Cueto Bustamante and Diego de Ramos declared, among the long
list of goods that comprised their shared investment, “ten dozen plates from Puebla.. .five
50 To echo Appadurai, the flow o f ceramics in New Spain was, indeed, “a shifting compromise between
socially regulated paths and competitively inspired diversions.” Appadurai, “The Social Life,” p. 17.
51 Lister and Lister, “Andalusian Ceramics,” pp. 311-318. Inquisition records are equally unspecific when
they describe ceramics. For example, “un navichuelo cargado de loza.” Archivo General de laNacidn,
Corsarios franceses e ingleses en la Inquisition de la Nueva Espaha (siglo XVI). Mexico: UN AM, 1945, p.
205.
212
dozen bowls, three dozen brown bowls, and twelve large plates.”52 That the only
descriptions provided in the documentation are the identification of the centers of
manufacture and the basic colors of some of the pieces, suggests that merchants
associated each place of origin with a general and well-established idea of its aesthetic
production.
Such recognition of form and decoration in association with specific pottery
production centers does not imply a connection to ethnic or religious minorities, or to
exotic cultural traditions. Following the sixteenth-century purveyors, therefore, my
interpretation parts from the premise that so-called “Mudejar” objects were nothing but
Iberian goods to the viceregal consumers. Certainly, the message conveyed by their
presence in viceregal homes was not of a surviving Hispano-Muslim or Mudejar lifestyle,
but rather of an Iberian way of life—one with close ties to the imperial center and to the
distinctive practices that helped to separate its users culturally from the native and mixed-
co
race majority that already surrounded them in New Spain. Regardless of their
decorative repertoire and place of origin, viceregal ceramics facilitated a decidedly
Iberian cultural practice. Yet, unlike the consumption of silks, silver, gold, and carriages,
for example, the acquisition of ceramics was not subject to sumptuary legislations.
Indeed, anybody that was able to pay for the wares could acquire them .54
52 “...diez docenas de platos de la puebla a seis tomines docena monta siete pesos y medio, sinco docenas
de escudillas a seis tomines docena monta tres pesos y seis tomines, tres docenas de escudillas de ifailesca
dos reales docena monta quatro pesos y medio, doze platos grandes en tres pesos.” “Protocolo de compania
(1619),” Libro de Protocolo de Andres Venegas, vol. 2, Archivo Historico de Jalisco, f. 35v.
53 For a complete discussion o f the history o f racial mixing during the viceregal period and the development
of the casta system as an effort in colonial social control, see Ilona Katzew, “Casta Painting,” pp. 42-53.
54 Unfortunately, however, there is no evidence at present to support claims o f any specific pattern of
consumption and manipulation o f ceramic goods by natives and mixed-race members o f viceregal society.
213
Together with their status as unregulated goods, the seemingly conflicting
information found in archival documentation, where a wealth of ceramics in commercial
and shipping records is offset by an absence of the medium in private sources, relegates
ceramics to a rather basic level of consumption. It is inaccurate to speak of viceregal
wares as facilitators of a sumptuous lifestyle. They were, nonetheless, essential
commodities that evidently traveled unrestricted through the geography of New Spain’s
social spaces. Yet, although viceregal ceramics underwent significant transformations in
value and meaning in the colonial environment (as carriers of European cultural
information and instruments of Iberian lifestyles), their status as commodities was short
lived. Indeed, it ended at the moment of purchase, as their monetary and social value at
the time of inheritance or, in the case of the Inquisition, confiscation, was already so low
that, quite simply, they were not worth mentioning.55
The quick evaporation of the viceregal ceramics’ exchange value did not strip the
medium of its cultural significance, but it does provide essential information to
reconsider its position vis-a-vis the wide variety of choices available in New Spain’s
luxury markets. Nowhere is this more evident than in the comparative study of the place
of ceramics in the testamentary practices of viceregal social groups. In this context, the
personal choices that have the power to prolong or “deactivate” the life of commodities
are expressed boldly.56 By and large, with the exception of Chinese porcelains, ceramics
55 Igor KopitofFs concept o f “terminal commoditization” is applicable to the problem o f sixteenth-century

viceregal ceramics, although their removal from the “exchange sphere” is due to social practice and the
circulation o f higher value goods, such as silver, rather than to state regulation. Similarly, the “downward
mobility” o f ceramic wares in New Spain supports KopitofPs basic claim that, “the fact that an object is
bought or exchanged says nothing about its subsequent status and whether it will remain a commodity or
not.” See Igor Kopitoff, “The Cultural Biography o f Things” in “The Social Life o f Things,” pp. 75-77.
56 Ibid, p. 76.
214
were not included in the inventories of possessions that sixteenth-century viceregal
citizens chose to pass on to the next generation. This absence, interpreted in relation to
the pieces that, indeed, are found repeatedly in the inheritance records of the period, not
only elucidate the position of ceramics in the cultural map of New Spain, but also the
place of the objects that overwhelmed their social currency.
Ultimately, these consequential choices— decisions that affected (to whatever
extent) the aesthetic environment of at least a generation—reveals New Spain’s society as
decidedly immersed in sixteenth century consumption practices. Here, specifically, is
where we must position the so-called Mudejar wares, as nothing other than appropriate,
but basic, items of Iberian consumption positioned at the bottom of a great wealth of
consumer goods of higher social and economic value. Contrary to the historiographic
construction, neither their material nor their technique, decoration or place of
manufacture altered their use and perception.
The testaments of the Peninsular and criollo citizens of New Spain show
tremendous concern for material goods. At the top of the social scale, the contents of
Heman Cortes’ properties offer a fascinating account of domestic items of all kinds.
They are detailed in the documented public offering of some of the household goods of
the Sevillian home where he died, the inventory of goods in New Spain completed in
1549, two years after his death, and the record pertaining to the retrieval of Cortes’
pawned property from a Florentine lender in Seville. Surprisingly, this great collection of
documents relating to a single powerful family still falls short of providing a complete list
215
of belongings across the Marquis’ estates in Europe and America.57 Nonetheless, it
presents a detailed picture of the remarkable mix of media, sources, and uses of objects of
home consumption in Spain and New Spain.
Ceramic objects are conspicuously absent from the visual map of Heman Cortes’
estates. For example, Dona Juana de Zuniga’s repostero58 counted everything from small
silver plates to larger silver candelabra—and even silver-embroidered chasubles from the
family chapel—in their estate in Cuernavaca, but there is no mention of a single ceramic
item in the property.39 In the public offering in Seville, household items ranging from a
copper cask, to iron skillets, worn-out wall hangings, bed linens and even a broken
weighing scale were sold over the course of four days.60 Such a list of utilitarian objects,
assembled and sold for a small resale value, still left out ceramic wares. A few months
after the public offering, Pedro Ramirez de Arellano, Conde de Aguilar, as the executor
of Cortes’ will, recovered a remarkable collection of luxury items that Cortes had pawned
• f\ 1
three months before his death. In exchange for six thousand ducats, the lender Giacomo
Boti had received 46 sumptuous items, mainly silver and gold pieces, as well as
devotional objects and furniture. In total, Cortes traded in almost one hundred kilos of
57 This is mainly due to the fact that the inventory included only a select group o f properties in and around
Cuernavaca, excluding the Marquis’ homes in Mexico City, Oaxaca, Jalapa, and other locations throughout
Mexico. In addition, the inventory o f the main house in Cuernavaca includes only a description o f the
goods found on the first floor, as Dona Juana de Zuniga, Cortes’ widow, did not allow the royal scribe
Fracisco Diaz, to enter the private areas o f the upper story. Similarly, the public bidding o f the Sevillian
home is limited to items o f lesser value, or those that Martin Cortes did not wish to keep. We do not know
precisely what kind o f items and how many Martin retained, although Jose Luis Martinez presumes that the
heir kept furniture, rugs, and tapestries. See, Documentos Cortesianos Vol. IV. 1533-1548, ed. Jose Luis
Martinez. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica-UNAM, 1992, pp. 352, 364-365.
58 Butler in charge o f the household’s silver and dining services.
59 “Documentos Cortesianos” pp. 381-82.
60 Martinez, “Documentos cortesianos,” p. 352-357. Cited from Archivo de Protocolos Notariales de
Sevilla, Oficio XIV de la Escribania Publica de Melchor de Portes, ano 1548, folios 183-186v.
61 Ibid, pp. 358-363. Cited from Archivo de Protocolos Notariales de Sevilla, Escribania Publica XV, de
Alonso de Cazalla, libro I de 1549, f. 274-276v.
216
precious metals in the shapes of bowls, cups, wine decanters, crucifixes, and even a desk,
' to name but a few.62
It is completely implausible that Heman Cortes’ domestic servants also ate out of
silver services. Certainly, there must have been low-grade tableware and utensils
available for their use throughout his properties. But it is in opposition—rather than in
relation—to silver that the cultural value of viceregal ceramics should be measured. That
an old frying-pan lid made of copper was included and sold in the auction of Cortes
Sevillian household, where not a single ceramic item was offered, speaks of a hierarchy
of goods and materials that placed earthenwares at the very bottom. It seems evident that
at the highest echelons of viceregal society, as represented by the Cortes family, viceregal
ceramics existed outside the course of daily life.63
The same model rings true in the case of less aristocratic viceregal households.
For instance, the comparatively modest, but by no means deprived inventory of Beatriz
Ruiz’ belongings (1589) describes a comfortable lifestyle, surrounded by decorative
objects of many kinds.64 While it is particularly rich in textiles and attire—though
relatively poor in silver and gold (hinting at a less privileged background)—it still lacks a
single description of fine ceramics.6i In 1545, the Holy Office completed inventory of
62 Ibid, p. 358. Martinez notes that no attention was given to the description o f the artistic quality o f the
pieces in question. This, o f course, is due in large part to the nature o f the money-lending transaction.
63 Indeed, when Martin Cortes, heir o f Heman Cortes’ title, died in New Spain, the extensive inventory o f
his estate still lacked a single ceramic item. See Inventario de los bienes de Don Martin Cortes (1589),
AGN, Hospital de Jesus, Vol. 260, Exp. 4, fs. l-29v.
64 Testamento de Beatriz Ruiz (1580), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 15, f. 1-14
65 Beatriz Berdugo’s testament o f 1593 (though the public auction took place in 1594), filed in Mexico
City, shows a similar arrangement o f material objects which ranged from pieces o f furniture and objects o f
home decoration to many items o f clothing. Ceramics do not figure in the list o f valuable goods.
Testamento de Beatriz Berdugo (1593), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 11, pp. lr-1 lr.
217
household goods secuestered from Ines del Castillo’s humble home in Mexico City.66
The list includes two gold rings, two letter holders, a small confessional, a gold cross, and
even a sword and a helmet, but no ceramics.67 In 1573, the Inquisitor General Pedro
Moya de Contreras sent a messenger to Taxco, with an assignment to retrieve and sell in
public auction the property of Guillermo Colina, recently imprisoned in Mexico City.68
The relatively short list of Colina’s material possessions included a horse, equestrian
equipment, a complete wardrobe, an image of the virgin, and a small broom.69 Ceramic
objects, once again, are absent from the list of objects that could bring the Holy Office
much-needed earnings.
With the exception of a long list of specialized woodworking tools, the list of
confiscated goods from the home and workshop of the Flemish altarpiece sculptor
(“tallador ensamblador”) Adriano Suster does not differ greatly from the items described
in the above-mentioned inventories and lists of confiscated goods.70 Yet, at the end of
each list of items, the official of the Holy Office wrote succinctly, “nothing else was
66 Jnbentario de los bienes que se le secuestraron a Ines del Castillo (1545), AGN, Inquisition, Vol. 89,
Exp. 1, ff. lr-2r.
67 “yten, dos anillos de oro.../dos porta cartas viejos/un libro de mano que dixo ser confesionario/yten, dixo
tiene empenada una cruz de oro en poder de un tabemero.. ./una espada y un casco y un sombrero nuevo..”
“Inventario de Ines del Castillo,” f. lr.
68 Sobre los bienes de Guillermo de Colina, preso (1573), AGN, Inquisition, Vol. 76, Exp. 40, fs. 13 lr-
134v.
69 “...un cavallo castano grande.../tiene mas el dicho Casilla del dicho caballo freno y xaquimay
espuelas/tiene mas el dicho un espada con sus tiros/item castro alguacil maior de las dichas minas tiene un
colchon frecada y almohada y unas calcas medias con sus medias de lo mesmo y son acuchilladas con sus
tafetanes y una ropilla de pano azul de la tierra y unos garaguelles de pano pardo ingleses con unas medias
de lana y una camisa de ruan nueva y una escobilla y un cal?ador y una cruz y una imagen de nuestra
sefiora con otras cosas que todo quedo metido en un costal en poder del dicho castro...” Ibid, f. 133r.
Colina’s possessions, as detailed in the inventory, are very similar to an inventory sold in public bidding in
Queretaro in 1597. Almoneda, Archivo Historico de Notarlas de Queretaro, Notaria 5, fs. 6r-6v.
70 With the exception o f a substantial amount o f books. Secuestro de los bienes de Adriano Suster tallador
ensamblador, AGN, Inquisition, Vol. 8, Exp. 7, fs. 129r-140r.
218
found in this dwelling that could be inventoried, and so concludes this confiscation .. ,”7!
Surely, a home and an artisanal workshop must have contained various types of utilitarian
wares. The inquisitorial official, of course, implied that no other items of value were
found in Suster’s properties. These examples repeat a very common pattern in the
documentation pertaining to Spanish and criollo lifestyles in New Spain. They reaffirm
the ordinary status of ceramics and underscore their position as items that evidently
lacked even a small resale value.
Juan Lopez de Zarate’s inventory of goods is particularly interesting, if of a later
date (1622), for it was written not as a part of his testament, but following royal
guidelines.72 As a public servant, Lopez de Zarate was required to detail his private
property, which included four homes in Mexico City and a country retreat, much silver,
some jewels, and furniture. While, predictably, he did not mention ceramics objects
among his possessions, he did include two Morisco rugs.73 Here, the longevity of the
taste for this style of woven good compares with the cultural non-entity that ceramic
wares already had become. But, perhaps more importantly, it is essential to note that
Lopez de Zarate’s taste for Morisco rugs was in no way connected to a preference for
glazed ceramics. Quite to the contrary, he relegated low-grade household items to a
generalized description of unimportant household “odds and ends” (menudencias) that
highlight the “not worth detailing” aspect of low-value goods.74
71 “Y no se hallo otra cosa en dicho aposento que poder inventariar y asi quedo en este estado el
secuestro...” Ibid, fs. 13lr, 132r.
72 As cited in Jose F. de la Pena, O ligarquiay propiedad en Nueva Espana. 1550-1624. Mexico: Fondo de
Cultura Economica, 1983, pp. 239-240 from AGI, Indiferente General, legajo 1848.
7j “yten, una alfombra grande morisca y otra mediana...” de la Pena, “Oligarquia y propiedad,” p. 240.
74 “yten, de omenaje y servicio de menudencias de mi cassa y cocina d e l l a . I b i d , p. 240.
219
Yet, intermittently, references to viceregal ceramics do surface, although it is
interesting to recognize the weight of imported wares, whether Iberian or Asian, in these
descriptions. For instance, Bernardino Osorio’s extraordinary inventory (1582), detailing
sumptuous decorative textiles, items of clothing, jewels, homes and furniture, among
others, mentions twelve large plates from Talavera, a piece of Chinese porcelain, two
green-glazed pitchers, and a small white pitcher.”75 Similarly, among the goods counted
in Bartolome Solano’s household were “three small, white pitchers, as well as four glazed
7 ft
clay pitchers, and two china plates.”
The choice to include ceramic and porcelain wares into these inventories provides
limited evidence of their distribution in the households of viceregal elites. This, in turn,
helps to explain the existence of ceramic items in local commercial contexts, sometimes
in large amounts. For instance, the inventory completed after Pedro Escobar’s death in
1588, included the contents of his store.77 Amidst a great variety of goods for sale, which
ranged from silk threads and clothing to a great amount of soap and a pair of barber’s
clippers, the document registers two plates and two bowls of opacified ceramics (“barro
bianco”), as well as a glazed (“vidriado”) basin and two small pitchers. More notably,
in 1564, when Rodrigo de Quesada notarized his commercial debt to three fellow
merchants in Mexico City, he acknowledge four hundred and thirty-four pieces of
75 “ytem, doze platos grandes de talavera/ ytem, una porcelana blanca de la china blanca/ytem, dos botes de
barro verde/ytem, un jarrito de barro bianco.” Inventario de bienes de Bernardino Osorio, AGN, Bienes
Nacionales, Vol. 224, Exp. 27, s/n.
76 “yten, tres jarrillos blancos...yten, quatro jarros de barro bedriado...yten, dos platos de la china el uno
quebrado un poco el otro sano.” Testamento de Bartolome Solano (1584), AGN, Bienes Nacionales, Vol.
224, Exp. 20, fs. lQv-11.
77 Intestado Pedro Escobar (1588-90), AG I, Contratacion, 231, N. 4, Ramo 13, fs. 3-15r.
78 “yten, dos platos y dos escudillas de barro bianco.. .yten, un lebrillo bedriado y dos xarrillos chicos.”
Ibid, f. 6r.
220
“ceramics from Talavera” (“loza de Talavera”) as part the stock for which he owed
79
money. But it is easy to lose sight of the fact that these descriptions are vastly
outnumbered by the documents that, quite literally, fully ignore the presence of ceramics
in viceregal spaces.
The testaments of the indigenous communites of sixteenth century New Spain,
like those of the Spanish and criollo elites, also demonstrate a relatively consistent
pattern of exclusion of ceramic objects from inventoried households.80 They also exhibit
a direct, though not surprising, relationship between bilingualism (or access to bilingual
interpreters), personal wealth, and increased hispanized tastes and manners.81 Of special
interest to this investigation is the fact that of 22 native testaments written in Spanish, ten
mention or describe items of the home (utensils, decorative items, furniture, etc.) as part
of their inheritance to be sold for profit or to be passed to others. Of these, only two
testaments mention ceramics, those of dona Maria Paredes, a prominent member
(“principal”) of the town of Teposcolula (1585) and don Martin de la Cruz, a neighbor of
Santa Maria Asumpcion de Tecamachalco ( 1597)82—and curiously, both describe only
79 “primeramente, beynte e una docenas de platos pequenos de barro de talabera en unacaxa/yten, (...) diez
e ocho pares de (...) del dho barro/yten, treynta e siete pares de las dichas ( ...) ...yten, diez e siete jarros de
barro aznl/yten, beynte e quatro jarros de pie y de pla(...) de barro de talabera/yten, catorze jarros grandes
de de una xsa de barro de talabera/yten, siete bemegales de barro de talabera/beynte e quatro jarrillos
chicos de barro de talabera/yten, beynte e siete platos grandes de barro de talabera.” Carta de deuda sobre
mercadurias (1564), Archivo Historico de Notarias de la Ciudad de Mexico, fs. s/n.
80 Access to this remarkable collection o f documentary evidence has been possible thanks to the extensive
research, translation and recent publication o f native testaments in Spanish and Nahuatl. See Constantino
Medina Lima, Elsa Leticia Rea Lopez and Teresa Rojas Rabiela, Vidas y bienes olvidados. Testamentos
indigenas novohispanos. Vol. 1-3. Mexico: CIESAS, 1999.
81 Susan Kellog and Mathew Restair s edited volume offers a comprehensive look at Amerindian
testamentary practices from a wide range o f perspectives, which range from issues o f class, gender and
socio-econimic transformations, to those o f land tenure and visual culture. D ead Giveaways: Indigenous
Testaments o f Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes, Susan Kellogg and Matthew Restall, eds. Salt Lake
City: University o f Utah Press. 1998.
82 Medina Lima et al, “Vidas y Bienes,” p. 135, 157.
221
one piece each of porcelain (“loza de China”) rather than any type of Iberian ware. As
was the case with the Spanish and criollo testaments, Chinese imports, which were very
much en vogue at this early stage in the development of the trade route of the Galeon de
Manila, were certainly worth mentioning. Chairs, beds, silverware and items of clothing,
especially those made of silk, are much more commonly found in native testaments
OQ
written in Spamsh. Conversely, of 48 indigenous testaments written in Nahuatl, only
one, Agustin Tecpantepetzin’s testament of 1592, mentions material goods: two chairs
OA
from Michoacan. In contrast, the chief concern of native testament practices, whether
in Spanish or Nahuatl, was the preservation of land, its cultivation, and its profit. This
discrepancy is meaningful for it suggests that, at least during the sixteenth century,
modes, manners and the objects that facilitated Iberian lifestyles remained divided largely
along ethnic lines. It also supports the idea that the use of European glazed ceramics
conveyed a clear message of Iberian-ness.
The fact that ceramics were routinely mentioned and included in commercial
shipping logs, but rarely declared in testaments or inquisitorial proceedings, is strange
only vis-a-vis the idea of exclusivity granted to decorated ceramics by the art historical
tradition of the twentieth century. In reality, it appears that glazed ceramics were
common objects of daily use, present in any home that could afford them. Fine ceramics
83 An illustrative example is the detailed and impressive testament o f Don Gabriel de Guzman, cacique of
Yanhuitlan. Among other luxurious items, the list details an extraordinary silver service as follows, “Iten,
aclaro que yo tengo por mis bienes una taza voladora de plata dorada con cualtro abolladitas, con un jarro
de plata llano, unajarrilla con su tapadera, otra ollita con una asa, un cubilete de plata dorado llano con un
bordo, otro cubiletillo de plata dorada con un letrero, seis cucharas de plata acanaladas, otra cuchara con el
cabo de monteria, otro cubilete de plata alto llano con un romano, otra taza de plata hechura de indios,
cuatro cocos negros guamecidos de plata...” Testamento de don Gabriel de Guzman, caciquey gobernador
del pueblo y provincia de Yanhuitlan, aho de 1591, cited from AGN, Tierras, Vol. 400, esp. 1, cuad. 2, fs.
55r-60r in Medina Lima et al, “Vidas y Bienes,” p. 150.
84 Ibid, p. 280.
222
were also imported in great numbers and actively produced in the colonies, making them
rather ordinary objects lacking in exclusivity. Their decorative repertoire, whether of
Mudejar, Northern Renaissance or Italian inspiration seems to have been relatively
inconsequential in the big picture of luxury consumption in New Spain, which favored
other media as valuable investments. In general, however, the modes and manners that
warranted the need for silver or ceramic plates, bowls, and cups seem to have been
embedded with greater cultural meaning among the members of New Spanish society.
223
Conclusion
M udejarismo, A Historical Paradox?
En estos ejercicios gastaron la Cuaresma todos los Sevillanos, y los Religiosos

Misioneros, y quando estos al fin della se hallaron tan consolados y alentados con
el copioso fruto de su zelo, que determinaron passar de la Conversion de los
pecadores Catholicos a la de los Infieles, especialmente a la de los Turcos, y
Moros que ay en esta Ciudad. La mayor dificultad que esto tiene es convocar, y
j untar este genero de oyentes a oyr Sermones contra sus Sectas. Empefo a veneer
esta dificultad el zelo, y yndustria del senor Arzobispo, mandando publicar en las
Parroquias el deseo de los Padres Misioneros, para que todos los amos traxessen
a sus esclavos a los sermones y pidiendo a los senores Juezes seglares, que
convoassen a los Mahometanos fibres. Executavase este consejo, quando Dios
inspire otro que prometia con la suavidad mejores efectos, y fue pedir a la S. y
Illustre Hermandad de la Caridad desta Ciudad tomasse por su quenta el
ejercitarla, convocando todos los sectarios de Mahoma en la Casa Professa de la
Compania de JESUS para que oyesen lo que ignnoravan, no solo de nuestra
verdadera Religion, sino tambien de la suya falsa, porque uno, y otro
conocimiento los alumbrasse en su Conversion.
Relation de los maravillosos efectos, que en la ciudad de Sevilla ha
obrado una mission de los padres de la Compania de Jesus {1672)1
In this manner begins the account of the extraordinary effort undertaken by the
Jesuit Order to convert forty-four Muslim slaves at the service of noble Sevillian families
during the Easter celebrations of 1672. This remarkable description, a small pamphlet of
12 double-sided folios, is housed in the collection of the Biblioteca Fray Francisco de
Burgoa, the repository of surviving religious libraries of municipal Oaxaca. It is highly
probable, therefore, that the Relation de los maravillosos efectos was read in a Oaxacan
Jesuit library since at least the late seventeenth century.
1 Relacion de los maravillosos efectos, que en la ciudad de Sevilla ha obrado una mission de los padres de
la Compania de Jesus, este aho de m ily seiscientos y setenta y dos: Especialmente en la conversion de
cuarenta y quatro Turcos y Moros de que baptizo treinta y ocho el Ilustrisimo Sehor Arzobispo Don
Ambrosio Ignacio de E spinolay Guzman, con obstentosa celebridad, dispuestay ejecutadapor la S. y
Metropolitana Iglesia de Sevilla. Segunda Impresion anadida por el autor della. Sevilla: Viuda de Nicolas
Rodriguez, 1672. This document is bound in a miscellaneous volume o f 16 juridical documents in the
collection o f the Biblioteca Fray Francisco de Burgoa, Oaxaca.
2 The Leyes de Reforma o f 1859 allowed for the disentailment o f church properties throughout Mexico.
224
The rich content of the Relation de los maravillosos efectos, which is loaded
with Baroque images and a great deal of long-lived socio-religious angst, together with
its likely viceregal monastic context, exemplify the endurance of the main concerns of the
empire-building period of the sixteenth century. The text speaks of the continuing
anxiety about the presence of Islam in Iberian soil (even if completely subjugated, as was
the case of slaves from Oran and captive Ottoman Turks and Barbary pirates), about the
value of religious conversion and manifest Catholic superiority, and the inappropriateness
of ostentation opposite the intrinsic moral supremacy of the noble class. Above all, it
underscores the continuing role of the Catholic Church as an arbiter of spirituality, piety,
morality, and cultural identity, the empire’s faithful watchdog in the midst of political
decline. That the specter of Islam continued to haunt Iberian religious leaders more than
60 years after the Expulsion confirms the idea that the image and raison d ’etre o f the
Hapsburg ruling body was largely maintained by means of the repetition of universally
accepted notions and carefully constructed arrangements of oppositions.
In 1683, the ayuntamiento of the city of Puebla de los Angeles, responding to a
written petition signed by a traveling priest, decided to offer four hundred pesos of
common gold to help pay for the rescue of a “parish of four thousand families, twenty
thousand Catholics, who are suffering the oppression of barbarous Muslims, enemies of
our holy faith.” In this instance, the political leaders of the community acted in response
J “Este dia se bio en dicho cavildo el memorial del [illegible] illuxtre seftor Don Elias de San Juan canonigo
de las santa iglesia de babilonia dice que es publica y notoria su benida a estos Reinos en demanda de la
limosna para el Resgate de aquella la Iglesia que consta de quatro mill familias veinte mill personas
Catholicas, las quales padesen cruel opresion de barbaros mahometanos enemigos de nuestra santa fee en
cuia prosecution aviendo corrido la maior parte de las Indias los Ilustres cavildos de las ciudades han sido
los primeros queriendo delante a los fieles con el ejemplo de la piedad Christiana han ofrecido gruesas
cantidades de limosna por este ser tan piadoso...acordo que Mateo de Lamella mayordomo de las propias
rentas de [illegible] por quenta de los efectos que dellos son a su cargo de [illegible] a Elias de San Juan
225
to concerns identical to those mentioned above. Written accounts of “barbarous
Muslims,” whether enslaved or actively waging war against Christian communities in
unspecified locations, continued to inundate the viceregal collective imaginary. It is
telling that these documents belong in the historical record of non-coastal cities, whose
concern over the possibility of a pirate attack must have been virtually non-existent. In
addition, during the last decades of the seventeenth century, the vast majority of the
residents of Oaxaca and Puebla had never seen a Muslim, whether Morisco, Turk, or
Berber.
I embarked on this research project in search of an answer to two related
questions, what is Islamic about Mudejarismo and how Islamic were its uses? My
examination of the uses and meanings of the Mudejar phenomenon in sixteenth-century
New Spain indicates, on both accounts, that there is nothing purely Islamic about
Mudejarismo as a cultural or aesthetic phenomenon. Instead, I posit that the taste and
uses of Mudejarismo during the sixteenth century are the product of the Iberian
experience of social and political development at the height of imperial expansion. As
such, it reflects a malleability of forms and adaptability of meanings characteristic of
instruments of cultural formation.
I am in agreement with Oleg Grabar when de described the Mudejar as a
“paradox” in the art of the Spanish Peninsula, not because I see a contradiction—
historical or otherwise—but because from the perspective of an Islamic art historian, he
rightly identified Mudejarismo as a decidedly Iberian phenomenon, created, employed
and transformed by all members of Iberian society “for the expression of different
Canonigo de la Santa Iglesia de Babilonia quatro sientos pesos de oro comun...” Archivo del Ayuntamiento
de Puebla, Actas del Cabildo (25-02-1683), f. 368v.
226
thoughts and of different tastes and purposes.”4 The motivations for the creation,
transformation, and eventual rejection of Mudejarismo rest categorically outside of
anything that could be characterized as “purely” Islamic.
My work has focused on a specific sample of such “tastes and purposes.”
Throughout the text, I call them “choices,” because when they are considered in relation
to the extensive visual vocabulary that characterized Iberian art of the sixteenth century—
the very rich repertoire that has prompted definitions of art in Spain as derivative and
imitative—it becomes clear that Mudejar forms and objects carried great specificity in
meaning and were exploited accordingly. Because the employment of the Mudejar
aesthetic took place at so many different social levels and in such varied geographies, it
was subjected to both “imperial” agendas and to much more local, and even personal,
motivations. These, of course, are very difficult to identify and ascertain. I recognize that
I have only approximated them in my historical reconstruction.
Nevertheless, from the perspective of an Iberian cultural historian, there is
nothing “paradoxical” about Mudejarismo. Paradoxical, I contend, is an essentialist
approach that fails to integrate the Mudejar into the very cultural environment that
created it. Equally paradoxical is the historical construction of an Iberian culture so
polarized and blinded by its own dream of purity that it could not recognize and make use
of the fruits of its own cultural development. With this contribution, I hope to offer an
alternative line of inquiry. One that turns the art historical discourse away from asking
4 See Oleg Grabar, “Two Paradoxes in the Art o f the Spanish Peninsula,” in The Legacy o f Muslim Spain,
Vol. II, ed. Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995, pp. 583-591. Ettinghausen, Grabar and
Jenkins-Madina also position the M udejar rightfully as a product o f the “Impact o f Islamic art” upon non-
Muslims in Iberia, thanks to the decidedly secular character o f its aesthetic and uses as well as to its shared
technological knowledge across cultures and religions. See Richard Ettinghausen, Oleg Grabard and
Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, Islamic A rt and Architecture, 650-1250. New Haven: Yale University Press,
2001, pp. 291,299-300.
simply what constitutes a Mudejar expression in Iberian culture, but that looks instead
at the manner in which the Iberian historical experience gave shape and meaning to
Mudejar forms of aesthetic expression.
228
A ppendix 1
Edicto contra herejes (1579)

AGN, Inquisition, Vol. 159 (Cajas), Legajo 24, ff. lr-2v
Ir
Nos los ynquisidores contra la Heretica pravedad y apostasia en la fiudad de Mexico

stados y provincias de la nueva spana y su partido por auctoridad appca. a todas y quales
quier personas a si Hombres como Mugeres de cualquier estado y condition que sean
exentos y no exentos vezinos y moradores en esta ciudad de Mexico estantes y a
visitantes en ella y en todas las ciudades villas y lugares deste arzobispado y del dicho
nuestro distrito y a cada uno y cualquier de vos. a quien lo de y uso scripto toca y atane o
ataner puede en qualquier manera. Salud en nro. Sr. Jesuchristo y a los nros.
Mandamientos q. mas verdaderamente son dichos apcos. firmemente obedecer y cumplir
deseando el pueblo christiano a nosotros en esta parte cometido ser confirmado en la
Unidad de la fee catolica y apartado de todos los Herrores y specie de Heregia A gloria y
honra de Nro. Senor Jesucristo y ensalzamiento de nuestra sancta fee catolica y de
presion y destruicion de las heregias setas y herrores q. contra ella sean levantado y de
cada dia se levantan sepades q. segun la obligation y poder q. para ello tenemos devemos
de ynquirir e ynquirimos cerca de lo deyusso conthenido. Por tanto si ay algunas personas
de Vos los susodichos q. sabeis vistes o oistes decir que Alguna o algunas personas bivos
o difunctos presentes o ausentes ayan echo o dicho Alguna cosa que sea contra nra.
sancta fee catolica y contra lo que esta Hordenado y establecido Por la Sagrada Scriptura
y ley evangelica y por los sacros concilios y doctrina comun de los sanctos y contra lo
que tiene y ensena la sancta iglesia catolica Romana / Usos y feremonias della / O que
ayan dicho y afirmado palabras hereticas mal sonantes y escandalosas / o de blasfemia
hereticas contra dios nro. S.or. y su sancta fee catholica specialmente los que ovieren
echo o dicho alguna cosa q. sea contra los articulos de la fee Mandamientos de la iglesia
y de los sanctos sacramentos
Iv
229
0 si alguno oviere hecho o dicho Alguna cosa en fabor de la ley muerta de Moysen
de los Judio o hecho geremonias della / o de la malvada Seta de mahoma / O de la seta
de Martin Lucero y sus sequaces creyendo o Aprovando alguna o algunas opiniones
suyas diziendo que no es necesario que se haga la confesion al sacerdote q. basta
confesarse a solo dios y que el Papa ni sacerdote no tiene poder para absolver pecados y
que en la ostia consagrada no esta el Verdadero cuerpo de nuestro S.or. Jesucristo y que
no es necesario Rogar a los santos y q. no a de aver ymagenes en las iglesias y que no ay
purgatorio y que no hay necesidad de Rezar por los difunctos y que no son necesarias las
obras que basta con la fee con bautismo para salvarse mediante la Passion de nro. Sr.
Jesuchristo que pago por todos y que cualquiera pueda confesar y comulgar uno a otro
debaxo de ambas species pay y vino que el Papa no tiene poder para dar indulgencias ni
perdones ni bullas y que los clerigos frailes y monjas se puedan casar o que ayan dicho
mal de los frailes y Religiosos diziendo que no a de aver frailes ni monjas ni monasterios
quitando las ceremonias de la Religion y que no aya fiestas mas de los Domingos y q. no
es pecado comer came en Viemes ni en cuaresma ni en Vigilias. Por que no ay ningun
dia prohibido para ello/ o que ayan dicho o afirmado que es mejor estado el de los
casados que el de los clerigos oficiales / o que ayan tenido / o creydo alguna / o algunas
otras opiniones del dicho martin lucero o sus sequages / o de los alumbrados / o dexados
y de los otros Hereges condenados Por la iglesia y si sabes q. alguna/ O Algunas personas
ayan tenido y tengan libros de la secta y Opiniones del dicho martin lucero y sus sequages
/ o el Alcoran y otros libros de la secta de mahoma
2r
/o biblias en Romange / o otros cualesquier libros de los Reprovados Por las gensuras y
cathalogos dados y publicados por el Sto. Officio de la ynquis.on. / o si sabeis que
Algunas personas bivas o difunctas ayan dicho y Afirmado q. solo la oracion mental esta
en precepto divino y con ella se cumple con todo lo demas y q. la oracion mental es la
que tiene este Valor y que la oracion Vocal importa muy poco y q. los siervos de dios no
an de trabajar ni / ocuparse en ejercicios Corporales y q. no sea de obedecer a Perlado ni
a padre superior en quanto mandaren cosa q. estorve las oras de su oracion mental y
contemplation / o que ayan dicho Palabras sintiendo mal del Sacramento del Matrimonio
230
y q. los Perfectos no tienen necesidad de faazer obras virtuosas / o que alguna o
algunas Personas ayan Aconsejado generalmente / a otras que hagan voto de no se casar
persuadiendoles q. no entren en religion sintiendo mal de las Religiones o diziendo q. las
siervas de dios An de Resplande?er biviendo en el Siglo fuera de la Religion o que
algunas personas ayan pedido a / otras la obediencia y aviendosela dado ayan mandado a
las personas q. la dieron que no hagan cosa alguna aunque sea obra Pia y Virtuosa y de
prefepto sin su licencia y mando q. algunas Personas ayan dicho y afirmado que aviendo
llegado a cierto puncto de Perfecion no pueden ymagenes sanctas ni oyr sermones ni la
palabra de dios / o que algunas personas ayan ensenado la dicha mala doctrina / o parte
della encomendando el Secreto / o que ayan dicho y afirmado que no ay Parayso ni gloria
para los buenos ni ynfiemo para los malos y que no ay mas de nacer y morir y que ayan
dicho en este mundo no me veas mal Pasar que en el otro no me veras Penar sintiendo
2v
Mal del Juizio final / o que ayan dicho Blasfemias Hereticales como son no creo / descreo
/ Reniego contra dios Nro. Sr. Y contra la Virginidad y limpiepa de Nra. Senora la Virgen
maria o ayan negado su virginidad diziendo q. nra. s.a. la virgen maria no fue virgen
antes del Parto en el parto despues del parto y que no concibio por obra del Spiritu s.to. /
o que ayan dicho blasfemias Hereticales contra los sanctos y stas. del cielo o que tengan o
ayan tenido familiares ynvocando demonios y echo cercos preguntandoles algunas cosas
y esperando Respuesta dellos / o ayan sido bruxos / o bruxas / o ayan tenido pacto tacito
o expreso con el demonio y si para esto an mezclado cosas sagradas con profanas o que
ayana atribuido A la criatura lo que solo es del criador / y si saben q. alguno siendo de
orden sacro clerigo o fraile profeso se ayan casado / o que alguno no siendo hordenado
legitimamente de Horden Sacerdotal aya dicho misa o administrado Alguno de los
sacramentos de nuestra sta. Madre yglesia y si saben o an oydo decir q. algun confesor o
confesores clerigos / o Religiosos de qualquier estado y condicion que sean en el acto de
la cofesion / o proximamente a ella ayan solicitado a sus hijas de Confesion
Provocandolas o induciendolas con sus hechos / o palabras para actos torpes y
deshonestos / o si alguna / otra persona sea caqado segunda o mas vezes teniendo su
primera muger o marido vivos / y si sabeis que alguno aya dicho y afirmado que la
231
simple fomicacion / o dar a usura / o logro / o perjurarse no es pecado y que ayan
echo vituperios y malos tratamientos a ymagenes / o cruyes / o que alguno no aya creydo
en los articulos de la fee o aya dudado de alguno dellos o aya estado un ano o mas tiempo
excomulgado o aya menos preciado y tenido en poco las censuras de la sancta madre
yglesia diziendo / o haziendo cosas contra ellas y si sabeis q. algunas personas no
cumpliendo lo que son obligados an dexado de decir y manifestar lo que saben / o que
ayan persuadido
3r
A otras personas que no viniesen a decir y manifestar lo que sabian tocante al sancto
officio / o que ayan sobomado testigos para tachar falsamente lo que an depuesto en el
Sancto Officio / O si algunas Personas / Oviessen depuesto falsamte. contra otras por les
hazer dano y macular su honra y q. ayan encubierto Receptado y faborecido algunos
Hereges dandoles fabor y ayuda ocultando y encubriendo sus personas o sus bienes y que
ayan impedido / o puesto impedimento Por si o por otros al fibre y Recto exercicio del
Sancto Officio / officiates y ministros del / O que ayan quitado o hecho quitar algunos
sanbenitos de donde estavan puestos por el sto. Officio / o ayan puesto algunos san
benitos / o que los que han sido Reconciliados y penitenciados por el sto. Officio no an
guardado ni cumplido las cafeterias y penitencias que les fueron ympuestas o si an
dexado de traer publicamente el habito de Reconciliacion sobre sus Vestiduras / o si se lo
an quitado y dexado de traer y si sabeis q. alguno de los Reconqiliados / o penitenciados
ayan dicho publica y secretamente que lo que confesaron en el sancto officio asi de si
como de otras personas no fuese Verdad ni lo avian hecho ni cometido y q. lo dixeron por
temor / o por / otros Respectos / O que ayan descubierto el secreto q. les fuese
encomendado / o si sabeis q. algunos ayan dicho q. los Relaxados por el Sancto Officio
fueron condenados sin culpa y murieron martires y si saben q. algunos q. ayan sido
Reconciliados hijos / o nietos de Condenados por el crimen de la Herejia ayan usado / o
usen de las cosas q. les son prohibidas por derecho comun leyes y prematicas destos
Reynos e ynstituciones de este sto. Officio ansi como si an sido corregidores alcaldes
juezes secretaries Regidores Jurados Mayordomos Alcaydes Abogados Scrivanos
procuradores contadores tesoreros chancilleres o ayan usado de otros officios publicos de
232
Honrra por si / O por ynterpositas personas / o que se ayan echo clerigos o tengan
alguna dignidad eclesiastica / o secular / o insignias della / o ayan traydo armas seda /
oro Plata / Corales, Perlas, chamelotes, Pano fino / o caval
3v
gado A cavallo / o si alguno tuviere habilitacion para usar de los dichos officios / o cosas
prohibidas la traygan y pressente ante nos en el termino aqui conthenido / o si sabeis / o
aveis oydo decir que alguna O algunas personas siendo decendientes de Relaxados
Condenados / o Reconciliados por el Sancto officio de la ynquisicion ayan echo
ynformacion de que son Christianos Viejos y q. los dichos sus antepasados ni alguno
dellos an sido presos ni penitenciados por el sto. Officio o q. algunas personas lo ayan asi
jurado y testificado saviendo y entendiendo q juran falso y mandamos a qualequier
scrivanos / o notarios ante quien ayan pasado / o esten cualesquier probanzas dichos de
testigos, autos y Procesos de algunos de los dichos crimenes y delictos en esta nuestra
carta Referidos y de otro alguno tocante a heregia los traygan exhivan y presenten ante
nos / originalmente y a las personas q. supieren / o ovieren oydo dezir en cuyo poder
estan los dichos proceso o denunciaciones lo vengan a decir y manifestar ante nos y Por
la presente prohibimos y mandamos a todos los confesores clerigos presbiteros religiosos
y seglares no absuelvan a las personas que algunas cosas de lo contenido en esta nuestr
acarta supieren sino antes lo Remitan ante nos Por quanto la absolution de los que asi /
Ovieren yncurrido nos esta Reservada y asi la Reservamos lo qual los unos y los otros
ansi hagan y cumplan so pena de excomunion y andamos que para que mejor se sepa la
verdad y se guarde el secreto los que alguna supieredes y entendieredes / o ayas visto / o
entendido / o oydo y en qualquier manera sabido de lo en esta nra. carta conthenido no lo
comuniques con persona alga, ecclesiastica ni seglar sino solamente lo vengais diziendo y
manifestando ante nos con todo el secreto que se pueda y por el mejor modo que os
pareciere porque quando lo dixeres y manifestaredes se vera y acordara se es caso de que
el sancto officio deva de conocer.
A todo lo qual querriendo dar el Remedio q. a la expedition y execucion del sancto
officio Pertenece deseando la salva
4r
233
cion y Remedio de las animas de los catholicos Christianas y lan?ar y extirpar los
semej antes herrores hereticos de los corazones y pensamientos de los q. en ellos an
estado y podian estar. Por la presente mandamos en Virtud de sta. obediencia y so pena
de excomunion mayor tuna canonica monicione premesa A todas y quales quier personas
a quien esta nra. carta se dirije toca y atane en qualquier manera que del dia que fuere
leyda y publicada Hasta quince dias primeros siguientes q Vos damos y asignamos por
tres pianos y termino de cada cinco dias por Un termino y todos quin?e dias por tres
terminos y Ultimo peremptorio parezcais ante nos personalmente la sala de nuestra
audiencia a dezir y manifestar lo que supierdes / o/ overedes Visto hacer o dezir acerca
de las cosas arriba contenidas y declaradas / o / otras qualesqr. De qualq.r.calidad que
sean tocantes a nra. Sancta fee catholica al Sancto officio ansi Bivos pressentes ausentes
como de difunctos por manera que la Verdad se sepa y los malos sean castigados y los
buenos y fieles christianos conocidos y honrrados y nra. sta. fee catholica aumentada y
ensal?ada y a las personas q. en los dichos delictos ayan sido y se hallaren culpados
Requerimos eXhortamos y mandamos q. lo vengan a dezir y manifestar ante nos
certificandoles como por la pressente les certificamos que si parecieren y vinieren
confesando los dichos herrores demandando misericordia y penitencia los Recibiremos
con toda benignidad y clemencia y los mandaremos absolver de los dichos delictos
enfungrendoles penitencias saludables a sus animas y para que lo suso dicho venga a
noticia de todos y dello ninguno pueda pretender ygnorantia se demanda a si publicar
dada en la îudad de mexico veinte y quattro dias del mes de marô de mill y qui.t. y
setenta y nueve anos (rabricas).
234
Appendix 2
“Secta de M ahoma”
Edicto contra herejes, AGN, Inquisition, Vol. 89, Exp. 16, ff. 57v-58
57v
Secta de Mahoma
O si sabeys , o aveys oydo dezir q. algunas personas ayan dicho, o afirmado que la secta
de mahoma es buena, y que no ay otra para entrar en el parayso y que Jesu Christo no es
dios, sino propheta. Y que no na?io de nuestra Seftora siendo Virgen antes del parto, y
despues del parto. O q. ayan hecho algunos ritos, y §erimonias de la secta de mahoma,
por guardia y observanfia della, assi como si uviesen guardado los vienes por fiesta,
comendo came en ellos, o en otros dias prohibidos por la sancta madre iglessia, diziendo
q. no es pecado, vistiendo se en los dichos viemes camisas limpias, y otras ropas de
fiesta. O ayan degollado aves, o reses, o otra cosa, acarrando el cuchillo, dexando la nuez
en la cabeza, volviendo la cara hazia el alquibla, que es hazia oriente, diziendo,
vizmelea, y atando los pies a las reses. O que no coman ningunas aves que esten por
degollar, ni que esten degolladas de mano de muger, ni queriendo las degollar las dichas
mugeres, por les estar prohibido en la secta de mahoma, o que hayan retajado a sus hijos,
poniendo les nombres de moros y llamandolos o que se huelguen que se los llamen. O
que ayan dicho , que no ay mas que dios, y mahoma su mensajero. O que ayanjurado por
el alquibla, o dicho, alaymincula, que quire dezir, por todos los juramentos. O que ayan
ayunado el ayuno del Ramadan, guardando su Pascua, dando en ella a los pobres limosna,
no comiendo, ni beviendo en todo el dia hasta la noche salida la estrella, comiendo came,
o lo que quieren. O que ayan hecho el qahor, levantando se a las mananas antes que
amanezca a comer y despues de aver comido, lavar se la boca, y tomar se a la cama. O
que ayan hecho el guadoc, lavndo se los braqos de las manos a los cobdos,
58r
Cara, boca, narices, oydos, y piemas y partes bergonqosas. O que ayan hecho despues el
qala, volviendo la cara hazia el alquibla, poniendo se sobre una estera, o poyal, alqando y
baxando la cabeza, diziendo ciertas palabras en arabigo, rezando la oraqion del andululey,
235
y colhua, y la guahat, y otras ora§iones de moros. Y que no coman tofino, ni bevan
vino por guarda y observancia de la secta de los moros. O que ayan guardado la pascua
del camero, aviendo le muerto, haziendo primero el guadoc. O si algunos se ayan casado
segun rito y costumbre de moros, y que ayan cantado cantares de moros, o hecho zambras
o leylas con instrumentos prohibidos. O si uviese alguno guardado los cinco
mandamientos de mahoma. O que aya puesto assi, o a sus hijos, o a otras personas
hanqas, que es una mano, en remembranza de los cinco mandamientos. 0 que ayan
lavado los difunctos, amortajandolos con lienpo nuevo, enterrando los en tierra virgen, en
sepulturas huecas, poniendo los de lado con una piedra a la cabeza, poniendo en la
sepultura ramos Verdes, miel, leche y otros manjares. O que ayan llamado, o invocado a
mahoma en sus negessidades, diziendo que es propheta y mensajero de dios, y que el
primer templo de dios fue la casa de meca, donde dizen esta enterrado mahoma. O que
ayan dicho que no se bautizaron con creencia de nra. sancta fe catholica. O que ayan
dicho que buen siglo ayan sus padres, o abuelos que murieron moros, o judios. O que el
moro se salva en su secta y el judio en su ley. O si alguno sea pasado a berberia, y
renegado de nra. sta. fe catholica, o a otras partes y lugares fuera destos reynos a se tomar
judios o moro. O que ayan hecho, o dicho otros ritos, o êrimonias de moros.
236
Appendix 3
Relation de lo comprado en Mexico

para el regalo que S. M. mandd hacer al Rey de la China (1581)
AGI, C ontaduria 801, N. 1, R. 4, i t l-44v
Note: This document is heavily damaged, apparently by fire. The edges are destroyed and
part of the text is missing along the margins.1
31r
Testimonio y fe de R.o de lo que...

...entrega del dho pres.te al maestre que lo Tru(jo?)
La ciudad de Sevilla en la Casa de la Contratacion de las In...

del mes de enero de mil y quinientos y ochenta y un anos...
n Gonzalo de las Casas escribano de su magestad el uno de lo que...
dha Casa de la Contratacion y de los testigos depuso [illegible] otorgo
borrome de la nao nombrada Santa Ursula que por mando...
senores presidentes jueces oficiales de su magestad a la dicha...
y sin flota a la Provincia de la Nueva Espana que habia...
en su poder de muy ilustre Senor don Francisco Duarte de Arce...
la dicha casa las ropas y joy as e vestidos y otras...
Bajo iran declaradas q.l dho senor hacer a copiar...
conforme a un acuerdo de los dhos senores presiden(tes)...
Dados con permiso de una cedula real de su Magestad
a veinte y cinco de abril del ano proximo pa...
biar al Rey de la China y otras cosas que el dicho...
dicho senor favor son las siguientes
Cofre No. 1
Primeramente un cofre cubierto de bayeta
[illegible] y aforrado por dentro en boca[ci]...
amarillo con dos cerraduras y en elias cosa...
dos baras y dos tercios de ffisa color...
Una capa de raja guamecida con tres...

de terciopelo labrado y con gorviones y pe...
de raso y seda y entorchados y ...
dos faxas de raso prensado y en 1...
1Asmaa Bouharass generously provided the paleographed version of the last eight folios of this text.
doce botones de oro fine o gruesos esma[ltados]...
de rosicler y otros esmaltados...
d/o(?) cambiar
31v
...larga de damasco presado y aforrada...

...del mismo color guamecida con un...
...anodo(?) de oro y Plata y seda presada...
...ental dos pares de alamares de oro e plata...
..eda que la de la delantera y mangas y en otras...
...partes con mangas blancas y dos golpes en...
...[ca]dauna...
...[u]na cuera de raso encamado aforrada en...
...tan del mismo color guamecidas con gor...
...de plata y con otra de oro y el raso prensado...
...cuarenta e siete botones de oro fino que la delan...
...eray mangas y [illegible] esmaltados de ro...
...o y azul
...raropa larga de damasco carmesi forrada...
...da en felpa del mismo color guamecida con...
..n pasamano a riso(?) de oro y plata frisado y con...
...enta e dos pares de alamares grandes de...
...ro y plata las delanteras e mangas y...
...tras partes
...[o]tra ropa larga de damasco amarillo aforrada...
...da en felpa amarillay guamecida toda con un...
...pasamano hecho de plata con cincuenta y dos...
...pares de alamares de plata labrada la de...
...era y mangas y otras partes...
...Ropa larga de damasco verde aforrada...
...del mismo color y guamecida toda con un...
... de oro e plata e con cincuenta...
...pares de alamares de oro y platay la...
...era mangas y otras partes...
...otillo de raso morado prensado con tres...
...terciopelo morado con gorviones y fran...
...[illegible] pasadillo aforrado...
32r
...tados de colores
N. 2
Otro cofre de cinco palmos y medio c...
.. .con dos cerraduras ya forrado Por de...
.. .bocad amarillo y dentro de lo siguien[te]...
dos baras y una octava de frisa colorada abier...
por el lomo
Una rama de terciopelo azul en que iban las piezas sig[uientes]...
Un cobertor de terciopelo azul con las azanefa[s]...
de tela de oro forrado de tafetan del mismo color
cinco panos de cortinas del mismo color de las dichajs]..
.. .cama de terciopelo azul aforrados de tafetan del
mismo color guamecidos en franjones y alamares de oro
Un rodapies de terciopelo azul con fra[n]...
jon y Pasamanos de oro
Un allo(?) de cama de terciopelo azul con las...
...goseras de tira de oro y plata y cairela...
de oro
otros cuatro cojines de terciopelo carmesi do...
...al [illegible] de oro con bellotas grand[es]..
...oro y seda
Otros quatro coxines de terciopelo...
de [illegible] de oro y pla[ta]...
...sus bellotas grandes de oro y plata...
32v
...pelo carmesi forrado de tafetan

...con sus azanefas de tela de oro y
...guamecidos todos con franjones de oro y carmesi
...ortinas de cama de terciopelo forrado en
,..[ta]fetan carmesi guamecidas todas con franjones y a
...[ala]mares de oro
Un Rodapies de terciopelo carmesi con sus goreras
...e tela de oro y carmesi y floradura de oro y plata
Guamecida de franjones de oro con alamares de oro
y plata tiene toda la cama treinta y tres pares
de alamares
Otra cama de terciopelo verde con las piezas siguientes
...cobertor de terciopelo verde forrado de tafetan
...del mismo color con la cenefa de tela de plata guame[ci]
...da con franjones de plata
...co cortinas de cama de terciopelo verde forradas
...tafetan del mismo color guamecidas todas y con
...franjas de plata
Un rodapies de terciopelo verde guamecido con un
franjon de plata y forrado de tafetan del mismo color
...aclo de cama de terciopleo verde forrado de tafetan
...del mismo color con las goteras de tela de plata
...a guamecida con franjones de tela de plata
...entre pares de alamares de plata toda ella
...Raso carmesi con siete panos
...de cinco palmos y medio cubierto de baqueta
...cerraduras aforrado de dentro bocaci

...y en ello lo siguiente
...cuartas de Bayeta colorada
33r
otra pieza de Holanda de numero cincuenta...

pares que tiene cincuenta una...
seis savanas de olanda las dos de la
ruandas y pintas y las demas con pun...
Dos almohadas y dos cojines labrados de
holanda bordadas de oro y plata y seda de m a...
otras dos almohadas y dos cojines la
brados de hilo bianco
Otras dos almohadas y dos cojinicos labradas
de seda azul medio punto
cuatro toallas de lienzo casero labradas
de punto real con sus cortados y puntas
Seis garvines de Holanda labrados con pun
tas y cortados
otros seis garvines de holanda de diferentes
labores
cuatro panuelos de Holanda guamecidos con
puntas de cadeneta
otros cuatro panuelos de Holanda con puntas grandes
otros cuatro panuelos de Holanda guamecidos
todos con cadeneta
Cuatro camisas de Holanda con los cuellos y pa
nos labrados de cortadas con Puntas de
cadeneta y ruandas y por las costuras...
Otras cuatro camisas de deshilados to...
Holanda con sus puntas de deshila[do]...
Otras cuatro camisas de Holanda labradas...
cuellos y punos con puntas
doce pares de guantes adobados de cam...
33v
siguientes...
...guadamecies verdes con las azanefas
...y plata de cinco pafios de [illegible] con suofi...
...y otro blancos y moldean su
...otra cajon cuadrado y en ello lo siguiente

cuatro guadamecles dorados y plateados con sus
figuras de la misma calda y tamaflo de los de arriba
Otro cajon como el de arriba y en el lo siguiente

cuatro guadamecies azules con las acenefas doradas
con la propia calda y tamano de los de arriba
otra cajon de tamano de los de arriba e los siguinte[s]

dos varas y media de [illegible]
seis pares de borcegules azules argentados de oro y
..plata y los lazos de diferentes colores
...[o]tros seis pares de borcegules colorados de lazo y

argentados
cuatro pares de borcegules [illegible]y argentados
...[ci]nco pares de borcegules bayos de la misma hechura
tres pares de borcegules verdes de lazo argen
tados de oro y plata
dos Pares de borcegules argentados de oro y plata
otros dos pares de borcegules verdes argen
ados de la Propia hechura
Un Par de borcegules Leonados
Par de borcegules Leonados
...cuatro pares de borcegules anaranjados
...[ar]gentados de oro y plata
...[c]ajon [illegible] y en el lo siguiente

...baras de frisa colorada
...a de grana zona de Valencia cubierta
34r
otro cajon pequeno y e[n el]...

cuatro varas de frisa colorada...
Una pieza de grana polvo rica de Valencia?]...
con frisa verde y pano azul que por e...
Berbere [illegible] que tiene veinte y cuatro varas em...
Otra pieza de grana en polvo rica de Valencia?]
Puesta como la de arriba que [illegible] berbere(?)
.. .pare que tiene veinte y cuatro varas [y media]...
...ca[j6n] No. 11
Otro cajon y en el lo siguiente
cuatro varas de frisa colorada
Una pieza de grana en polvo Rica de Valencia
envuelta en frisa verde y lienzo azul...
el Berbera(?) por que tiene veinte y cuatro varas y tercia(?)
otra pieza de grana de la misma suerte y por el be...
bere(?) tiene veinte y cautro varas y sesma
Cajon N. 12
Un cofre pequeno de tres palmos de largo...

y uno y medio de ancho cubierto de cuero for...
tafetan verde con la [illegible] dorada...
cual va unjaez de caballo verde con ...
aderezos de plata con las piezas siguientes...
cuatro borlas de plata e de oro y seda verde...
con los aderezos de plata
Un presal(?) de cuero verde bordado...
oro con sus cajas y clavos de plat[a]...
Una esmeralda con su [illegible] de ...
dos estrellas con sus jaeces de pla[ta]...
Una camisa de seda labrada con sus [illegible]...
Unas espuelas doradas con sus [illegible]...
Una reata de seda verde...
34v
...tamano igual de arriba

...tafetan presado con su [olanzon?]...
..eda en el otros [illegible] con su [olanzon?]
...y aderezos de plata y en el los mismos aderezos
...y [illegible] que el de arriba por que [illegible]
jaez entero como el de suso dicho con toda la
olanzon y Cajas de tubos de peral
y aderezos de plata y la [illegible] de terciopelo
azul bordado todo de hebra rosado y canutillo
de oro Tirado y rapacejos en floradura
de oro y plata labrado de oro
Una funda de frisa con su acubierto
...dicho cofre
otro cofre de tres palmos y uno de largo y lo

...mismo de ancho un palmo de alto
cubierto de cuero forrado de tafetan carmesi
Con cerradura y olanzon dorada y el otro
jaez carmesi con olanzon y aderezos de plata
con los extremes rosetas y [remiendo?]...
...dos y borlas de oro y seda carmesi y las
...jas de estribos y peral y extremos de una
...y el caparazon de terciopelo carmesi con
...bordadura gruesa de hebra rosado y canutillo
...ero y plata tirado bordado de relieve
...con rapacejos de oro y seda y de carmesi
...el cumplido con todos sus aderezos como
...primero
...cajay en ella lo siguiente

...cubierto de cuero forrado de tafetan
...con cerradura y [illegible] dorada y en el
35r
de oro y seda el cumplido...

como el primero
otro cofre cubierto de cuero del mis [mo]...

[fojrrado tafetan amarillo con su cerradura y...
dorada y en el un jaez amarillo con la be...
[illegible] y rajas de petral y aderezos de plata
y el petral labrado de hilo de plata y la mo
chila de terciopelo amarillo bordado de plata
tirada con los rapacejos de plata y seda
amarilla con todos sus aderezos porque es
cumplido como el de arriba
Una funda de frisa colorada en que va el cofre
Otro cofre cubierto de cuero del mismo tamano que el

de arriba aforrado de tafetan azul con
cerradura y olazon dorada y en el unjaez
azul con todos sus aderezos de las estriberas
y petral y los demas recaudos de pl[ata]...
con la mochila de terciopelo azul bordada...
oro y plata de canutillo de Relieve con su...
Rapacejos de oro y seda del mismp colo[r]...
cumplido con todos sus aderezos como..
de arriba
Una cajita de dos palmos de largo e un[o]

de ancho e uno de alto y en el seis frenos d...
jineta los dos dorados y los otros tres d[o]...
rados y plateados y el uno plateado
Tres papeles y en cada uno de ellos dos p...
de canciones
otra caja cuadrada de un palmo de a...

y lo mismo de largo y de alto con cuatro R...
medio y en ella cuatro Peras grand[es]...
[d]e plata y seda carmesi de la...
36r
(this page has an incomplete and illegible annotation on the upper left margin)
vidrio claro y los cuatro Lisos con...

partes dorados con sus tapaderas
otros cuatro vasos Grandes de vidrio de [illegible]...
de Venecia con mascarones dorados
un [colmenar?] de vidrio
dos jarros con mascarones dorados
una caldereta con mascarones dorados
una limera
cuatro calderetas doradas
un jarro con su rayadera y mascarones dorados
dos bacias grandes doradas y gravadas
Tres vasos grandes con sus tapaderas con los ex
tremos dorados
Una Limera
Un jarro Grande de vidrio con mascarones
Otra limera
Nueve j arras con sus tapadores dorados e
Pintados a colores
Nueve tazas de vidros [illegible] bajas
cuatro jarritos luengos como Limeras
dos jarros dorados y grabados
cinco vasos de vidro [illegible]
dos bacias grandes doradas y gravadas e pin[tadas]...
diez platos grabados e pintados
otra bacia dorada y grabada
dos vasos dorados con sus Tapadores
cuatro tazas de pies altos
dos aguamaniles dorados y grabados
Una taza con una fuente
cuatro bermejales dorados y grabados y...
una taza con los extremes dorados e...
244
36v
...de madera de la [illegible] cordados

...de talla dorados todos e pintados con
...figuras e [illegible] para la cama verde
...cuatro piezas por que cada pilar es dos piezas con sus
...angas de frisa colorada va la caja estibada
...y henchida con lana
...ra caja con su cerradura de vara y media de largo

y Palmo y medio de ancho y dos de largo y en ella lo siguiente
...dos pilares de madera grandes con cuatro
piezas que son hermanos de los de la caja de arriba
para la cama verde los cuales son [illegible] rosados
y tallados dorados y pintados con algunas figuras
e frutas son cuatro piezas cada una con una
manga de frisa colorada y va la caja re
...hida y estibada con lana
,..[otr]a caja con su cerradura de vara y media de largo

... palmo y medio de alto y dos de ancho y en ella lo siguiente
...pilares de cama en cuatro piezas porque van par...
...dos por medio tomeados y estirados con unasjarras
...an del talladas todo dorado con algunas figuras
...otras pinturas y en cada trozo metido una manga
...de frisa colorada y las cajas estibadas con lana
...cuales dichos pilares son de la cama de terciopelo carmesi
,..[c]aja con su cerradura de vara y media de largo

...palmo y medio de alto e dos de ancho y en ella lo siguiente
...dos pilares de cama en cuatro trozos que son hermanos
...arriba que son tomeados y estirados con
...jarras grandes talladas todo dorado con al
...figuras y otras pinturas cada pieza
...Una manga de frisa colorada y estibada
...[cajja con [illegible] los cuales dichos pilares
37r
...trados de talla melcochado...

de [illegible] colores cada pilar de dos p...
que son para la cama de terciopelo azul y ...
Y metida una manga de frisa colorada y ba...
ra en [illegible] y estibada con lana
N. 26
Otra caja de vara y media de largo y dos palmos de an...
cho y palmo y medio de alto y en ella lo siguiente
dos pilares de cama de madera tomeados y labrados de
talla melorosados y dorados y pintados que son t...
hermanos de los de arriba cada trozo m etido...
de frisa colorada e la caja estivada con lana
[cajxa N. 27
Un cajon de once palmos de largo y palmo y medio d[e]...

ancho y lo mismo de alto y en el lo siguiente
cuatro varas de hierro y toda la madera del lecho
de una de las tres camas con todos sus a...
gualderones y testeros y tablillas y llaves..
y tomillos todo entero y cumplido
...xonN. 28
Otro cajon de once palmos de largo y palmo y mjedio]...
ancho lo mismo de alto y en ello lo siguiente
cuatro varas de hierro y toda la madera del lecho d[e]...
una de las tres camas con todos sus aderezos y...
.. .jerones y sesteros y tablillas y llaves y...
Todo entero y cumplido
caxon No. 29
Otro cajon de once palmos de largo y palm[o]...

de ancho y lo mismo de alto y en el lo siguiejnte]...
cuatro varas de hierro y toda la madera del lechjo]..
de las tres camas pintada toda ella con todo...
derezos y gualderones y testeros y t a
bes y tomillos todo entero y cumplid[o]...
37v
...unatalega...
...lias de las camas con sus perillas to...
...y pintado de colores y tallado
...frontispicio para el. Una barandilla de una cama
...tallado y dorado y pintado de colores
...cho manzanas grandes para las camas doradas y p ...
...as cuatro de ellas labradas de talla con sus frutas
...las cuatro a manera de piramide todas doradas
...perillas chicas y grandes doradas y talladas
...para la cama de carmesi
...doce manzanillas doradas para la cama de terciopelo azul
..[o]tras dos manzanillas doradas para la cama de terciopelo verde
...os espejos de [illegible] grandes de dos palmos y medio
...y largo y dos de ancho pintados
...[o]tros dos espejos de a dos palmos de largo y palmo y medio de
...[ajncho pintados de colores
... espejos del mismo tamano
los dos de arriba son todos de [illegible]
un cajon de tres palmos de largo y dos de ancho y
...[cujatro de dos de de alto y en el lo siguiente
...un coleto de cordoban adobado de ambar guamecido
Unos pasamanos de oro y plata y seda parda
...ray siete botones de oro fino grandes
.. .trados de colores y llenos de ambar e forrafdos]...
...cuera en tafetan amarillo y estivada y llena con algodon
...jon de cuatro palmos de largo e media vara

...y un palmo de alto con cinco [illegible] o...
..guie
..oj de laton todo labrado de relieve

...el [illegible] de palmo y medio y de alto
38r
metido el dicho reloj...

Por de fuera en cuero negro dorado en a...
y una vidriera por delante forrado en cuero...
... [co]lorado y dos llaves el dicho reloj de g...
labradas
Otro reloj pequeno de pecho la caja de metal

labrada de relieve y dorada con todos sus aderezos
de ruedas muelles [illegible] pintadas con [illegible]
e metido en una bolsa de rizo con cordones
de seda negra
Otro reloj mas pequeno de pecho con la

caja de metal labrada de relieve dorada y de...
dentro de ella el dicho reloj con todos sus aderezos
de ruedas y campana y lo damas al tocante(?)...
metido y una bolsa de terciopelo rico con
sus cordones
otro reloj Grande de palmo y medio de alto y una

cuarta de ancho de metal liso e tallado con cuatro...
.. .lares de casero bianco y el resto de la caja...
rado y tallado con el remate bianco con todo...
sus aderezos de ruedas y lo demas al tocante
con tres campanas una de las oras y otra de los
cuartos y un despertador metido y una caja
de madera forrada de terciopelo carmesi y por de[ntro]...
cuero negro dorado en partes con su llav[e]...
cerradura de laton y una vidriera de [illegible]...
y cubierta de laton y dos llaves para cerr...
otro reloj de altura de [illegible] palmo en...

liso con su caja de metal y dos rampan[tes]...
lo alto y la caja dorada con sus ruedas...
sus aderezos y pesas y cordones verdes...
.. .llos tres corchetes de laton con su a...
38v
...menores a cinco pesas de los dichos

...jes grandes guamecidos de metal dorado
...y pesas de plomo guamecidas de lo mismo
...pequena de manera de campanillas y otras
dos pesas pequenas
Tres pedazos de anglo(?) con que van cubiertos los
reloj es en que hay [illegible]...
Otra caja posuelo de tres palmos de largo y tres

...alto y tres de ancho y en ella lo siguiente
va en esta caja un coleto adobado que esta in
ventariado atras
Una caja de gorras con que van dos gorras de terciope

lo rico con sus toquillas labradas de aba
lorio y canutillo y gorviones bordados del mismo
abaiorio y sus plumas negras
Otras dos gorras de terciopelo negro cortado con
toquillas labradas de abaiorio y gorviones
de lo mismo y plumas negras
[o]tra caja de gorras y en ellas lo siguiente
una gorra de terciopelo cortado con toquilla de
...[ajbalorio y canutillos negro y gorviones
bordados de lo mismo y un rico de plumas negras
y blancas y seis martinetes de los mismos colores
...gorra de terciopelo negro rico con toquilla
,..[s]eda labrada de abaiorio hecha con una red de a...
...gorviones de lo mismo con su rico de plumas
blancas y negras
[go]rra de terciopelo negro cortado con doce rama[s]
...e historia guamecidos de oro fino y esmaltado
...cartones e frutas con dos vueltas de
...ro con que van trabados con ramajes.
39r
...de plata tirada y gorviones...

blancas y encamadas
Un sombrero de tafetan leonado ...
Todo con toquilla de oro y seda y plata tirada
y plumas blancas y leonadas
otro sombrero de tafetan pardo y pespuntado
de labores y con toquilla de seda y plata y oro tirado
y plumas blancas y pardas
otra caja y en ella lo siguiente
Un sombrero de tafetan pespuntado de la

bores con toquilla de redecilla y puntadas de
plata y plumas blancas
otro sombrero de fieltro presado pespuntado y mos
queado de seda encamada y forrado tafetan
del mismo color y toquilla de saco de plata
y oro y seda encarnada y presada y plumas
blancas y presadas y encamadas
otro sombrero de fieltro verdoso pespuntado y
mosqueado de seda presado y forrado de Ta
[fejtan del mismo color con toquilla de filigrana de oro
y seda presada y plumas blancas y presadas
y verdes
otro sombrero de fieltro frailesco pespunt[ado]...
y mosqueado de seda encamada forrado...
[tajfetan del mismo color con toquilla de [illegible]...
de plata y seda encamado y plumas de los mismos colores
Caxa No. 33
Otra caja de seis palmos dos de acho y...
de alto y en ella lo siguiente
Unas calzas de terciopelo verde y raso...
Guamecidas de gorviones de plata tirada...
...mados y entorchados de plata y oro...
39v
...verde y medias calzas de

...ulla
.. .varas y media de tafetan amarillo para
..da un par de calzas en que van envueltos por
manera que los dos pares de calzas llevan cinco
baras de tafetan
cinco varas de frisa amarilla y va aforrada
la caja por dentro
Un cajon [illegible] cuadrado y en el las cosas siguientes
dos varas y dos tercias de frisa colorada
Una pieza de terciopelo presado labrada azul
Tiene veinte y seis varas
otra pieza de terciopelo carmesi labrado que tiene
treinta y una varas y diez [illegible]
Una pieza de terciopelo presado labrada azul
tiene veinte y seis varas
otra pieza de terciopelo carmesi labrado que tiene
treinta y una varas e diez doceavos
otra pieza de terciopelo negro de dos pelos que tiene
veinte y seis varas y un doceavo
Una pieza de terciopelo amarillo [illegible]

que tiene veinte...varas y once doceavos
...[o]tra pieza de terciopelo verde llano de dos pelos y
...veinte y siete varas y seis doceavos
...cajon de catorce palmos de largo y uno de

...ancho y en el lo siguiente
...retrato de su magestad emperador don Carlos nuestro senor
pintado al oleo a caballo armado es un lienzo grande
...Retrato del Rey nuestro senor a caballo armado en
...lienzo grande y pintado al oleo
retrato del rey nuestro senor a pie pintado al oleo
retrato al oleo de Nuestra Senora de la Consolation
...y pinturas que van en dicho cajon que
...de [illegible] franco pintor tocante a usarse
250
40r
Caja 32
van en esta caja las llaves de todas las ca
jas y cajones.
iten van las treinta y cinco piezas contadas en este
inventario las veinte y una de ellas
cubiertas de enrezados y las catorce precin...
das y rodaeliadas con heras (peras?) de racimo y estu...
das y liadas con trallas de esparto.
iten declarose el dicho hombre que tiene dentro del...
dicha su nao debajo de cubierta que ha recibido
del dicho senor factor seis pipas de vino muy...
cogido del bueno con cada ocho arcos de...
estancas y bien acondicionadas en que...
ciento e sesenta e cinco arrobas.
todas las cuales dichas cajas de suso contenidas...
el dicho senor factor dio y entrego al dicho Joan Bautista...
taron midieron y enrajaron que las dichas cajas e su...
se cerraron precintaron y clavaron delante del dicho hombre...
escribano e testigos de yuso [illegible] todo ello juro e...
joan Baustista.. .lo recibio en su poder...
presencia del dicho escribano e testigos de que doy fe...
40v
...la dicha provincia de Nueva...

... Joan de Ulua bien acondicionado como lo ha...
siden es la ciudad de Santa Cruz para que ellos...
11a provincia de la Nueva Espana conforme a lo que sobre ello...
... y de la dicha lleva y entrego no se ha de dar fe...
. ..con el tomaron los senores presidente e jueces para que hiciesen...
...para el cumplimiento dello oblige su Persona el y la dicha nao...
.. .ella y lo mejor parado que della se salvare e otrogo contrato e ...
.. .asciende el y clausula guarenti [illegible] como de di.o que la era sose...
...cal fuero e jurisdiccion de esta casa y del Real Consejo de las Indias y ...
.. .ropio y la eli sit conbenerit y las demas que han en su favor...
.. .fien de la general Rem. E lo firaio de su mano el cual yo el dicho...
...conozco testigos que fueron presentes a lo que dicho es. Joan de Torres y Alonso de...
...acome Fernandez vecinos de Sevilla. Joan Bautista [illegible] ante mi...
...casas esribano. E yo Gonzalo de las Casas escribano susodicho pre...
.. .iego e lo fize escribir e fize aqui mi signo en testimonio de verdad...
Casas escribano
...a veinte e cuatro de enero del mil e quinientos e ochenta e tres...
Velasco acabo de entregarse de los senores jueces oficiales desta...
.. .tercios contenido en esta memoria y conforme haya...
...si mas de un solo par de guantes de ambar por que para el efer...
.. .todos los dichos tercios e por esta memoria se fue contando So que venia...
...y de todo ello el dicho Velasco se dio por entregado por lo lleva...
...la alhondiga de esta ciudad dque para ello esta seria dada y ...
.. .tiempo que durase la almoneda que de todo ello se ha de hacer como...
...su real nombre lo m andan siendo testigos y presente Diego Gentil y Andres...
...el dicho Velasco de lo cual yo Pedro Gallo de Escalada escribano...
doy fe. Luis de Velasco, doy fe de ello. Pedro
.. .lada, escribano de su majestad.
Firma
41r
. ..Pedro Gallo de Escalada escribano de [illegible] de minas...

.. .Nueva Espana por su majestad. Escribano real en todos...
doy fe y verdadero testimonio a quien la presente viere...
de su mano. De las almonedas que son a mi cargo parecen escritu...
MDLXXXIII anos
Relation de los remates que se hacen del presente que por merced de...
de Espana para que se enviase al Rey de la China y despues en...
cedula de su majestad y por mandado de su muy excelente virrey don lore...
doca conde de Coruna Virrey de la Nueva Espana se mando vender...
en Mexico a diecinueve de febrero de mil e quinientos y ochentay tres anos...
Eugenio Salazar fiscal de su majestad e jueces oficiales de su real...
remataron las cosas siguientes de contado.
una cama de guadameties dorados que son cuatro en una Antepuerta. Se remataron
Diego Ramirez en ciento y treinta y dos pesos del oro comun.
una cama de terciopelo carmesi con su madera dorada y...
de seda de oro y alamares de oro y plata con su cobert...
rodapies. Se remato en Hernando de Riba de Neira en m il...
y sesenta pesos de oro comun.
una ropa de damasco azul aforrada en felpa de la m es...
color e alamares de oro y plata. Se remataron en Alonso...
minues en ciento ochenta pesos.
una ropa de damasco verde forrada en felpa con franjas...
e alamares de oro y plata. Se remato en don Antonio de Saave...
en ciento y sesenta y ocho pesos.
una ropa de damasco amarillo aforrada en felpa...
ones e alamares de lo mesmo. Se remato en Bernardino Vaz...
de Tapia en otro tanto.
otra ropa de damasco carmesi aforrada en felpa con su...
ones e alamares de lo propio. Se remato en...
Riba de Neira en otro tanto.
41 v
...de febrero de MDLXXXIII anos.

.. .francesas de terciopelo de los mismos colores
.. .cojines con su clavazon dorada. Se remataron en Hernando de
.. .ba de Neira a treinta y cinco pesos de oro comun cada una que monta / CCCC XX-]
.. .dos camas de guadamecies azules y verdes con sus ante
.. .ertal. Se remataron en Hernando de Medina en doscientos pesos de oro comun/ CC
...ce pares de guantes aderezados de ambar. Se remataron en
.. .Nunez Perez a veinte pesos de oro comun cada par que monta
.. .cientos y veinte pesos. Rui Diaz de Mendoza Pedro Gallo/ CC XX p°
.. .veinte y seis de febrero de mil e quinientos y ochenta y tres anos
...de su majestad e oficiales reales de contado se remato lo siguiente
...de cincuentay nueve camafeos de oro que se remataron
...en Hernando Riba de Neira a doce pesos de oro comun cada uno que
. ..onta setecientos y ocho pesos de oro comun/DCC VIII p°
...de una medalla de camafeo guamecidad en oro se remato
...n don Antonio de Saavedra en cuarenta pesos de oro comun/ XL p°
...sesenta y nueve piezas de vidrios grandes y pequenos e
...ve platos que son todos por setenta y siete por que la una el
.. .ebrada se remataron en Gabriel Gutierrez a treinta y
.. .reales cada una que monta trescientos y treinta y seis
...s y siete tomines/ CCC XXX VI p° VII t
...e seis sillas de la gineta de cordoban. Se remato en
...ual de Aguilar Acevedo a diez y nueve pesos cada una que monta/ CXIIII p°
...e dos pares de calzas encamadas e amarillas con sus
.. .bones de raso sin los botones de oro que tiene el jubon
.. .mado. Se remataron en Don Luis de Velasco en trescien
.. .pesos de oro comun/ CCC p°
...no toallas de lienzo casero labradas depunto real
.. .antas se remataron en Don Antonio de Saavedra a veinte
...de oro comun cada una que monta ochenta pesos de oro comun/ LXXX p°
. ..atro piezas de holanda que tienen ciento y sesenta y una
...y siete dozavos. Se remataron en Hernando de Riba de
.. .tres pesos y medio cada vara que monta/ D LX V p° IIII t
...corcovan aderezado con ambar enforrado
42 r
De cuarenta y ocho botones de oro embutidos...

remataron en Cristobal Gudiel a siete pesos y medio cada...
que monta trescientos y sesenta pesos.
De doce camisas con sus escofietas y panuelos de...
[Hojlanda guamecido con cortados y puntas se remataron e...
don Alvaro de Acebedo a veinte y ocho pesos cada aderezo...
que monta trescientos y treinta y seis pesos. Reui Diaz de Mendoza,
Pedro Gallo.
En Mexico a cinco de marzo del dicho ano ante los dichos Eugenio d ...
de su magetad e oficiales del dicho presente de contado se remato lo...
de treinta e seis pares de borceguies de lazo llanos
y argentados se remataron en cuatro pesos cada par en Juan
de Salazar que monta ciento cuarenta y cuatro pesos.
Cuatro espejos medianos y seis pequenos guamecidos de
ebano, se remataron en Cristobal Gudiel a siete pesos cada
uno, que monta setenta pesos.
De seis sombreros, los tres de tafetan y los tres de fieltro
espuntados con sus toquillas y plumas, se remataron en
don Carlos de Samano en treinta y seis pesos de oro comun.
Una cama de terciopelo azul con su madera dorada y co
bertor y rodapies de lo mismo con sus goteras de tela de
oro , se remato en Alonso Dominguez en mil pesos de oro comun.
Seis pipas de vino se remataron en Joan de Billerias a no
venta pesos de minas cada una que monta a ochocientos y no
venta y tres pesos y tres tomines de oro comun.
Una cama de terciopelo verde con su madera dorada y...
bertor y rodapies de lo mismo y sus goteras de tela de plata,
se remato en Jeronimo Lopez en ochocientos y diez pesos.
Seis sabanas de Holanda con puntas se remataron...
Joan Rodriguez de Figueroa en ciento e cincuenta y...
Rui Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
En Mexico a doce de marzo de mil e quinientos y ochenta y tres...
Eugenio de Salazar fiscal de su majestad y oficiales reales...
...seis piezas...
42v
.. .bara que tienen ciento y sesenta y dos baras

.. .doceavos y medio que monta mil e trescientos y noventa
.. .o pesos y tres tomines de oro comun
... [cujatro colchones de ruan de cofre sin lana se remataron en
... [HJemando de Riba de Neira en cincuenta y cinco pesos de oro comun
.. .dos colchones de raso carmesi sin lana se remataron en
.. .Hernando de Riba de Neira en ciento y diez pesos de oro comun
...e tiene cadacolchon siete panos.
...e tres pares de almohadas con sus acericos el
...calabrado de oro y el otro par labrado de seda azul
...el otro labrado de bianco, se remataron en Hernando
.. .Riba de Neira en ciento y quince pesos de oro comun .
.. .dos espejos grandes se remataron en Joan de Urrutia en
diez pesos cada uno que monta veinte pesos.
Un jaez de terciopelo carmesi con clavazon y aderezos
de plata con los extremos rosetas y remates dorados
.. .borlas de oro y seda carmesi y alcajas de estribos
.. .petral de plata y extremos dorados y el caparazon de
[tjerciopelo carmesi con bordadura gruesa y escarchado
.. .canutillo de oro y plata tirada bordado de relieve
.. .rapacejos de oro y seda, se remato en Hernando de Riba de
... [N]eira en quinientos e quince pesos de oro comun. Este jaez se
... [remajto con todo su aderezo conforme a la memoria.
Otro jaez de terciopelo amarillo bordado de oro y seda, se remato
.. .Joan de Billerias en cuatrocientos y veinte sesis pesos de oro comun.
...[otrjo jaez de terciopelo amarillo bordado de plata con
...aderezo como los de arriba, se remato en Joan de Sa
...en cuatrocientos y cincuenta y seis pesos los dichos
.. .jaeces se remataron con sus cofres en que vinieron.
... [cjuarenta y siete botones de oro de punzon se re
... [matjaron en Hernando de Riba de Neira a cinco pesos
.. .tomines cada uno que monta doscientos y cua
.. .pesos e seis tomines. Rui Diaz de M en...
43r
El dicho dia se trajeron enpregon las...

por rematar del dicho presente y no hubo postura...
En Mexico a treinta de abril del dicho ano ante el dicho fiscal...
de contado se remato lo siguiente de dicho presente.
De tres gorras de terciopelo negro las dos e la...
de rizo con las dos de ellas guamecidas de abalorio e la o
tra con toquilla de plata escarchada y aljofar, se remato
en Cristobal de Casares en diez y siete pesos cada una que
montan cincuenta y un pesos.
De otras cinco gorras las tres de terciopelo e la...
dos de rizo con sus toquillas de abalorio se remata
ron en Andres Calvo a diez pesos y medio cada uno que monta
cincuenta e dos pesos e cuatro tomines.
Doce pares de guantes de cabrito adobados de flores
se remataron en Andres Calvo a nueve reales cada
par que monta trece pesos y cuatro tomines.
Cuarenta y cinco docenas de cintas de colores de tude...
co, se remataron en Alonso Martinez a cinco tomines cada...
na que monta veintiocho pesos y un tomfn.
Seis pares de pantuflos de terciopelo de colores, se rem
ataron en Alonso Martinez a diecisiete tomines cada par
que monta doce pesos y seis tomines.
Dos pares de zapatos cairelados de oro y son de terciopelo
el uno amarillo y el otro encamado, se remataron en
Alonso Martinez Ortiguilla a veinte y dos reales cada
uno que montan cinco pesos y medio.
Un jubon de tela de oro y plata con botones de oro y
seda se remato en Pedro de Artiaga en treinta pesos.
Una capa de raja guamecida de terciopelo
torchado la puso Pedro de Artiaga en cincuenta pesos de oro...
se la remato. Rui Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo
En Mexico a diez de mayo de mil y quinientos y ochenta y tres anos ante...
Salas fiscal de su majestad e oficiales reales. De contado se remato...
43v
Dos azules y el otro carmesi con sus mo

...das bordadas estriberas y lo demas se re[mato]
...en Juan de Billerias a cuatrocientos y veinte
... [pesos de] oro comun cada una que montan mil doscientos
...[y se]senta pesos.
Diecisiete cajas de madera blancas con sus cerradu
ras y Haves en que vino la ropa del dicho presente
se remataron en Pedro Ochoa en veinticinco pesos de oro
comun. Rui Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
A diecisiete de mayo del dicho ano ante los dichos licenciados Eugenio
...de Salazar e oficiales reales de contado del dicho presente se
...lo siguiente.
La armazon de madera de telas con sus frisas y
bocacies en que vinieron envueltos algunas cosas del
dicho presente. Y bocacies que se pusieron en la dicha
tienda se remataron en Gabriel Jimenez en veintiseis
pesos y medio de oro comun.
La lana que vino envuelta con el presente se remato en Leandro
.. .rea un peso de oro comun. Rui Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
Veintinueve de mayo del dicho ano ante el dicho fiscal y oficiales reales
[se rejmato lo siguiente.
Una cadenilla de oro de eslabones que estaba en una gorra
e terciopelo que peso nueve casteellanos y seis tomines se remato
en Melchor Negrete diecisiete tomines y medio el castellano, que monta
veintiun pesos y cuatro tomines. Rui Diaz de Mendoza y Pedro Gallo.
Treinta de agosto de mil quinientos ochenta y tres anos ante los dichos fiscal de
.. .alio de contado del dicho presente se remato lo siguiente
256
Seis piezas de grana que tienen ciento cuarenta y dos varas
.. .cuartas se remato en Miguel de Duenas a diez pesos
la vara que monta mil cuatrocientos sesenta
[y tres] pesos un tomin y seis ranos de oro comun.
Veinticuatro brinquinos de vidrio, se remataron en
.. .endez de Sotomayor en diez reales todos
[Rui Diaz d]e Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
...de enero de mil q[uinientos]...
44r
.. .forrado en tela de plata y es morado de ras[o]...

Pedor de Artiaga en ciento y veinte pesos de or[o]
Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
En Mexico a veinte de marzo del dicho ano ante los
Oficiales de su majestad se remataron dos pretinas de tercio[pelo]
negro bordadas de oro con clavazon dorada y se rema[ta]
ron en Bernardino Vazquez de Tapia en doce pesos de oro comun. Rui
Diaz de Mendoza, Pedro Gallo.
Y para que de lo susodicho conste de pedimento de senor Hernando de Sant...
Cuentas de su majestad, en esta Nueva Espana lo bice escribir y vaciar de los dichos
libros en Mexico a diecisiete dias del mes de...
quinientos y ochenta y cinco anos siendo testigos presentes Antonio
y Pedro de Caravajal. Va cierto y corregido escrito en cuat...
por ende por testimonio de verdad, fiz aqui mi signo
Pedro Gallo de Escalada.
44v
. ..estanpor rematar las cosas siguientes

.. .grande de nuestra senora y dos retratos y uno de la sacra
...del emperador nuestro senor y otro de la majestad del rey don Felipe.
Lo cual imagen y retrato los tienen puestos; y la
del acuerdo de las cajas reales de esta ciudad de Mexico por mandado del
presidente y oidores de la Audiencia real de ella.
Los seis relojes del presidente estan en poder de los oficiales de la real
Hacienda de su majestad por no se haber podido vender respecto del valor
que se tasaron por un relojero que al parecer es excesivo y no se hallo persona que llegue
con mucha parte a dar en lo que se tasaron.
Los oficiales dicen haber escrito a los jueces oficiales de
la Contratacion de Sevilla que avisen lo que costaron para venderlos
conforme a esto y no se poder vender por la tasacion que aca se hizo.
Par de guantes adobados que asi mismo faltan del dicho presente
y en los oficiales que no nos recibieron.
Firmado
257
Quedan cuatro cosillas [cajillas?], cubiertos de baqueta con sus cerraduras por vender
del dicho presente con lo cual esta cerrada dicha cuenta.
258
Appendix 4
A Historiographic Review
of the Study of “Talavera Pobiana”
This narrative begins in the storage rooms and parlors of the nascent art museums
and private collections of the United States (especially in New York and Philadelphia, but
also in California) during the first decade of the twentieth century. The American
“discovery” of the Mexican ceramics tradition was the product of the new-found passion
for ceramic collecting among upper-class women and antiquarians of the late nineteenth
century. Among them, the New Yorker Emily Johnston de Forest’s innovative interest
in folk pottery had a leading role in the development of the collecting taste for viceregal
wares in the United States. Though her collection of Mexican ceramics was not the first
of its kind in the United States (Houghton Sawyer had amassed an earlier collection in
California during the late 1880’s),3 it was nonetheless pioneering and influential in the
introduction of the medium to the American museum world, with which she was actively
and intimately involved since very early in her life.4 The objects in her collection,
initially acquired during a brief visit to Mexico in 1904 and expanded thereafter, served
as an auspicious introduction to the medium for Edwin Atlee Barber, then curator of the
Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. Barber’s immediate fascination and
2 Alice Cooley Frelinghuysen, “Emily Johnston de Forest (Benefactor o f New York’s Metropolitan
Museum)” in Magazine Antiques, January (2000) p. 194.
3 For detailed information on Sawyer’s pioneering collection o f Mexican ceramics, which was partly lost to
an earthquake in 1906, see Robin Farwell Gavin, “Preface” in Maiolica Ole: Spanish and Mexican
Decorative Traditions, ed. Robin Farwell Gavin. Santa Fe: Museum o f New Mexico Press, 2001, p.7.
4 Mrs. De Forest’s father was an accomplished collector o f French academic painting and a patron o f
contemporary American artists. Her husband, Robert, also was an active collector who later became the
president o f the Metropolitan Museum o f Art. See Frelinghuysen, “Emily Johnston de Forest,” p. 193 and
Margaret Connors McQuade, “Talavera Pobiana. The Renaissance o f a Mexican Tradition” in The
Magazine Antiques, December (1999), p. 825.
259
active involvement with Mexican ceramics quite literally brought the wares out of the
private realm of the collectors’ homes and into the public sphere of the American
museums of the period. It also prompted him to publish the first system of classification
that still provides the taxonomic and methodological foundation for the study of the
subject to this day.5
In 1907, about a year after Mrs. de Forest invited Barber to view her new
collection of Mexican ceramics, he traveled to Mexico to “procure” similar examples for
the Pennsylvania Museum.6 During his short visit, he was advised by local contacts
provided by Emily Johnston de Forest and acquired a sizeable amount of wares for the
collection of the Pennsylvania Museum. In 1908, as a result of a direct (albeit brief)
exposure to Mexican wares, collectors, dealers and anthropologists, the first publication
on the subject of Mexican ceramics, Barber’s The Maiolica o f Mexico, was bom.7 The
focus of his work became the stylistic study of the medium, which, at the time of
publication, was unknown in academic circles.8
This pioneering work, as well as his subsequent contributions to the study of
Mexican ceramics, continued to be tied to prominent private and museum collections in
the Northeastern United States. He published the catalogues for the exhibitions of Mrs.
de Forest’s and Archer Milton Huntington’s collections at the Hispanic Society of
America shortly after its founding, and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art some years
5 Edwin Atlee Barber, The Maiolica o f Mexico. Philadelphia: Printed for the Museum, 1908.
6 Emily de Forest’s role in introducing Barber to Mexican ceramics is further explored in Alice Cooney
Frelinghuysen, Emily Johnston de Forest, p. 194-195 and Margaret Connors McQuade, Talavera Pobiana,
pp. 825-826.
7 Edwin Atlee Barber, The Maiolica o f Mexico, 1908.
8 In Barber’s own words, “In the preparation o f a monograph on the Maiolica o f Mexico, the author has had
no previously published accounts o f this industry to guide him.” Ibid, p. 3.
260
later.9 In fact, Barber spearheaded the remarkable editorial and museological activity
that took place around Mexican ceramics and its American collectors, for whom he
served as advisor and sometimes even art broker, during a ten-year period.10 With each
publication and new prestigious venue, his system of classification was reiterated and
validated further. As a result, Barber’s published works between the years of 1908-1918
are characterized by an almost exact duplication of their visual and written content, which
exclusively privileges a formalist methodology. To date, his published works remain
quite literally the underpinning of the field of Mexican ceramic studies. Barber’s
typological studies (reaffirmed, perhaps, by the sheer power of replication) remain to be
explored critically or to be examined vis-a-vis the motivations of a tum-of-the-twentieth-
century American museum administrator who sought to legitimize new, but otherwise
non-canonical, collections of “folk ceramics” by way of the museum display.
With this intense publishing and exhibition effort, Barber also intended to
establish both a catalogue of pieces in known public and private collections and a system
of classification for the stylistic assessment of Mexican wares. As the product of a
methodology rooted in connoisseurship, Barber’s work was linked inextricably to his
administrative role as curator, and later director, of the Pennsylvania Museum and School
of Industrial Arts. His work was the result of his affiliation with an institution keenly
attentive to the relationship between the encyclopedic knowledge of design and materials
9 See Edwin Atlee Barber, Mexican Maiolica belonging to Mrs. Robert de Forest. New York: The Hispanic
Society o f America, 1911; idem, Mexican Maiolica in the Collection o f the Hispanic Society o f America.
New York: Hispanic Society o f America, 1915; idem, The Emily Johnston de Forest Collection o f Mexican
Maiolica. New York: The Metropolitan Museum o f Art, 1918; Margaret Connors McQuade, “Talavera
Pobiana,” p.??
10 His role in securing stellar pieces for Mrs. de Forest, as well as his role in introducing her to
Pennsylvania-German pottery, is documented in Frelinghuysen, Emily Johnston de Forest,
261
and its potential impact on Philadelphia’s local industrial production.11 During the
first decade of the twentieth century, the Pennsylvania Museum and its school
increasingly struggled to define the “industrial arts” in relation to a growing pressure to
re-orient its mission and collections towards the fine arts.12 Barber’s tenure at the
museum (1892-1916) coincided squarely with the “quiet transformation” that took place
in the Pennsylvania Museum, but that also is tied to a greater developmental period in
American museum history.
Edwin Atlee Barber’s contribution to the field of Mexican ceramic studies fall
squarely within the context of this legitimizing effort.13 Indeed, the elevation of “folk”
ceramics— and, therefore, of a museum collection mainly comprised of a variety of such
objects—to the standing of Fine Art, required a strict focus on questions of
connoisseurship, authorship and authenticity.14
11 Steven Conn, Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926. Chicago: University o f Chicago
Press, 1998, pp. 192-232.
12 As Conn argues, this effort intensified as the Pennsylvania Museum’s administrators sought to
differentiate their institution from the growing collections o f the Metropolitan Museum o f Art, an
organization firmly committed to the advancement o f the Fine Arts in an openly elitist fashion. Conn,
“Museums,” pp. 211-212, 219-222.
13 Barber’s work on Mexican ceramics always is separated from his extraordinarily prolific writings on the
industrial arts in general, but early-American especially, although his production clearly reveals a
methodological pattern. Barber wrote about European glazed pottery and early American pottery and glass,
as well as on Iberian ceramics and glass. Among his most famous titles are Pottery and porcelain o f the
United States: A n historical review o f American Ceramic A rt from the Earliest Times to the Present Day.
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1893 (reprinted in 1902, 1909, 1914 and 1976); Anglo-American pottery;
Old English China with American Views; A M anual fo r Collectors. Indianapolis: Press o f the Clay-worker,
1899 (reprinted and expanded to include a directory o f collectors and dealers in antiques in 1901); Tulip
ware o f the Pennsylvania-German potters: A n Historical Sketch o f the A rt o f Slip-decoration in the United
States. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum and School o f Industrial Art, 1903 (reprinted in 1926); Marks
o f American Potters. Philadelphia: Patterson & White, 1904 (reprinted 1976); Lead Glazed Pottery. Part
First (Common Clays): Plain Glazed, Sgraffito and Slip-decorated Wares. Philadelphia: Printed for the
Museum, 1907 (reprinted in London in 1908).
14 This approach is well-illustrated in a Pennsylvania Museum’s exhibition, curated by Barber himself,
devoted to forgeries and imitations in the decorative arts. See Edwin Atlee Barber, Exhibition o f "fakes"
and reproductions. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum and School o f Industrial Art, 1916. The matter o f
art forgeries was, indeed, a matter o f interest for Barber, who had already published on the subject nine
years earlier. See Edwin Atlee Barber, Ceramic Forgeries. Philadelphia: Journal o f the Proceedings o f the
Numismatic and Antiquarian Society o f Philadelphia, 1907.
262
The stylistic categories that he proposed in 1908 span the history of Mexican
ceramics from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, and clearly are a response to
these concerns. The categories included the “Moresque” (1575-1700), “Spanish” (also
called “Talavera,” 1600-1800), Chinese (1650-1800), and “Hispano-Mexican” (also
called “Puebla,” 1800-1860).15 A simple examination reveals overlapping and far-
reaching time periods associated with equally broad stylistic descriptions that, with the
partial exception of the “Hispano-Mexican,” are interpreted easily as a response to
foreign imports. Barber’s taxonomy was based on a derivative notion of viceregal
aesthetics that developed out of the examination of the objects in isolation. Undoubtedly,
his visual judgment was informed more closely by current nineteenth-century collecting
patterns than with an in-depth knowledge of viceregal history or culture, as supported by
his own publishing and professional careers.16 Nonetheless, contemporary academic
practice has fallen short of seeking more historically-accurate, or even aesthetically-
defined, alternatives with which to substitute these categories, choosing instead to further
Barber’s taxonomy even in light of its limited, if problematic, application.17
Most relevant to this investigation is the so-called “Moresque style,” Barber’s
earliest stylistic category in his system of classification. Characterized by interlacing and
15 Barber, “The Maiolica,” 1908, pp. ?

16 Viceregal and Mexican histories, as categories o f analysis, are absent from Barber’s publications.
17 In two separate publications, for instance, Margaret Connors McQuade at once recognizes the limitations
o f Barber’s taxonomy and praises his formal assessments as follows, “Like Spanish art, which is difficult to
identify by its national culture alone, the different styles o f Puebla ceramics were developed by adapting
and altering forms and motifs from other cultural traditions. These adaptations and alterations often make it
difficult to place pieces within Barber’s stylistic categories.” And “Barber had a discerning eye for
ceramics, and although his visit to Mexico was short he learned enough about the Puebla ceramic tradition
to define the major stylistic periods and to distinguish some o f the finest extant examples. He published
these findings in 1908 in the first history o f talavera pobiana, which continues to be one o f the most
important sources for any study o f the pottery.” See Margaret Connors McQuade, Talavera Pobiana. Four
Centuries o f a Mexican Tradition. New York: The Americas Society, 1999, p. 20 and Ibid, “Talavera
Pobiana,” p. ??.
263
geometric decorative motifs in blue and white,18 the “Moresque” (substituted in later
scholarship for “Hispano-Muslim” and “Mudejar”) is seldom questioned or defined, but
applied nonetheless in contemporary studies. Barber’s characterization of the style was
not just narrowly formulated, even in strictly decorative terms,19 but also romantic and
vague, as he loosely described pieces that “reflect the Mauresque feeling in decorative
90
treatment.” Barber’s idea of the “Moresque” produced a discourse that hinged on the
description of models of derivation that flowed “downward” from the colonial center.21
The author presumed a pattern of unmediated transmission of Andalusi aesthetic
information that reached the sixteenth century and expanded beyond Peninsular borders
in a seemingly pure state. Additionally, the anachronistic longevity of the “Moresque,”
lasting well into the eighteenth century, overstates its survival vis-a-vis shifting Iberian
and viceregal tastes. In fact, it ignores the myriad stylistic sources that influenced
European (and, by extension, American) luxury markets during, and certainly after, the
sixteenth century. Despite its considerable limitations, however, the Moresque/Mudej ar
category is widely accepted as the foundation of the viceregal ceramics tradition.
Barber codified a taxonomic system that also owed to a contemporary Orientalist
mentality as it related to the revival of the Mexican ceramics tradition in Puebla. Indeed,
the resurgence of Talavera Pobiana as a modem artisanal tradition that looked to the
viceregal past to inspire the rebirth of an authentic Mexican ceramic industry was of
18 Barber, “The Maiolica,” 1908, p. 46

19 “The so-called Moresque style o f decoration is characterized by interlacing scrollwork and strapwork..
Barber, “The Maiolica,” p. 46.
20 Ibid, p. 50
21 In Barber’s words, “The employment o f the Moorish styles o f ornamentation in Mexico may be
explained by the fact that previous to 1720 pottery tiles were exported to New Spain from various Spanish
ports...That these wares were brought into Mexico in considerable abundance for some time previous to
1720, is doubtless true, and it is equally certain that some o f them, at least, were in the Hispano-Moresque
style, which would have a marked effect on the Mexican productions.” Ibid, p. 47.
264
obvious interest to Barber. During Ms trip to Mexico, he witnessed the product of
this revival when he visited the workshop of Enrique Luis Ventosa, the man who is
credited with single-handedly restoring the ceramic craft in the city of Puebla.22 Indeed,
Ventosa’s efforts represent the materialized ideal of the Pennsylvania Museum’s mission,
as the systematic study of the aesthetics and history of the craft of viceregal wares had a
direct repercussion on the large-scale industrial production of glazed ceramics in the
region. Nonetheless, Ventosa’s own historicist stimulus had deep roots in the Orientalist
mentality o f the late mneteenth-century,23 exactly at a time when the “Mudejar,” as an
academic category, was in its formative period.
Enrique Ventosa’s artistic formation and professional career no doubt were
influenced directly by this intellectual trend. He was bom in Barcelona in 1868 and
already was a student at the Academia de Bellas Artes (now Reial Academia Catalana de
Belles Arts de Sant Jordi) in 188Q.24 His artistic formation certainly reflected a Neo
classical academic upbringing centered on the study of the Fine Arts.25 Upon his arrival
in Mexico in 1897, however, he set out to rescue Puebla’s local artisanal tradition and its
industrial process, as well as the historical models of the golden age of viceregal ceramics
of the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Combined with Ms knowledge of Iberian
22 Ventosa’s collaboration with local artisan houses until his death in 1935 is best detailed in Barbara
Mauldin, “The Revival o f Puebla Mayolica in the Twentieth Century” in “Ceramica y Cultura,” pp. 270-
295.
23 On the romantic side, Ventosa, after traveling through Africa, Europe and the Americas, “believed he had
found himself in the country o f “One Thousand and One Nights.” As cited by McQuade from Jose Lopez
Portillo y Rojas, “Introduccion,” in Enrique Luis Ventosa, Ceramica: Libros para artistas. Puebla:
Litotipografia Guadalupana, 1922, p. xii.
24 Our knowledge o f Enrique Ventosa’s life and works stems from the biographical information found in
his book, Ceramica: Libros para artistas. Further archival research must be undertaken in order to
elucidate the details o f his artistic formation in Barcelona, as well as o f his potential exploration o f the
ceramic medium outside o f the Academia before his arrival in Mexico.
23 As has been pointed out, there is no evidence that Ventosa was a trained ceramist. McQuade, “Talavera
Pobiana,” p. 51.
265
typologies and decorative motifs, Ventosa’s historicist revival in Puebla also included
late-medieval models.26 His academic interaction with Manuel Toussaint, the key figure
in the development of the American Mudejar discourse, as well as his friendship with
important collectors, such as Mariano Bello, and museum professionals like Edwin Atlee
Barber, for whom he served as a consultant, not only underscores Ventosa’s interest in
elevating the ceramic tradition to the status of Fine Art, but also attest to a common goal
to include the medium in contemporary academic discourse.
As previously discussed, the subject of mudejarismo had central currency in
Iberian academic circles since the mid-nineteenth century. Although the application of
its discourse was largely architectural at the time, the museum and collecting worlds were
increasingly aware of its relevance to the study of the decorative arts as well. Ventosa
and Barber were receptive to this intellectual development. Their treatment of viceregal
ceramics reflects the increasing prominence of the medium in art historical circles and
acknowledges their value as channels of contemporary academic thought. In this context,
then, the study of Mudejar ceramics was novel indeed. From the above-mentioned
sudden increase of ceramic vessels in Catalonian museum collections, to the
archaeological find of thousands of medieval shards and vessels in the Testar del Moli,
located in the Valencian town of Patema,27 the interest in the study of Iberian ceramics at
26 Ceramic objects from Alcora, Talavera, Manises and Catalunya were present in the collection o f
Barcelona’s “Museo Provincial de Antigiiedades” since the early 1880’s. This collection grew
exponentially through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and, after several incarnations, resulted in the
foundation o f the Museo de Ceramica, located in the Palacio de Pedralbes, Barcelona. Between the years
1883 and 1895, while Ventosa was still a student in Barcelona, the number o f ceramics pieces in this public
collection quite literally exploded. See Trinidad Sanchez-Pacheco, “El Museo de Ceramica” in Museo de
Ceramica. Palacio de Pedralbes Barcelona, eds. Trinidad Sanchez-Pacheco, M. Antonia Casanovas and
M aria Dolors Giral. Brussels: Musea Nostra, 1993, pp. 10-12.
27 The archaeological history o f Valencian ceramics begins in 1907 with Manuel Gonzalez Marti’s
investigations (in situ), followed by the 1908-1911 excavations at El Testar, lead by the antiquarians V. G.
266
the turn of the twentieth century also included the investigation of the major medieval
ceramic centers of the Iberian Peninsula. Among them, the production of the towns of
Sevilla, Granada, and Talavera de la Reina/Puente del Arzobispo were of great art
historical concern.28
Enrique Luis Ventosa’s and Edwin Atlee Barber’s early efforts contributed to the
inclusion of viceregal wares into the growing field of Iberian ceramic studies, where the
subject of Mudejarismo received a great deal of attention. Certainly, Ventosa’s work had
a-tremendous impact upon the industrial rebirth of Mexican ceramics, as well as among
contemporary collectors and intellectuals with whom he maintained close contact.
Nonetheless, Barber remains the most influential scholar to date. Although he benefited
from Ventosa’s aesthetic knowledge and industrial expertise, his abundant writings drew
from the American, Iberian, and Mexican scholarly trends in a manner so effective, and
so deeply interwoven with the needs of the nascent North American art collections, that
they continue to hold currency to this date. Barber’s work should be construed critically
Novella and J. de Almenar. Digging into large wasters (hence the site’s name), Novella and Almenar’s
expedition yielded hundreds o f waster shards and full vessels. The antiquarians also discovered nearly
twenty kilns, although their excavation methods focused on the retrieval o f pieces, not in the re
construction o f their production environment. Both Novella and Almenar showed a greater commitment to
the development o f the connoisseurship o f medieval Valencian ceramics than to their archaeological
significance. The retrieved ceramics became part o f their private collections or were sold in the art market.
Similarly, neither excavator published a detailed journal. In fact, the only expedition report was published
1921, thirteen years after the end o f the first archaeological season, when the Museus de Arte de Barcelona
acquired a sizable amount o f the pieces. See Joaquim Folch i Torres, Noticias sobre la ceramica de
Paterna. Barcelona: Junta de Museus de Barcelona, 1921.
28 See, for example, Rodrigo Amador de los Rios, “Brocales de pozo arabes y mudejares” in Museo
Espanol de Antiguedades, Tomo III (1871); Edwin Atlee Barber, Hispano-Moresque Pottery in the
Collection o f the Hispanic Society o f America. New York: The Hispanic Society o f America, 1915; Claude
Charles Marie Casati de Casatis, Note sur les faiences de Talavera la Reyna et coup-d'osil sur les musees de
Madrid. Paris, 1873; Jose Gestoso y Perez, Historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos. Desde sus origenes
hasta nuestros dlas. Sevilla: La Andalucia Modema, 1903; Juan de Dios de Rada y Delgado, “Jarron Arabe
que se conserva en la Alhambra de Granada” in Museo Espanol de Antiguedades, Tomo IV (1872);
Sociedad Espaftola de Amigos del Arte, Album de la exposicion de anligua ceramica espahola, Madrid.
Madrid: La Sociedad, 1910; Bernhard and Ellen M. Whishaw, Illustrated descriptive account o f the
Museum o f Andalucian Pottery and Lace, antique and modern: together with notes on pre-Roman Seville
and the lost city o f Thar sis. Seville, 1913.
267
as the product of a museographer writing at the turn of the twentieth century,
complete with the limitations that characterize any first effort in an emergent field. The
obstacle remains that his system continues to be actively used in (and unrevised by)
contemporary scholarship, even though our knowledge of Andalusi and viceregal art,
archaeology, and history has increased significantly since his first publication. For
almost a century, then, his unquestioned system of classification has limited our ability to
contribute to the interpretation of colonial ceramics and has fixed the Mudejar category
as the cornerstone of viceregal visual practice and consumption.29
The reiteration of Barber’s nomenclature and categories of visual analysis began
shortly after Barber’s death. Paul and Henriette Van de Velde30 followed his
methodology closely as they replicated Barber’s timeline of the “evolution of influences

o 1
and styles.” The “Hispano-Arabic period,” as defined by de Van de Veldes, coincided
squarely with the “Golden Age of Puebla ceramics,” and, once again, served as the
stylistic foundation that supported the evolution of the medium throughout its history.32
29 In his last publication on the subject o f Mexican ceramics, Barber declared that “The maiolica o f Mexico,
as we know it today, is a composite ware, the result o f a combination o f four distinct sources o f inspiration.
The first Spanish potters brought with the traditions o f an older art— the Moresque— which revealed itself
in some o f the their earlier work in New Spain. Among the first products o f the Mexican maiolists are
pieces which reveal a marqued Moresque or Hispano-Moresque feeling... the result after three centuries o f
amalgamation was a Moresque-Hispano-Aztec-Sinico combination o f forms and decorations.” Edwin
Atlee Barber, M exican M aiolica in the Collection o f the Hispanic Society o f America, p. 13.
30 The Van de Veldes’ attention to Mexican ceramics was tied to an overall interest in Mexican folklore.
Bom in Belgium, the Van de Veldes lived much o f their life in Mexico, most o f it in Oaxaca, where Paul
served as a mining engineer and consul. Paul Van de Velde wrote several books, some coauthored with his
wife Henriette, and edited a journal, The Mexican Magazine, devoted to the study o f mining, anthropology,
pre-Hispanic archeological sites, native arts and languages.
1 With slight variation, Paul and Henriette Van de Velde, like Barber, recognized four distinct periods that
corresponded with four main styles. Namely, Hispano-Arabic, Chinese, Hispano-Mexican, and Aztec-
Pueblan. They also agreed that, “all Spanish art o f that period (up to 1700) had Oriental, that is to say
Arabic, reminiscences. The pottery made in Puebla during the Hispano-Arabic influence abounds, as did its
Spanish ancestor, in flowers, birds, animals and human figures, as well as motifs o f entirely Moresque
origin, such as interlacing bands, scrollwork, etc.” (my italics) Paul and Henriette Van de Velde, Mexican
Maiolica: The Potters ’ A rt o f Puebla. Mexico: 1927, p. 33.
32 Van de Velde, “Mexican Maiolica,” p. 11.
268
Indeed, the authors’ assigned so much cultural weight to the consumption of ceramics
during the seventeenth century that they were surprised by the absence of ceramic wares
from select contemporary historical and literary evidence. For the authors, the fact that
Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, Bishop of Puebla (1639-1648), and Thomas Gage, who
visited Puebla in 1625, failed to mention the city’s pottery production was an oversight.33
Instead, the Van de Veldes affirmed the luxury status of glazed ceramics solely in
relation to their Iberian-ness and in tacit opposition to the Native tradition as follows,
“the need for the product was great. First, cups and plates were lacking for the use of the
Spaniards who had been used to such luxuries at home.”34 In this manner, the authors
confounded the issues of cultural exclusivity and an alleged material scarcity to produce a
pervasive, though historically questionable, luxury discourse around glazed ceramics in
New Spain.35
While, undoubtedly, the earliest years after the conquest witnessed a dependence
on Iberian imports for items of daily use, both commonplace and sumptuous, and a
resulting increase in prices, this was hardly the case by mid-century. Nonetheless, the
33 Palafox’ tenure in Puebla was erroneously established by the authors as having lasted from 1610-1642.
In their words, “It is significant that Bishop Juan de Palafox y Mendoza... never once mentioned the
ceramic art o f his parishioners in his voluminous correspondence. In his letters to the Pope, Palafox, who
was a champion o f the Indians and a patron o f the arts and crafts, repeatedly makes mention o f the great
aptitude for handiwork o f the Mexicans in his district.. .but he says not a word concerning their having
mastered the art o f enameling pottery.” And, “Thomas Gage is another writer who, having visited Puebla in
1625 and having apparently noted everything else o f any importance, overlooked the ceramic industry.”
Ibid, pp. 6-7.
34 Van de Velde, “Mexican Maiolica,” p. 7.
35 Such a close connection to scarcity, and thus to rarity, also has proven very limiting for the interpretation
o f the social meanings and uses o f viceregal ceramics. As Christopher J. Berry notes, “by conceptually
tying ‘luxury’ so tightly to the social meaning o f rarity/exclusivity the inherent quality o f the good, and the
reasons for wanting it, are downplayed.” Christopher J. Berry, The Idea o f Luxury. A Conceptual and
Historical Investigation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 33.
36 The historical and theoretical dimensions o f sixteenth century viceregal luxury are undertaken in detail in
Chapter 2. For the study o f ceramics, however, there is confirmation o f local ceramic production in
269
historical documentation indicates that, although ceramic prices initially were higher,
the objects were still far from luxurious/7 Yet, this line of inquiry ultimately points out
the fact that much remains unknown about the development of the viceregal ceramic
tradition during the sixteenth century. When the Mexican scholar Enrique Cervantes set
out to complete the earliest documentary study pertaining to the growth of Puebla’s
ceramic trade, he was particularly interested in this formative period.38 In the resulting
publication, the author openly declared his inability to answer basic questions pertaining
to the years immediately after the founding of Puebla de Los Angeles in 1531.39
Following his earlier work, Cervantes had envisioned to unearth archival information
AA
pertaining to the first potters and workshops in the city, apparently in an effort to
elucidate the origin of the Talavera Pobiana name so misleading and often assigned to
ceramics from Puebla.
Ironically, although Cervantes was intensely critical of this designation, with all
its speculation and derivative implications, he reverted to Barber’s well-established
methodology and the extant seventeenth-century wares for his own assessment of the
Mexico City as early as 20 years after the conquest. See Lister and Lister, Sixteenth-Centuiy Maiolica
Pottery in the Valley o f Mexico. Tucson: The University o f Arizona Press, 1982, p. 8-9.
37 From Oaxaca, Alonso de Figuerola Chantre wrote to the king (July 29, 1541) describing his motivation
and the extent o f his efforts to master the technique o f ceramic glazing. The product o f this hard work was
profitable indeed, but it consisted, quite literally, o f pots and pans. In the inflated language characteristic o f
missives requesting royal compensation for services rendered, Figuerola stated, “Con trabajo e ingenio
alcance el vidriado, que no tenian un plato en que comer sino venia de Castilla, me durd un ano que no
hacia sino hacer y deshacer homos y buscar por las sierras el alcohol para ello. Lo amostre a los indios de
Mexico sin interesarse ninguno que pudiese yo ganar dello mas de 3,000 pesos hasta agora, por que en el
tiempo que se comenzo a hacer, daban medio peso por una olla mediana.” Documentos de Indias, Tomo III,
p. 530.
Enrique Cervantes, Loza blancay azulejo de Puebla. Puebla: 1939.
39 YQuienes fueron los primeros artifices que iniciaron la fabricacion de la loza blanca y el azulejo en la
Ciudad de Puebla? Me he empenado en saberlo, pero no he sido afortunado en mis investigaciones.”
Cervantes, “Loza blanca,” p. 18.
40 Enrique Cervantes, Nomina de locerospoblanos durante elperiodo virreinal. Mexico: 1933.
270
development of the viceregal ceramics.41 Faced with a lack of documentation related
to the producers of viceregal wares (and not taking in consideration the role of the
consumers), Cervantes folded his own keen criticism of the ahistorical state of the field of
ceramic studies, glossed over the sixteenth century, and reaffirmed formalism and the
industrial process as the main tools of interpretation.
Almost three decades later, the problem of viceregal ceramics occupied John
Mann Goggin, a leading figure in the emergent field of historical anthropology.42 His
book Spanish Maiolica in the New World resulted from his interest in the archaeological
record of Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, and the Southwestern United States, as well as
his pursuit of a comprehensive material atlas of colonial artifacts.43 Given the nascent
state of the field and the pioneering nature of Goggin’s work on Iberian colonial sites, his
work was fundamentally typological and meant to aid in further archaeological
undertakings. Goggins taxonomy, developed over the years from varied stratigraphic
contexts and geographies, remains an impressively complex tool of archaeological
41 In his words, “Se desconoce la causa por la cual ultimamente se ha designado esta manufacture como
Loza de Talavera: No se encuentra relacion alguna entre la designacion y los antecedentes de su origen y
desarrollo, A este respecto, he conocido las mas absurdas opiniones...” Paradoxically, while sternly
criticizing earlier publications on the subject o f viceregal ceramics for “lacking seriousness and
documentation” as well as for being “repetitive and generalized,” Cervantes made an exception for
Barber’s work, isolating it as the only significant contribution to the field. Ibid, p. xiv-xv. Nonetheless, this
dismissive attitude seems to be a direct response to Carlos Hoffman’s refutation o f Barber’s position “that
Puebla could have been the only locality during almost 300 years, not only in New Spain, but also in all o f
the American continent, in which mayolica would have been manufactured.” As cited by Ana Paulina
Gdmez Martinez from Carlos Hoffman in “The Forgotten Potters o f Mexico City” in “Cer&mica y Cultura,”
pp. 228-229. See also Carlos Hoffman, “Verdades y errores acerca de la talavera pobiana” in Boletln de la
Sociedad Antonio Abate. Mexico: 1922, pp. 626-28.
42 John M. Goggin, Spanish Maiolica in the New World. Types o f the 161h to 18th Centuries. New Haven:
Yale University, 1968.
43 In his own words, “with accelerated activity in American archaeology o f the historic periods, the need
has increased to refine our taxonomic tools for the description and discussion o f colonial artifacts.” Goggin,
“Spanish Maiolica,” p. 1. For more on Goggin and his pioneering role in the fields o f American and
historical archaeology, see Brent Richards Weisman, Pioneer in Space and Time: John Mann Goggin and
the Development o f Florida Archaeology. Gainesville: University Press o f Florida, 2002.
271
analysis elaborated in opposition to what he considered to be imprecise labels and
categories of analysis developed by earlier scholars.
The “Hispano-Moresque” is a case in point. Goggin acknowledged that the term
lacked a “valid generic designation, since [it] refers to a particular type of Spanish
ceramics.. .made from at least the fourteenth to the seventeenth century.”44 In the end,
however, Goggin’s taxonomy has limited application outside the field of archaeology
since, under his classification, ceramic wares exist solely in connection with their New
World context, or with discrete patterns of Iberian settlement in North America and the
Caribbean.
Building on Goggin’s otherwise ground-breaking work, Florence and Robert
Lister focused their archaeological effort on the study of the presence of glazed ceramics
in the Valley of Mexico during the colonial period.45 Pursuing the advancements in the
field of historical archaeology, they reaffirmed and expanded upon Goggin’s typologies
in an effort to clarify the status of ceramics during the much overlooked sixteenth
century.46 They also complemented the study of stanniferous wares from Mexican
stratigraphic contexts with comparative materials from Iberia and North Africa, as well as
with select historical documentation, in order to arrive at “clearer perceptions of the
dimensions of maiolica expression in Spanish life.”47 Yet, these “dimensions” remain
44 Goggin associated “Hispano-Moresque” ceramics exclusively with lusterware production. Such pieces,
as he noted, were extremely rare in the Caribbean and not found in the North American archaeological
contexts. Goggin, “Spanish Maiolica,” p. 1.
45 Florence and Robert Lister’s works include “The First Mexican Maiolicas: Imported and Locally
Produced” in H istorial Archaeology 12 (1978), pp. 1-24; “Sixteenth Century Maiolica Pottery”;
“Andalusian Ceramics in Spain and New Spain” and “Mailoica Ole”.
46 The Listers gained direct access to the archaeological remains located below the Metropolitan Cathedral
and Sagrario as well as to shards unearthed by the salvage interventions completed during the construction
of Mexico City’s metro.
47 Lister and Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” p. vii.
272
methodologically problematic and limited in their application, as they developed from
socio-historic inaccuracies built upon the overstatement of the role of Andalusi arts on
viceregal ceramic production.
In particular, the Listers’ certainty of a distinct and meaningful participation of
Moriscos in the manufacture of viceregal wares was particularly important to cement the
chronological narrative of their own taxonomic studies. The Listers identified the earliest
group of sixteenth-century “imported decorated ceramics” stylistically as a typological
family of four types of common grade ceramics decorated in blue and white. Although
they did no perform any petrographic analysis to support the claim, the authors
maintained that these “Morisco wares” were manufactured in Seville. By stressing
ceramic types and decoration, and presenting them in opposition to Italian-influenced
objects,49 all the while discounting a eenturies-long process of inter-cultural transmission
within the Iberian Peninsula, the Listers plainly linked viceregal ceramics to the arts of
Islam.50 Consequently, ethnicity, aesthetics, and technical knowledge became
inextricably connected. In their own words, “the Mexican duplication of the Sevillian
mailoicas, which had evolved out of a Moorish heritage and were still being executed by
a body of artisans incorporating some Morisco elements, certainly points to the likelihood
48 The types largely follow Goggin’s site-specific nomenclature: Columbia Plain (includes Columbia
Gunmetal Variant), Isabela Polychrome, Yayal Blue on White, Santo Domingo Blue on White. Lister and
Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” pp. 44-57.
49 Of Sevilla White and Sevilla Blue on White wares, the authors stated that, “they signify a fundamental
departure from the Muslim past and a striking reorientation toward the Italian manner. As the parent
industry at Sevilla changed under a new set ofhistorical circumstances, so too did the derivative Mexican
pottery change.” Ibid, p. 60
50 In her latest publication, Florence Lister reaffirmed that “when maiolica production began in Castile
during the sixteenth century, technology and style were adopted through Italian rather than Muslim agents.”
Lister, “Maiolica Ole,” p. 20.
273
of those Moorish strains appearing in the young colonial industry.”51 For the Listers,
therefore, the only logical conclusion was that “the ties of form and design in Mexico
went directly back to Muslim Sevilla.”52
Nonetheless, their contribution to the study of viceregal ceramics stresses the
different levels of refinement of the wares. The authors’ correctly position lusterware at
the top of the luxury scale of Iberian ceramic consumption, and define its quality in
opposition to mass-produced coarse wares intended for basic home and commercial use,
noting, like Goggin, the dearth of lusterware characteristic of the colonial American
archaeological record.53 The Listers also acknowledge the central role of tum-of-the-
century collecting patterns in creating the sense of exclusivity and refinement that has
marked our understanding of the medium to our day.54 Similarly, from the onset they
established a distinction between viceregal wares and the finer Chinese porcelain that
entered New Spain’s markets since the sixteenth century, deflating once again the luxury
51 Lister and Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” p. 89. And also, “the same kind o f ceramics, the same
kind o f technology used for large-volume production o f low-quality objects with identical imperfections
leave no doubt o f the indebtedness o f the provincial effort to a Sevillian donor craft still strongly linked to a
Muslim foundation.” Lister and Lister, “Andalusian Ceramics,” pp. 218-219.
32 Lister and Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” p. 88. They restate this throughout their work. For
instance, “the Mexican activity was the only one owing its initiation to Spain and the only one having a
direct linkage back to the original Islamic sources,” Ibid, p. 83. And, in order to explain the motivation
behind the elimination o f one “Mudejar” coarse ware in favor a higher grade adaptation, they offered an
explanation that reaffirmed their belief in an unmediated connection to the arts o f Islam, “Did the technical
similarities between the two calibers arise from some unsuspected leveling agent in the colonial society, or
were the makers less constrained by the Muslim past and less conservative in their attitudes? The latter is
more probable.” Lister and Lister, “Andalusian Ceramics,” p. 225.
53 As the authors explain, the mere 42 fragments o f lusterware recovered from the Sagrario area (none from
the subway salvage effort) add “nothing to the story o f the development o f Mexican maiolica.” Lister and
Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” p. ?
34 Referring to Haughton Sawyer’s collection, now at the International Museum o f Folk Art in Santa Fe,
Florence Lister wrote, “The size and beauty o f the remaining collection, as well as its probable
unintentional focus upon ersatz Orientalism, should not obscure the fact that at the same time these pieces
were in use in elite places primarily in central Mexico other styles and lower grades o f companion
wares...also were coming from kilns in Puebla and in Mexico City. These were ceramics meant for modest
establishments in central Mexico and her outlying provinces. If seen, Sawyer did not consider them
“collectable.” Florence Lister, “Maiolica Ole,” p. 12.
274
argument. The fact that porcelain was present in significant numbers in early colonial
sites, especially in New Spain’s center of administrative power, indicates an early taste
for luxury trade goods against which it is most accurate to position stanniferous wares (of
both Iberian and viceregal manufacture).55
The contemporary academic production on the subject of viceregal ceramics
continues to reproduce the formalist methodology characteristic of the works outlined
above. For instance, Kuwayama described the horizontal decorative bands located on the
neck and waist of a talavera chocolate jar [Fig. 38], dated to the eighteenth century, as
displaying “distant derivations of Kufic inscriptions from the Hispano-Mooresque
tradition,”56 even as a sixteenth-century Wan-li plate [Fig. 39] reproduced in the same
exhibition catalogue presents a similar, if less geometric, border. Similarly, the overall
decoration of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s famous lebrillo (basin) [Fig. 40], also
dated to the eighteenth century, has been described as follows, “the abstract patterning
and curvilinear lines reflect Hispano-Mooresque elements,”57 although the only non-
Chinese aspect of this piece is its typology, a water basin common in the Iberian
Peninsula since the 9th century.
55 Lister and Lister, “Sixteenth Century Maiolica,” pp. 78-79.

56 George Kuwayama, Chinese Ceramics in Colonial Mexico. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum
o f Art, 1997, p. 83
57 Ibid, p. 82.
Figure 38 Figure 39
Chocolate jar Wan-li period plate
Eighteenth century Late sixteenth century
Puebla de los Angeles
Basin/Lebrilio
Eighteenth century
Puebla de los Angeles
Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission
276
In the tradition of viceregal ceramic studies, therefore, geometric, abstract, or
interlacing motifs are considered to be of Mudejar inspiration. As a result, the Mudejar’s
longevity or, rather, its influence, is overstated. This supposition, in turn, is reinforced by
the notion that, as a rule, the arts of Islam suffered from an irrepressible “horror vacuii.”58
The continued use of such an essentializing term to explain the taste for all-over
decoration in the ceramic tradition of New Spain may be an unconscious survival of
Richard Ettinghausen’s article of 1979, “The Taming of the Horror V acuif where the
author equated the taste for all-over decoration to a fundamental “Islamic” proclivity for
exaggeration.59 Recent contributions to the field of Islamic art history, however, have
transformed the discourse of ornamentation, shifting it away from universal descriptions
towards an examination of the socio-cultural developments that rendered abstraction
meaningful and legible in specific Islamic contexts.60 Following this trend, it is more
sensible to shift our focus away from the study of viceregal non-figural decoration in
58 The term is repeatedly use in the study o f viceregal ceramics and visual culture. See, for example,
McQuade, “The Emergence o f a Mexican Tile Tradition” in “Cerdmica y Cultura,” p. 215; Ibid,
“Ceramics” in “The Grandeur o f Viceregal Mexico,” pp. 214-215, 230; Moffit, “Tepozotlan”; Donna
Pierce, “Ceramics” in Mexico: Splendors o f Thirty Centuries, ed. Kathleen Howard. New York:
Metropolitan Museum o f Art, 1992, pp. 364-65; Donald Robertson, Mexican M anuscript Painting o f the
Early Colonial Period: The Metropolitan School. New Haven: Yale University, 1959 and Moffit,
“Tepozotlan.”
59 Ettinghaused did not limit his description to artistic endeavors, but also to interpersonal relations and
social interactions. See Richard Ettinghausen, "The Taming o f the Horror Vacui" in Proceedings o f the
American Philosophical Society. Vol. 123 (1979), pp. 15-28.
60 See, among others, Oleg Grabar. The Mediation o f Ornament. Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1992; The Formation o f Islamic Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973; Gulru Necipoglu, The
Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture. Los Angeles: The Getty Centre, 1995;
Cynthia Robinson, In Praise o f Song: The Making o f Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence 1005-
1134 A.D. Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher. 2001 and Yasr Tabbaa, The Transformation o f Islamic A rt
during the Sunni Revival. Seattle: University o f Washington Press, 2001. For an in-depth analysis o f the
problem o f non-figural decoration in the viceregal context, see Patricia Diaz Cayeros, La sillerla del coro
de la Catedral de Puebla. Omamentacion, ceremonia y la actividad de la forma. Unpublished dissertation,
Institute de Investigaciones Estdticas, UN AM, 2004.
277
relation to a generic “Islamic taste” and develop it instead in relation to local “Iberian
meanings.”61
The current approach to the study of Iberian colonial ceramics takes the presence
of “Islamic” motifs in viceregal wares for granted, but does not pause to assess the
process of technical and aesthetic transmission. As described in Chapter 4, the diffusion
of Andalusi pottery techniques, motifs, and aesthetic values, had been mediated largely
by Iberian Christians throughout the medieval period. As such, by the sixteenth century,
they had long seized to be purely Islamic, and had become characteristically Iberian.
Undoubtedly, all of the above-mentioned works have been fundamental in the discovery,
preservation, and validation of the viceregal ceramic tradition as an important expression
of the artistic heritage and cultural memory of Mexico. But the time has come to
approach their study from the perspective of the lived viceregal environment, where
myriad uses and meaning enlivened the pieces and where their appearance was but one
important aspect of their value.
61 This, of course, is a fascinating and complex subject that cannot be undertaken in any detail in the
present study.
278
Bibliography
Aguado Villalba, Jose. La ceramica hispanomusulmana de Toledo. Madrid: CSIC, 1983.
Aguirre Beltran, Gonzalo. Lapoblacion negra de Mexico. Estudio etnohistorico. Mexico:

Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1972.
Al-Andalus, allende el Atlantico. Edited by Mercedes Garcia-Arenal. Granada: El Legado

Andalusi, 1997.
Albarracin Navarro, Joaquina. “Nueve cartas moriscas de dote y arras de Vera (Almeria)
(1548-1551) in A das del Congreso “La Frontera Oriental Nazari como Sujeto
Historico (s. XIII-XVI).” Almeria: Institute de Estudios Almerienses y Diputacion de
Almeria, 1997, pp. 517-528.
Alberro, Solange. "Beatriz de Padilla: Mistress and Mother" in Struggle and Survival in
Colonial America, ed. David G. Sweet and Gary B. Nash. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1981, pp. 247-256.
. Inquisiciony sociedaden Mexico, 1571-1700. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura

Economica, 1988.
. Del gachupln al criollo, o de como los espanoles de Mexico dejaron serlo. Mexico:
El Colegio de Mexico, 1992.
Alcega, Juan de. Tailor ’$ Pattern Book, 1589. Facsimile. Translated by Jean Pain and
Cecilia Bainton with an introduction and notes by J.L. Nevinson. New York:
Costume and Fashion Press, 1999.
Alfau de Solalinde, Jesusa. Nomenclatura de los tejidos espanoles del siglo XIII.
Madrid: Real Academia de la Lengua, 1969.
al-Wansharishi, Ahmad Ibn Yahya. Al-Mi'yar al-murib wa-al-jamf al-mughrib 'an

fatawi 'ulama' Ifriqiyah wa-al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib, 13 Vols. Edited by
Muhammed Hajji. Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1981-1983.
Amador de los Rios, Jose. El estilo mudejar en la arquitectura. Madrid: Imprenta de

Manuel Tello, 1872.
Amador de los Rios, Rodrigo. “Brocales de pozo arabes y mudejares” in Museo Espanol
de Antiguedades, Tomo III (1871).
Amigues, Franqois. “La ceramica gotico-mudejar valenciana y las fuentes de inspiration

en sus temas decorativos” in Spanish Medieval Ceramics in Spain and the British
Isles. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, 1995, pp. 141-158.
279
. “Potiers mudejares et chretiens de la region de Valence” in Archeologie Islamique 3

(1992), pp. 129-167.
Anderson, Ruth Mathilda. Hispanic Costume, 1480-1530. New York: Hispanic Society
of America, 1979.
Andujar Castillo, Francisco and Julian Pablo Diaz Lopez. “Las actividades economicas”
in Historia del Reino de Granada. La epoca morisca y la repoblacidn. Edited by
Manuel Barrios Aguilera and Rafael G. Peinado Santaella. Granada: Universidad de
Granada/El Legado Andalusi, 2000, pp. 59-100.
Angulo Iniguez, Diego. “The Mudejar in Mexico” in Ars Islamica 2:2 (1935), pp. 225-
230.
Appadurai, Arjun. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value” in The Social
Life o f Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Edited by Arjun Appadurai.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 3-63.
Arie, Rachel. “Sobre la vida socio-cultural en la frontera oriental nazari: El ambiente

humano y la irradiacion intellectual” in Actas del Congreso La Frontera Oriental
Nazari como Sujeto Historico (s. XIII-XVI). Edited by Pedro Segura Artero. Almeria:
Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1997, pp. 501-513.
. “Acerca del traje musulman en Espana desde la caida de Granada hasta la

expulsion de los moriscos” in Revista del Instituto de Estudios Islamicos de Madrid
XIII (1965-66), pp. 103-118.
. “Quelques remarques sur le costume des musulmans d’Espagne au temps des

Nasrides” in Arabica XII (1965), pp. 244-261.
. “Le costume des musulmans de Castille au XHIe siecle d’apres les miniatures du
Libro del Ajedrez,” in Melanges de la Casa de Velazquez 2 (1966), pp. 59-66.
. Etudes sur la civilization de VEspagne musulmane. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990.
Arquitectura y carpinteria mudejar en Nueva Espaha. Edited by Rafael Lopez Guzman.

Mexico: Grupo Azabache, 1992.
Art Markets in Europe, 1400-1800. Edited by Michael North and David Ormrod.
London: Aldershot, 1998.
Arte Mudejar: Exploraciones. Edited by Rafael Lopez Guzman and Ignacio Henares
Cuellar. Artes de Mexico 54 (2001).
280
Arte Mudejar: Variaciones. Edited by Rafael Lopez Guzman and Ignacio Henares
Cuellar. Artes de Mexico 55 (2001).
Appleby, Joyce. “Consumption in Early Modem Social Thought” in Consumption and

the World o f Goods. Edited by John Brewer and Roy Porter. London: Routeledge,
1993, pp. 162-176.
Archivo General de la Nation. Corsarios franceses e ingleses en la Inquisicion de la

Nueva Espaha (siglo XVI). Mexico: UN AM, 1945.
Arte Mudejar: Exploraciones in Artes de Mexico 54 (2001).
Arte Mudejar: Variaciones in Artes de Mexico 55 (2001).
Ashelford, Jane. The Art o f Dress. Clothes and Society 1500-1914. London: The National
Trust, 1996.
Avilez Moreno, Guadalupe. “Mudejar en Nueva Espana en el siglo XVI” in II Simposio

Internacional de Mudejarismo. Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1982.
Ayala, Martin de. Slnodo de la Didcesis de Guadix y Baza (1556). Introduction by

Carlos Asenjo Sedano. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1994.
Baeza, Gonzalo de. Cuentas de Gonzalo de Baeza, tesorero de Isabel la Catolica. Edited
by Antonio de la Torre and E. A. de la Torre. Madrid: Consejo Superior de
Investigaciones Cientificas, Patronato Marcelino Menendez Pelayo, 1955.
Barber, Edwin Atlee. Pottery and porcelain o f the United States: An historical review o f
American Ceramic Art from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. New York: G. P.
Putnam's Sons, 1893.
. Anglo-American pottery; Old English China with American Views; A Manual for
Collectors. Indianapolis: Press of the Clay-worker, 1899.
. Tulip ware o f the Pennsylvania-German potters: An Historical Sketch o f the Art o f

Slip-decoration in the United States. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum and School
of Industrial Art, 1903.
. Marks o f American Potters. Philadelphia: Patterson & White, 1904.
. Lead Glazed Pottery. Part First (Common Clays): Plain Glazed, Sgraffito and Slip-
decorated Wares. Philadelphia: Printed for the Museum, 1907.
. Ceramic Forgeries. Philadelphia: Journal of the Proceedings of the Numismatic and

Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia, 1907.
281
. The Maiolica o f Mexico. Philadelphia: Printed for the Museum, 1908.
. Mexican Maiolica belonging to Mrs. Robert de Forest. New York: The Hispanic
Society of America, 1911.
. Mexican Maiolica in the Collection o f the Hispanic Society o f America. New York:
Hispanic Society of America, 1915.
. Hispano-Moresque Pottery in the Collection o f the Hispanic Society ofAmerica.

New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1915.
. Exhibition o f "fakes" and reproductions. Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Museum and

School of Industrial Art, 1916.
. The Emily Johnston de Forest Collection o f Mexican Maiolica. New York: The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1918.
Barrio Lorenzot, Francisco del. Ordenanzas de gremios de la Nueva Espaha. Mexico:

Secretaria de Gobemacion, 1920.
Barrios Aguilera, Manuel. “Moriscos y eristianos en el orto de la Granada Modema” in

Jesucristo y el emperador cristiano. Cordoba: Caja Sur, 2000, pp. 601-617.
Basilio, Miriam. "Genealogies for a New State: Painting and Propaganda in Franco's
Spain, 1936-1940," in Discourse: Journal fo r Theoretical Studies in Media and
Culture (Forthcoming 2004).
. "A Pilgrimage to the Alcazar of Toledo: Ritual, Tourism and Propaganda in Franco's
Spain, 1936-1940," in Architecture & Tourism: Spectacle, Performance, and Space.
Edited by D.Medina Lasansky and Brian McLaren. Oxford: Berg, 2004, pp. 93-109.
Bastl, Beatrix. “Clothing the Living and the Dead: Memory, Social Identity and
Aristocratic Habit in the Early Modem Hapsburg Empire” in Fashion Theory 5:4
(2001), pp. 357-388.
Baxandall, Michael. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy. Oxford:

Clarendon Press, 1972.
Ben Manssur, Abd el Hadi. “Magreb-Peninsula Iberica en los siglos XVI-XVII: Eslabon
y confiuencias transatlanticas” in Al-Andalus allende el Atlantico. Edited by
Mercedes Garcia-Arenal. Granada: El Legado Andalusi/UNESCO, 1997, pp. 100-
121 .
Benitez, Jose. El traje y el adorno en Mexico 1500-1910. Guadalajara: s/n, 1946.
282
Benitez, Fernando. El Galeon del Paclfico: Acapulco-Manila, 1565-1815. Guerrero:

Gobiemo Constitucional del Estado de Guerrero, 1992.
Benitez Sanchez-Bianco, Rafael. “El destino de los Moriscos vencidos” in Historia del
Reino de Granada, Vol. 2. Edited by Manuel Barrios Aguilera. Granada:
Universidad de Granada and El Legado Andalusi, 2000, pp. 583-607.
Berchez, Joaquin. Arquitectura mexicana de los siglos XVII-XVI1I. Mexico: Azabache,

1992.
Berlin, Heinrich. Fragmentos desconocidos del Codice de Yanhuitlan y otras

investigaciones mixtecas. Mexico: Antigua Libreria Robredo, 1947.
Bemis Madrazo, Carmen. Indumentaria Medieval Espanola, Madrid: Instituto Diego

Velazquez, 1959.
. “Modas moriscas de la sociedad cristiana espanola del siglo XV y principios del

XVI” in Boletln de la Real Academia de la Historia, 144 (1959), pp. 199-228.
. Indumentaria espanola en tiempo de Carlos V. Madrid: Instituto Diego Velazquez,

1962.
. Trajes y modas en la Espaha de los Reyes Catolicos. Las mujeres. Madrid: Instituto
Diego Velazquez, 1978.
. Trajes y modas en la Espaha de los Reyes Catolicos. Los Hombres. Madrid:

InstitutoDiego Velazquez, 1979.
. “La moda en la Espana de Felipe II” in Alonso Sanchez Coelloy el retrato en la

corte de Felipe II. Madrid: Museo del Prado, 1990, pp. 65-112.
Berry, Christopher J. The Idea o f Luxury. A Conceptual and Historical Investigation.

Berthe, Jean-Pierre. Estudios de Historia de la Nueva Espaha: De Sevilla a Manila.

Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara and Centre d'Etudes Mexicanes e
Centramericaines, 1994.
Betancourt, Agustin de. Teatro Mexicano. Description de los sucesos ejemplares,

historicos y religiosos del Nuevo Mundo de las Indias. Cronica de la Provincia del
Santo Evangelio de Mexico. Menologio Franciscano. Primera edition facsimilar.
Mexico: Editorial Porrua, 1971.
Beutler, Gisela. La historia de Fernando y Alamar: contribution al estudio de las danzas
283
de moros y cristianos en Puebla (Mexico). Stuttgart: F. Steiner Verlag Wiesbaden,
1984.
Bonnasie, Pierre, Marie-Claude Gerbet, and Pierre Guichard. Las Espanas medievales.
Barcelona: Editorial Critica, 2001.
Boronat y Barrachina, Pascual. Los moriscos espanoles y su expulsion, Vol. 1. Valencia:

Imprenta de Francisco Vives i Mora, 1901.
Borras Gualis, Gonzalo. “Granada, Canarias y America. Las pervivencias artisticas

Mudejares en la Edad Modema” in Act as del IX Simposio Internacional de
Mudejarismo: Mudejares y moriscos. Cambios sociales y culturales. Teruel: Centro
de Estudios Mudejares, 2004, pp. 231-241.
. “Introduccion historica y artistica” in El Arte Mudejar. La estetica islamica en el

arte cristiano. Edited by Eva Schubert. Madrid: Electa and Museo Sin Fronteras,
2000, pp. 35-61.
. El arte mudejar. Teruel: Insituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1990.
Boyd-Bowman, Peter. “Negro Slaves in Early Colonial Mexico” in The Americas 26

(1969), pp. 134-151.
Braudel, Fernand. Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1600. Translated by Miriam R

Rochan. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
Burgoa, Francisco de. Geografica description de la parte Septentrional del Polo Artico
de la America y Nueva Iglesia de las Indias Occidentales, Vol. I. Mexico, 1934.
Cabanelas Rodriguez, Dario. Juan de Segovia y elproblema islamico. Madrid:

Universidad de Madrid, 1952.
Cadenas y Vicent, Vicente de. Hacienda de Carlos V al fallecer en Yuste. Madrid:

CSIC/Hidalguia, 1985.
Calefato, Patricia. “Fashion and Worldliness: Language and the Imagery of the Clothed
Body” in Fashion Theory 1 (1997), p. 69-90.
Calvete de Estrella, Juan Cristobal. El feliclssimo viaje del muy alto y muy poderoso
Principe don Phelippe (1552). Edited by Paloma Cuenca. Madrid: Sociedad Estatal
para la Conmemoracion de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 2001.
Carande, Ramon. Carlos Vy sus banqueros. Barcelona: Critica, 1990.
284
Cardaillac, Louis. “Morisques et turcs au XVI siecle” in Actes du I Congres
International d ’Histoire Maghrebine. Zaghuan: Fondation Temimi, 1974.
. Moriscos y cristianos. Un enfrentamiento polemico (1492-1640). Traslated by

Mercedes Garcia-Arenal. Preface by Fernand Braudel. Madrid: Fondo de Cultura
Economica, 1979.
. “Le probleme morisque en Amerique” in Melanges de la Casa deVeldsquez, Tome

XII (1976), pp. 283-306.
Cabrera de Cordoba, Luis. Filipe Segundo, rey de Espaha (1619), Vol III. Madrid: s/n,
1876.
Carrasco Urgoiti, Maria Soledad. El moro de Granada en la literatura (del siglo X V al

XX). Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1956.
Carrera, Magali M. Imagining Identity in New Spain. Race, Lineage, and the Colonial
Body in Portraiture and Casta Painting. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Carrera Stampa, Manuel. Los gremios mexicanos. La organizacion gremial en la Nueva

Espana, Mexico: EDI APS A, 1954.
Carrillo y Gariel, Abelardo. El traje en la Nueva Espaha. Mexico: IN AH, 1959.
Casamar, Manuel. Azulejos sevillanos, toledanos y aragoneses (cuerda secay arista).

Museo de Pontevedra (XXXVI), 1983.
Casas, Gonzalo de las. Arte nuevopara criar seda (1581). Edited by Antonio Garrido
Aranda. Granada: Universidad de Granada, 1996.
Casati de Casatis, Claude Charles Marie. Note sur les faiences de Talavera la Reyna et
coup-d'ceil sur les musees de Madrid. Paris, 1873.
Castro, Efrain. “Arquitectura de los siglos XVII y XVIII en la region de Puebla, Tlaxcala
y Veracruz, in Historia del Arte Mexicano, Tomo V. Mexico: SEP-INBA, 1982.
Castro Morales, Efrain. “Loza centenaria. Puebla y la Talavera a traves de los siglos” in
Artes de Mexico 3 (1995), pp. 20-29.
Certeau, Michel de. The Practice o f Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1988.
Cervantes, Enrique. Loza blancay azulejo de Puebla. Puebla: 1939.
Cervantes, Fernando. The Devil in the New World. The Impact o f diabolism in the New
285
World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
. Nomina de locerospoblanos durante elperiodo virreinal. Mexico: 1933.
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. El coloquio de los perros. Madrid: Libros del Autor,
1993.
. Don Quixote. Translated by John Ormsby. Edited by Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth
Douglas. New York: Norton, 1981.
Chance, John K. The Conquest o f the Sierra: Spaniards and Indians in Colonial Oaxaca.
Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.
Chinchilla Aguilar, Ernesto. La Inquisicion en Guatemala. Guatemala: Ministerio de

Education Publica, 1953.
Chocano Mena, Magdalena. La America colonial (1492-1763). Cultura y vida cotidiana.

Madrid: Editorial Sintesis, 2000.
Chueca Goitia, Fernando. Invariantes castizos de la arquitectura espanola. Madrid:

Dossat, 1979.
Cline, S. L. Colonial Culhuacan, 1580-1600. A Social History o f an Aztec Town.

Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1986.
Cloth and Human Experience. Edited by Jane Schneider and Annette B. Weiner.
Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.
Codice de Yanhuitlan. Edited by Wigberto Jimenez Moreno and Salvador Mateos

Higuera. Mexico: Museo Arqueologico Nacional, 1940.
. Edited by Maria Teresa Sepulveda y Herrera. Mexico: INAH, 1994.
Comez Ramos, Rafael. Arquitectura y feudalismo en Mexico. Los comienzos del arte
novohispano en el siglo XVI. Mexico: UNAM, 1989.
Conn, Steven. Museums and American Intellectual Life, 1876-1926. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1998.
Constable, Olivia Remie. Trade and Traders in Muslim Spain. The Commercial
Realignment o f the Iberian Peninsula, 900-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1994.
Conte Cazcarro, Anchel. “La decadencia de la aristocracia morisca: El caso de los Qafm
de Huesca,” in Sharq al-Andalus 14-15 (1997-98), pp. 177-199.
286
Contreras, Juan Marques de Lozoya. “Lo morisco en America” in Archives del Instituto
de Estudios Africanos 16:53 (1960), pp. 23-27.
Cope, Douglas. The Limits o f Racial Domination: Plebeian Society in Colonial Mexico,
1660-1720. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994.
Cortes Lopez, Jose Luis. La esclavitud negra en la Espaha peninsular del siglo XVI.
Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca, 1989.
Cortes Pena, Antonio Luis and Bernard Vincent. Historia de Granada, III: La epoca
moderna, siglos XVI, XVII, XVIII. Granada, Editorial Don Quijote, 1986.
Covarrubias y Orozco, Sebastian de. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o espanola (Madrid,

1611). Edited by Felipe C.R. Maldonado. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1995.
Cronica de Puebla de los Angeles segun el testimonio de algunos viajeros que la

visitaron entre los ahos 1540 y 1960. Edited by Ignacio Ibarra Mazari. Puebla:
Gobiemo del Estado de Puebla, 1992.
Curiel, Gustavo. “Customs, Conventions, and Daily Rituals among the Elites of New
Spain: The Evidence from Material Culture” in The Grandeur o f Viceregal Mexico:
Treasures from the Museo Franz Mayer. Mexico and Houston: Museo Franz Mayer
and The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2002.
Curtin, Philip. The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census. Madison: University of Wisconsin,
1969.
Cultural Encounters: The Impact o f the Inquisition in Spain and the New World. Edited
by Mary Elizabeth Perry and Anne Cruz. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1991.
Cwemer, Saulo B. “Clothes at Rest: Elements for a Sociology of the Wardrobe” in

Fashion Theory 5:1 (2001), pp. 79-92.
Deny, J. “Les pseudo-propheties concemant les turcs au XVI siecle” in Revue des Etudes
Islamiques, X (1936), pp. 201-220.
Diaz del Castillo, Bernal. Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva Espaha (1568).
Introduccion y notas de Luis Sainz de Medrano. Barcelona: Editorial Planeta, 1992.
Diaz Cayeros, Patricia. Ornamentacion, ritual y la configuracion de los entrelazos del

coro de la Catedral de Puebla. Unpublished dissertation, Instituto de Investigaciones
Esteticas, UN AM, 2004.
287
Diez Barroso, Francisco. El arte en la Nueva Espana. Mexico: F. Diez Barroso, 1921.
Diez Jorge, Maria Elena. El arte mudejar: Expresion estetica de una convivencia.
Granada: Universidad de Granada, 2001.
Dodds, Jerrilynn. “Mudejar Tradition and the Sinagogues of Medieval Spain: Cultural
Identity and Cultural Hegemony” in Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in
Medieval Spain. Edited by Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn Dodds.
New York: George Braziller and The Jewish Museum, 1992, pp. 113-132.
Douglas, Mary and Baron Isherwood. The World o f Goods. Towards and Anthropology
o f Consumption. New York: Routledge, 1979.
Documentos Cortesianos, Vol. IV. 1533-1548. Edited by Jose Luis Martinez. Mexico:
Fondo de Cultura Economica-UNAM, 1992.
Documentos ineditos del siglo XVIpara la historia de Mexico. Edited by Mariano

Cuevas. Mexico: Museo Nacional de Arqueologia, Historia y Etnologla, 1914.
Dominguez Ortiz, Antonio and Bernard Vincent. Historia de los moriscos. Vida y
tragedia de una minor la. Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1979.
Dress, Adornment and the Social Order. Edited by Mary Ellen Roach and Joanne Eicher.
Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1973.
Dressendorfer, Peter. “Cripto-musulmanes en la Nueva Espana” in Actas del Coloquio

Internacional sobre Literatura Aljamiada y Morisca, ed. Alvaro Galmes de Fuentes.
Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1972, pp. 475-494.
Durand, Jose. “El lujo indiano” in Historia Mexicana 21, Vol. VI, 1956, pp. 59-74.
Economic History and the Arts. Edited by Michael North. Kohln: Bohlau, 1996.
Edgerton, Samuel. Theaters o f Conversion. Religious Architecture and Indian ArtisansI

in Colonial Mexico. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001.
El Arte Mudejar. Edited by Gonzalo Borras Gualis. Zaragoza: UNESCO, 1996.
Encinas, Diego de. Cedulario Indiano. Provisiones, cedulas, capitulos, de ordenangas,

instruciones y cartas, libradas y despachadas en diferentes tiempos por sus Magestades
de los sehores Reyes Catolicos, don Fernando, y dona Ysabel, y Emperador Don Carlos
de gloriosa memoria, y dona Iuana su madre, y Catolico Rey don Felipe, con acuerdo de
los sehores Presidentes y de su Consejo Real de las Indias, que en sus tiempos ha auido
tocantes al buen gobierno de las Indias, y administracion de la justicia en ellas. Sacado
todo ello de los libros del dicho Consejo por su mandado, para que se sepa, entienda, y
288
setenga noticia de lo que cerca dello estd proveido despues que se descubrieron las
Indias hasta agora. (1596). Estudio e indices por el Doctor Don Alfonso Garcia Gallo.
Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispanica, 1946.
Escriva de Romani, Manuel, Conde de Casal. Ceramica de la ciudad de Toledo. Madrid:

Tipografias Blass, 1935.
Espana y Portugal en la ruta de la seda. Diez siglos de produccion entre oriente y

occidente. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, 1996.
Estrada de Gerlero, Elena I. “Una obra de plumaria de los talleres de San Jose de los
Naturales” in Arte y coercion: Primer Coloquio del Comite Mexicano de Historia del
Arte. Mexico: UN AM, 1992, pp. 97-108.
Ettinghausen, Richard, Oleg Grabar and Marilyn Jenkins-Madina. Islamic Art and
Architecture 650-1250. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.
. “The Taming of the Horror Vacui" in Proceedings o f the American Philosophical

Society, Vol. 123 (1979), pp. 15-28.
Fanjul, Serafm. La quimera de al-Andalus. Madrid: Siglo XXI Editores, 2004.
Feliciano, Maria Judith. “Y?a Gidelli y la Nueva Espana: Un manuscrito del Breviario
Sunni en el Archivo General de la Nacion (Mexico, D.F.)” in Aljamla 13 (2001), pp.
48-51.
. “Muslim Shrouds for Christian Kings? A Reassessment of Andalusi Textiles in

Thirteenth Century Castilian Life and Ritual” in Under the Influence: Rethinking the
Comparative in Medieval Iberia. Edited by Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, Forthcoming 2004, pp. 101-131.
Folch i Torres, Joaquin. Noticias sobre la ceramica de Paterna. Barcelona: Junta de

Museus de Barcelona, 1921.
Foster, George. Culture and Conquest. America’s Spanish Heritage. Chicago:

Quadrangle Books, 1960.
Frazer, Valerie. The Architecture o f Conquest: Building the Viceroyalty o f Peru, 1535-
1635. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Frelinghuysen, Alice Cooley. “Emily Johnston de Forest (Benefactor of New York’s

Metropolitan Museum)” in Magazine Antiques, January (2000) pp. 192-197.
Frothingham, Alice Wilson. Lusterware o f Spain. New York: The Hispanic Society,
1957.
289
Gage, Thomas. The English-A merican, a New Survey o f the West Indies, 1648. Edited,
with an introduction, by A. P. Newton. Guatemala City: El Patio, 1948.
Gallego y Burin, Antonio and Alfonso Gamir Sandoval. Los moriscos del Reino de
Granada segun el Slnodo de Guadix de 1554. Granada: Universidad de Granada,
1968.
. La Capilla Real de Granada. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones

Cientificas, 1952.
Gamez Martinez, Ana Paulina.“The Forgotten Potters of Mexico City” in Ceramica y

Cultura. The story o f Spanish and Mexican Mayolica. Edited by Robin Farwell
Gavin, Donna Pierce, and Alfonso Pleguezuelo. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press, 2003.
Garcia-Arenal, Mercedes. “El problema morisco: Propuestas de discusion” in al-Qantara

13:2 (1992), pp. 491-503.
. “Moriscos e indios. Para un estudio comparado de metodos deconquista y

evangelization” in Chronica Nova 20 (1992), pp. 153-176.
. Los Moriscos. Madrid: Editora National, 1975.
Garcia Fuentes, L. “Licencias para la introduction de esclavos en Indias y envios desde

Sevilla en el siglo XVI” in Jahrbuch fiir Geschichte von StaatWirtschat und
Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, Number 19 (1982), pp. 1-46.
Garcia Granado, Rafael and Luis MacGregor. Huejotzingo: La ciudady el convento

franciscano. Mexico: Talleres Graficos de la Nation, 1934.
Garcia Martinez, S. “Bandolerismo, pirateria y control de moriscos en Valencia durante

el reinado de Felipe II in Estudis, I (1972), pp. 85-167.
Garcia Pedraza, Amalia, "El otro morisco: algunas reflexiones sobre el estudio de su
religiosidad a traves de fuentes notariales" in Sharq al-Andalus 12 (1995), pp. 223-
234.
Garcia Saiz, Maria Concepcion. “La interpretation de los modelos europeos en las artes
de tradition indigena” in Felipe I Iy el arte de su tiempo. Madrid: Fundacion
Argentaria, 1998, pp. 293-303.
Garrad, K. “La industria sedera granadina en el siglo XVI y su conexion con el

levantamiento de las Alpuj arras” in Misceldnea de Estudios Arabes y Hebraicos 5
(1956), pp. 73-104.
290
Garrido Aranda, Antonio. “Granada ^Modelo de Indias? Moriscos e Indios” in
Mudejar iberoamericano. Una expresion cultural de dos mundos. Edited by Ignacio
Henares Cuellar and Rafael Lopez Guzman. Granada: Universidad de Granada,
1993, pp. 145-156.
Garza Carvajal, Federico. Butterflies will Burn. Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern
Spain and Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003.
Garzon Pareja, Manuel. La industria sedera en Espana. El arte de la seda en Granada.

Gasparini, Graciano. Templos coloniales de Venezuela. Caracas: Armitano, 1976.
. La arquitectura colonial en Venezuela. Caracas: Armitano, 1961.
Gayangos, Pascual de. “Leyes de Moros” in Memorial Histdrico Espahol, V. Madrid:

Academia de la Historia, 1853, pp. 11-246.
Geertz, Clifford. Local Knowledge. Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology. New

York: Basic Books, 1983.
George, Charles H. and Katherine George. The Protestant Mind o f the English
Reformation, 1570-1640. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961.
Gestoso y Perez, Jose. Historia de los barros vidriados sevillanos. Desde sus orlgenes
hasta nuestros dias. Sevilla: La Andalucla Moderna, 1903.
Gibson, Charles. Tlaxcala in the Seventeenth Century. Stanford: Stanford University

Press, 1967.
Goggin, John M. Spanish Maiolica in the New World. Types o f the 16th to 18th Centuries.
New Haven: Yale University, 1968.
Goldthwaite, Richard. Wealth and the Demand fo r Art in Italy, 1300-1600. Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.
Gonzalbo Aizpuru, Pilar. “De la penuria y el lujo en la Nueva Espana: Siglos XVI-XVII”
in Revista de Indias 56(206), pp. 49-74.
Gonzalez Alcantud, Jose Antonio and Marlene Albert-Llorca. Moros y cristianos:

representaciones del otro en las fiestas del Mediterrdneo occidental. Toulouse-
Granada: Presses Universitaires du Mirail and Diputacion de Granada, 2003.
Gonzalez Anton, Luis. Espaha y las Espahas. Barcelona: Alianza Editorial, 1997.
291
Gonzalez Arce, Jose Damian. Apariencia y poder: La legislation suntuaria
castellana en los siglos XIII-XV. Jaen: Universidad de Jaen, 1998.
Gonzalez Calleja, Eduardo and Fredes Limon Nevado. La hispanidad como instrumento
de combate. Raza e imperio en la prensa franquista durante la guerra civil espanola.
Madrid: CSIC, 1988.
Gonzalez de Eslava, Feman. Coloquios espirituales y sacramentales, Vol. I.. Edited by

Jose Rojas Garciduenas. Mexico: Porraa, 1958.
Gordon, Stewart. “A World of Investiture” in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World o f
Investiture. Edited by Stewart Gordon. New York: Palgrave, 2001, pp. 1-22.
Grabar, Oleg. “Two Paradoxes in the Art of the Spanish Peninsula,” in The Legacy o f
Muslim Spain, Vol. II. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995, pp.
583-591.
. The Mediation o f Ornament. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
. The Formation o f Islamic Art. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973.
Greenleaf, Richard. The Mexican Inquisition o f the Sixteenth Century. Albuquerque: The
University of New Mexico Press, 1969.
Grunberg, Bernard. L ’Inquisition apostolique au Mexique : histoire d'une institution et de

son impact dans une societe coloniale (1521-1571). Paris: L'Harmattan, 1998.
Gruzinski, Serge. The Conquest o f Mexico. The Incorporation o f Indian Societies into the
Western World, 16th-18th Centuries. Translated by Eileen Corrigan. Cambridge: Polity
Press, 1996.
and Carmen Bemand. De la idolatrla: una arqueologla de las ciencias religiosas.

Translated by Diana Sanchez. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1992.
. “The Net Tom Apart: Ethnic Identities and Westernization in Colonial Mexico,
Sixteenth-Nineteenth Century” in Ethnicities and Nations: Processes o f Interethnic
Relations in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific. Edited by Remo
Guidieri, Francesco Pellizi and Stanley J. Tambiach. Austin: University of Texas
Press, 1988.
Guaman Poma de Ayala, Felipe. El primer nueva coronicay buen gobierno (c. 1615).
Edited by Rolena Adomo and John V. Murra. Madrid: Historia 16, 1987.
Guaman Poma de Ayala. The Colonial Art o f an Andean Autor. Edited by Mercedes
Lopez-Baralt. New York: The Americas Society, 1992.
292
Guerrero Mayllo, Ana. Familia y vida cotidiana de una elite de poder. Los regidores
madrilehos en tiempos de Felipe II. Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1993.
Guevara Bazan, Rafael. “Muslim Immigration to Spanish America” in The Muslim World
Vol. LVI, No. 3 (1966), pp. 173-187.
Gutierrez, Ramon. “Transferencia y presencia de la cultura islamica en America Latina a

traves de la Peninsula Iberica” in El Arte Mudejar. Edited by Gonzalo Borras Gualis.
Zaragoza: UNESCO, 1995.
Gutierrez Vinuales, Rodrigo. “El hispanismo como factor de mestizaje en el arte

americano (1900-1930)” in Iberoamerica mestizo: Encuentro de pueblos y culturas.
Madrid: Fundacion Santillana/SEACE, 2003, pp. 167-186.
Haliczer, Stephen. “The Moriscos: Loyal Subjects of His Catholic Majesty Phillip III” in
Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain. Edited by Mark
D. Meyerson and Edward D. English. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press,
2000, pp. 265-273.
Harris, Max. Aztecs, Moors, and Christians: Festivals o f Reconquest in Mexico and
Spain. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000.
Harvey, Leonard P. Islamic Spain. 1250-1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,

1990.
. “Una referenda explicita a la legalidad de la practica de la taqiya por los moriscos”

in Sharq al-Andalus 12, pp. 561-563.
. “Un manuscrito aljamiado de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Cambridge” in Al-

Andalus XXIII (1958), pp. 49-74.
. “Yuse Banegas, un moro noble en Granada bajo los Reyes Catolicos” in Al-Andalus
23 (1956), 297-302.
. “Crypto-Islam in XVI Century Spain” in Actas: Primer Congreso de Estudios

Arabes e Isldmicos. Madrid: Maestre, 1964, pp.163-183.
. “The Political, Social and Cultural History of the Moriscos” in The Legacy ofMuslim
Spain. Edited by Salma Khadra Jayyusi. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1992, pp. 201-234.
Henares Cuellar, Ignacio. “Mudejar: Sintesis de culturas” in Smtesis de culturas mudejar.

Itinerario cultural del mudejar en Mexico. Edited by Rafael Lopez Guzman.
Granada: El Legado Andalusi, 2002, p. 15-20.
Hess, A. “The Moriscos: An Ottoman Fifth Column in Sixteenth-Century Spain?” in

American historical review 74 (1968), pp. 1-25.
293
Himmerich y Valencia, Robert. The Encomenderos o f New Spain, 1521-1555. Austin:

University of Texas Press, 1991.
Hirschberg, Julia. “Transients in Early Colonial Society: Puebla de los Angeles, 1531-
1560” in Biblioteca Americana 1 (1983), pp. 3-30.
Hoffman, Carlos. “Verdades y errores acerca de la talavera poblana” in Boletin de la

SociedadAntonio Alzate. Mexico: 1922, pp. 626-28.
Hollander, Anne. Sex and Suits. The Evolution o f Modern Dress. New York: Kodan-Sha
America, 1995.
Holod, Renata. “Luxury Arts of the Caliphal Period” in “Al-Andalus: The Art of Islamic
Spain. Edited by Jerrilynn Dodds. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1992, pp. 41-47.
Honig, Elizabeth A. Painting and the Market in Early Modern Antwerp. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1998.
Hordes, Stanley M. “The Inquisition and the Crypto-Jewish Community in Colonial New
Spain and New Mexico” in Cultural Encounters: The Impact o f the Inquisition in
Spain and the New World. Edited by Mary Elizabeth Perry and Anne J. Cruz.
Berkeley: The University of California Press, 1991.
Ibanez, Yolanda Mariel de. El Tribunal de la Inquisicion en Mexico (siglo XVI). Mexico:
Editorial Porrua, 1984.
Ibn Zubayr, Ahmad Ibd al-Rashid. Book o f Gifts and Rarities (Kitab al-hadaya wa al-
tuhaf) with forewords by Oleg Grabar and Annemarie Schimmel. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1996.
James, Thomas B. “Southampton and Spain in the Sixteenth Century to the 1588
Armada: A Sample of Sources for Ceramic Studies” in Spanish Medieval Ceramics in
Spain and the British Isles. Edited by Christopher M. Gerard, Alejandra Gutierrez and
Alan G. Vine. Oxford: BAR, pp. 41-50.
Jardine, Lisa Worldly Goods. A New History o f the Renaissance. New York: Norton,
1996.
and Jerry Broton. Global Interests. Renaissance Art between East and West. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 2000.
Jimenez Rueda, Julio. Herejias y supersticiones en la Nueva Espaha. Los heterodoxos en

Mexico. Mexico: UN AM, 1946.
294
Johnson, Julie Greer. Satire in Colonial Spanish America. Turning the New World
Upside Down. Austin: University of Texas, 1993.
Jones, Ann Rosalind and Peter Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials o f
Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Kagan, Richard L. Urban Images o f the Hispanic World, 1493-1793. New Haven: Yale
Kamen, Henry. “Confiscations in the Economy of the Spanish Inquisition” in The

Economic History Review, New Series, 18:3 (1965), pp. 511-525.
. Spain 1469-1714: A Society o f Conflict. Essex: Longman Group Limited, 1983.
. Philip o f Spain. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.
. The Spanish Inquisition. A Historical Revision. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1998.
Katzew, Ilona. Casta Painting. Images o f Race in Eighteenth-Century Mexico. New

Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.
Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta. “Islam, Art, and the Architecture of the Americas: Some
Considerations of Colonial Latin America” in Res 43 (2003), pp. 42-50.
Kellogg, Susan and Mathew Restall. Dead Giveaways: Indigenous Testaments o f

Colonial Mesoamerica and the Andes. University of Utah Press, 1998.
Kopitoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things” in The Social Life o f Things.
Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Edited by Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1986, 64-94.
Kuwayama, George. Chinese Ceramics in Colonial Mexico. Los Angeles: Los Angeles
County Museum of Art, 1997.
Ladero Quesada, Miguel Angel. Los Moriscos en el pensamiento historico:

Historiografia de un grupo marginado. Madrid: Catedra, 1983.
Langdale, Allan. “Aspects of the Critical Reception and Intellectual History of

Baxandall’s Concept of the Period Eye” in About Michael Baxandall. Edited by
Adrian Rifkin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, pp. 17-35.
Lasarte, Pedro. “Mateo Rosas de Oquendo: La satira y el carnaval” in Hispanic Review,

53:4 (1985), pp. 415-436.
295
Leon, Luis de. La Perfecta Casada (1583). Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1903.
Leonard, Irving. Books o f the Brave. Being an Account o f Books and o f Men in the
Spanish Conquest and Settlement o f the Sixteenth-Century New World. Cambridge:
Liebman, Seymour B. The Jews in New Spain. Faith, Flame, and the Inquisition. Coral
Gables: University of Miami Press, 1970.
Lister, Florence and Robert. “The First Mexican Maiolicas: Imported and Locally
Produced” in Historial Archaeology 12 (1978), pp. 1-24.
. Sixteenth-Century Maiolica Pottery in the Valley o f Mexico. Tucson: The

University of Arizona Press, 1982.
. Andalusian Ceramics in Spain and New Spain. A Cultural Register from the Third
Century B. C. to 1700. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1987.
. Mailoica Ole: Spanish and Mexican Decorative Traditions Featuring the Collection
o f the International Museum o f Folk Art. Edited by Robin Farwell Gavin. Santa Fe:
Museum of New Mexico Press, 2001.
Liu, Xinru. “Silk Robes and Relations between Early Chinese Dynasties and Nomads
beyond the Great Wall” in Robes and Honor: The Medieval World o f Investiture.
Edited by Stewart Gordon. New York: Pal grave, 2001, pp. 23-34.
Luis M. Llubia, Ceramica Medieval Espanola. Barcelona: Editorial Labor S.A., 1967.
Lockhardt, James. The Nahuas after the Conquest. Los Angeles and Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1992.
, Anderson, Arthur J.O., and Berdan, Frances. Beyond the Codices: The Nahua View
o f Colonial Mexico. Berkeley: University of California Press 1976.
Lombard, Maurice. Etudes d ’economie medievale III: Les textiles dans le monde
musulman de Vile au X lle siecle. Paris: Mouton, 1978.
Longas Bartibas, Pedro. Vida religiosa de los moriscos, Madrid: E. Maestre, 1915.
Lopez-Baralt, Luce. Huellas del Islam en la literatura espanola: de Juan Ruiz a Juan
Goytisolo. Madrid: Hiperion, 1989.
296
Lopez de Coca Castaner, J. Enrique. “La seda en el Reino de Granada (siglos XV-
XVI)” in Espana y Portugal en la ruta de la seda. Diez siglos de produccion entre
oriente y occidente. Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, pp. 33-57.
Lopez Guzman, Rafael. Arquitectura mudejar. Del sincretismo medieval a las

alternativas hispanoamericanas. Madrid: Catedra, 2000.
and Ignacio Henares Cuellar. “De Granada a Mexico. La realidad historica” in Arte
Mudejar: Exploraciones. Artes de Mexico 54 (2001), pp. 8-17.
. “Lo mudejar en la arquitectura mexicana” in Mudejar iberoamericano: Del Islam al

Nuevo Mundo. Edited by Ignacio Henares Cuellar and Rafael Lopez Guzman.
Barcelona: Lunwerg and El Legado Andalusi, 1995, pp. 189-212.
Lopez Morillas, Consuelo. “Language and Identity in Late Spanish Islam” in Hispanic
Review 63:2 (1995), pp. 193-210.
Mack, Rosamond. From Bazaar to Piazza. Islamic Trade and Italian Art, 1300-1600.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Mackay, Angus. “Los romances fronterizos como fuente historica” in Relaciones

exteriores del Reino de Granada. TV Coloquio de historia medieval andaluza. Edited
by C. Segura. Almeria: Instituto de Estudios Almerienses, 1988, pp. 273-288.
Maiolica Ole: Spanish and Mexican Decorative Traditions. Edited by Robin Farwell
Gavin. Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2001.
Mancebo de Arevalo, Tratado [Tafsiraj. Edited by Maria Teresa Narvaez Cordoba.

Madrid: Editorial Trota, 2003.
. Relacion y ejercicio espiritual sacado y declarado por el Mancebo de Arevalo en

nuestra lengua castellana. Edited by Gregorio Fonseca. Madrid: Fundacion
Menendez Pidal, 2003.
Marias, Fernando. El largo siglo XVI. Los usos artisticos del renacimiento espahol.
Madrid: Taurus, 1989.
Marias, Julian. Espaha inteligible: La Razon Historica de las Espahas. Barcelona:

Alianza Editorial, 1998.
Mariscal, Federico E. Lapatria y la arquitectura nacional. Mexico: Imprenta Stephen y

Torres, 1915.
Markman, Sydney. Hispano-American Colonial Architecture: Social, Historical, Stylistic

Determinants with Special Reference to Mexico and Guatemala. Louisville:
University of Louisville, 1984.
297
Marmol Carvajal, Luis del, Rebeliony castigo de los moriscos del Reino de Granada
(1600). Malaga: Editorial Arguval, 1991.
__ . Historia del rebelion y castigo de los Moriscos del Reyno de Granada. Segunda
impresion. Madrid: Imprenta de Sancha, 1797.
Marotti, Arthur. Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts. New
York: McMillan, 1999.
Marquez Villanueva, Francisco. Elproblema morisco (desde otras laderas). Madrid:

Prodhufi,1998.
Martin Garcia, Juan Manuel. Inigo Lopez de Mendoza, el Conde de Tendilla. Granada:
Editorial Comares, 2003.
Martinez, Maria Elena. “The Spanish Concept of limpieza de sangre and the Emergence
of the ‘Race/Caste System’ in the Viceroyalty of New Spain.” Ph. D. Dissertation,
University of Chicago, 2001.
Martinez-Alier, Verena. Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba. A

Study o f Racial Attitudes and Sexual Value in a Slave Society. Ann Arbor: University
of Michigan Press, 1989.
Martinez Caviro, Balbina. Ceramica hispanomusulmana andalusiy mudejar. Madrid:

Ediciones El Viso, 1991.
. Ceramica de Talavera. Madrid: CSIC, 1969.
Martinez Ruiz, Juan. Inventarios de bienes Moriscos del Reino de Granada (siglo XVI).
Lingiusticay civilizacion. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas,
1972.
. “La indumentaria de los moriscos segun Perez de Hita y los documentos de La

Alhambra,” in Cuadernos de la Alhambra, 3 (1967), pp. 55-124.
Mata Carriazo, Juan de. “La vida en la frontera de Granada” in Actas del I Congreso de
Historia de Andalucla, Vol. II. Cordoba: Caja de Ahorros y Monte de Piedad de
Cordoba, 1976, pp. 277-302.
Mauldin, Barbara. “The Revival of Puebla Mayolica in the Twentieth Century” in

Ceramica y Cultura. The Story o f Spanish and Mexican Mayolica. Edited by Robin
Farwell Gavin, Donna Pierce, and Alfonso Pleguezuelo. Albuquerque: University of
New Mexico Press, 2003, pp. 270-295.
298
Mcalister, L. N. “Social Structure and Social Change in New Spain” in The Hispanic
American Historical Review, Vol. 43:3 (1963), pp. 349-370.
McQuade, Margaret Connors. “Talavera Poblana. The Renaissance of a Mexican

Tradition” in The Magazine Antiques 156: 6 (December 1999), pp. 824-31.
. Talavera Poblana. Four Centuries o f a Mexican Tradition. New York: The

Americas Society, 1999.
Medina, Jose Toribio. Historia del tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion en Mexico
(1887). Mexico: UNAM and Miguel Angel Porrua, 1987.
Meneses, Emilio. Correspondencia del Conde De Tendilla (1508-1513). Madrid: Real

Academia de la Historia, 1973.
Mignolo, Walter. The Darker Side o f the Renaissance. Literacy, Territoriality, and
Colonization. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
Morales Padron, Francisco. Historia de Sevilla. La ciudad del quinientos. Sevilla:

Universidad de Sevilla, 1977.
Momer, Magnus and Charles Gibson. “Diego Munoz Camargo and Segregation Policy of
the Spanish Crown” in Hispanic American Historical Review 42 (1962), pp. 558-568.
Mudejar iberoamericano: Una expresion cultural de dos mundos. Edited by Ignacio

Henares Cuellar and Rafael Lopez Guzman. Granada: Universidad de Granada,
1993.
Mundy, Barbara E. The Mapping o f New Spain: Indigenous Cartography and the Maps
o f the Relaciones Geograficas. Chicago: University of Chicago Pres, 1996.
Munoz Camargo, Diego. Historia de Tlaxcala. Mexico: Ateneo Nacional de Ciencias y

Artes de Mexico, 1947.
. Descripcion de la Ciudad y Provincia de Tlaxcala de las Indias y del Mar Oceano

para el buen gobierno y ennoblecimiento dellas (1585). Edited, with an introduction,
by Rene Acuna. Mexico: UN AM, 1981.
. Historia de Tlaxcala. Edited by German Vazquez. Madrid: Historia 16, 1986.
Monroe, James. “A Curious Morisco Appeal to the Ottoman Empire” In Al-Andalus

XXXI (1966), pp. 281-303.
Moffitt, John F. “Tepozotlan: êl islam latente en America? Observaciones en tomo a la

portada esculpida hispanica” in Anales del Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas,
vol. XV, num. 57 (1986), pp. 101-112.
299
Muller, Jon. “Style and Culture Contact” in Man across the Sea. Problems o f Pre-
Columbian Contacts. Edited by Carroll Riley, J. Charles Kelley, et al. Austin:
University o f Texas Press, 1971, pp. 66-78.
Munoz Camargo, Diego. Descripcion de la ciudady provincia de Tlaxcala de las Indias

y del Mar Oceano para el buen gobierno y ennoblecimiento dellas. Edited by Rene
Acuna. Mexico: UN AM, 1981.
. Relaciones Geograficas del siglo XVI: Tlaxcala. Vol 4, Part 1. Edited by Rene
Acuna. Mexico UN AM, 1984.
Museo de Ceramica. Palacio de Pedralbes Barcelona. Edited by Trinidad Sanchez-

Pacheco, M. Antonia Casanovas and Maria Dolors Giral. Brussels: Musea Nostra,
1993.
Museo Franz Mayer. Los Palacios de la Nueva Espaha. Sus tesoros interiores. Mexico:
Impresiones Gant, 1990.
Nader, Helen. The Mendoza Family in the Spanish Renaissance, 1350-1550. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979.
. “The World of the Mendozas” in Power and Gender in Renaissance Spain. Edited
by Helen Nader. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003.
Navarro Espinach, German. “La seda entre Genova, Valencia y Granada en epoca de los
Reyes Catolicos” in Actas del Congreso La Frontera Oriental Nazari como Sujeto
Historico (Siglos XIII-XVI). Almeria Instituto de Estudios Almerienses y Diputacion
de Almeria, 1997, pp. 477-483.
Necipoglu, Gulru. The Topkapi Scroll: Geometry and Ornament in Islamic Architecture.
Los Angeles: The Getty Centre, 1995.
Nettel, Patricia. “Cosmovision y cultura material franciscana en los pueblos de indios de

Nueva Espana segun Fray Diego de Valades” in Franciscanos y el mundo religioso
en Mexico. Mexico: UN AM, 1993.
Nuere Matauco, Enrique. La carpinteria de armar espanola. Madrid: Ministerio de

Cultura, Instituto de Conservacion y Restauracion de Bienes Culturales, 1989.
. La carpinteria de lazo: Lectura dibujada del manuscrito de Fray Andres de San

Miguel. Malaga: Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Andalucia Oriental, 1990.
Nunez Muley, Francisco. “Memorial” (1567) in Revue Hispanique 1899, pp. 205-239.
300
O’Callaghan, Joseph F. A History o f Medieval Spain. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1975.
Osma, G. J. La loza dorada de Manises en el ano 1454, Vol. 1. Madrid, 1906.
Pacios Lozano, Ana. Bibliografia de arquitectura y techumbres mudejares. 1857-1991.

Teruel: Instituto de Estudios Turolenses, 1993.
Palmer, Colin A. Slaves o f the White God. Blacks in Mexico, 1570-1650. Cambridge:
Palomino y Canedo, Jorge. Los protocolos de Rodrigo Hernandez Cordero, 1585-1590.

Escribano publico de Guadalajara. Guadalajara: Ediciones del Banco Industrial de
Jalisco, 1979.
Pavon Maldonado, Basilio. “Artesonado” in Grove Dictionary of Art, Vol. 2. Edited by

Jane Turner. New York: Macmillan, 1996, pp. 528-530.
Paredes Martinez, Carlos and Blanca Lara Tenorio. “La poblacion negra en los valles
centrales de Puebla. Origenes y desarrollo hasta 1681” in Presencia Africana en
Mexico. Edited by Luz Maria Martinez Montiel. Mexico: CONACULTA, 1995, pp.
30-50.
Partearroyo Lacaba, Cristina. “Almoravid and Almohad Textiles” in Al-Andalus. The Art
o f Islamic Spain. Edited by Jerrilynn Dodds. New York: The Metropolitan Museum
of Art, 1992, pp. 105-113.
Pastor, Maria Alba. Crisis y recomposicion social. Nueva Espaha en el transito del siglo
XVI alXVII. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Economica, 1999.
Pena, Jose F. de la. Oligarqulay propiedad en Nueva Espaha. 1550-1624. Mexico:

Penafiel, Antonio. Ciudades coloniales y capitales de la Republica Mexicana. Volumen

2. Tlaxcala. Mexico: Secretaria de Fomento, 1914.
Perceval, Jose Maria. Todos son uno. Arquetipos, xenofobia y racismo. La imagen del
morisco en la Monarqula Espanola durante los siglos X V Iy XVII. Almeria: Instituto
de Estudios Almerienses, 1997.
Pierce, Donna. “Mayolica in the Daily Life of Colonial Mexico” in Ceramica y Cultura.
The story o f Spanish and Mexican Mayolica. Edited by Robin Farwell Gavin, Donna
Pierce, and Alfonso Pleguezuelo. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,
2003, pp. 245-269.
301
. “Ceramics” in Mexico: Splendors o f Thirty Centuries. Edited by Kathleen
Howard. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992, pp. 364-65.
Pinto, Hector Abraham. Moros y cristianos en Chiquimula de la Sierra. Guatemala:

Departamento de Arte Folklorico Nacional, 1983.
Pleguezuelo Hernandez, Antonio. Cerdmicas de Triana. Coleccion Carranza. Sevilla:

Fundacion el Monte, 1996.
. Azulejo sevillano. Catalogo del Museo de Artes y Costumbres Populares de Sevilla.

Sevilla: Padilla Libros, 1986.
. Ceramica de Triana (s. XVI-XIX). Granada: Caja General de Ahorros, 1985.
Postrel, Virginia. The Substance o f Style. How the Rise ofAesthetic Value is Remaking
Commerce, Culture and Consciousness. New York: Harper Collins, 2003.
Prown, Jules David. “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and
Method” in Winterthur Portfolio 17 (1982), pp. 1-19.
Raby, Julian. Venice, Durer and the Oriental Mode. London: Islamic Art Publications,
1982.
. “The European Vision of the Muslim Orient in the Sixteenth Century” in Venezia e
I ’Oriente Vicino, Atti del primo congresso intemazionale sull’arte veneziana e l’arte
Islamica, ed. Ernst J. Grube. Venice: Edizioni FAlta Riva, 1989, pp. 41-46.
Rada y Delgado, Juan de Dios de. “Jarron arabe que se conserva en la Alhambra de
Granada” in Museo Espahol de Antiguedades, Tomo IV (1872), s/n.
Ramirez de Arellano, R. Catalogo de artifices que trabajaron en Toledo. Toledo:

Imprenta Provincial, 1920.
Ray, Anthony. Spanish Pottery 1248-1898, with a catalogue o f the collection in the
Victoria and Albert Museum. London: Victoria and Albert Publications, 2000.
. “Sixteenth-century Pottery in Castile: A Documentary Study” in The Burlington

Magazine 133:1058 (1991), pp. 298-305.
. “Fifteenth-Century Spanish Pottery: The Blue and Purple Family” in The Burlington
Magazine 129:1010 (1987), pp. 306-308.
Reade, Brian. The Dominance o f Spain, 1550-1600. London: George G. Harrap, 1951.
Reilly, Bernard F. The Medieval Spains. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
302
Regia Campistol, Joan. “La cuestion morisca y la coyuntura intemacional en tiempos
de Felipe II” in Estudios de Historia Moderna (1953), pp. 217-234.
Revilla, Manuel. El arte en Mexico en la epoca antigua y durante el gobierno virreinal.

Mexico: Oficina Tipografica de la Secretaria de Fomento, 1893.
Rio de la Hoz, Isabel del. El escultor Felipe Bigamy (h. 1470-1542). Salamanca: Junta de
Castilla y Leon, 2001.
Robertson, Donald. Mexican Manuscript Painting o f the Early Colonial Period: The
Metropolitan School. New Haven: Yale University, 1959.
Robinson Cynthia. “Mudejar Revisited: A Prolegomena to the Reconstruction of

Perception, Devotion and Experience at the Mudejar Convent of Clarisas, Tordesillas,
Spain (14th Century AD)” in Res 43 (Spring 2003), pp. 51-77.
. In Praise o f Song: The Making o f Courtly Culture in al-Andalus and Provence

1005-1134 A.D. Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, 2001.
Roche, Daniel. The Culture o f Clothing: Dress and Fashion in the Ancien Regime.
Roldan Castro, Fatima. “La frontera oriental nazari (s. XIII-XVI). “El concepto de
alteridad a partir de las fuentes de la epoca” in A etas del Congreso La Frontera
Oriental Nazari Como Sujeto Historico (s. XIII-XVI). Almeria Instituto de Estudios
Almerienses, 1997, pp. 563-569.
Romero Frizzi, Angeles. Economlay vida de los espaholes en la Mixteca Alta: 1519-
1720. Mexico: Universidad Iberoamericana, 1985.
Rosa Rabiela, Teresa, Elsa Leticia Rea Lopez and Constantino Medina Lima. Vidas y
bienes olvidados. Testamentos indlgenas novohispanos, Vols. 1-3. Mexico: CIESAS,
1999-2000.
Rosas de Oquendo, Mateo. “Cartapacio de diferentes versos a diferentes asuntos” in

Bulletin Hispanique Tome 9 (1907), pp. 257-278.
Rutas de una reina viajera. Itinerarios de Isabel la Catolica. Edited by Susana Calvo
Capilla and Juan Carlos Ruiz Souza. Madrid: Acento Editorial, 2004.
Ruy-Sanchez, Alberto. “El viaje hasta nuestra geografia profunda” in Slntesis de culturas
mudejar. Itinerario cultural del mudejar en Mexico. Granada: El Legado Andalusi,
2002, pp. 9-13.
303
Sanchez Cortegana, Jose Maria. El oficio de ollero en Sevilla en el siglo XVI. Sevilla:
Diputacion Provincial de Sevilla, 1994.
Sanchez Navarro de Pintado, Beatriz. Marfiles cristianos del oriente en Mexico. Mexico:
Fomento Cultural Banamex, 1985.
Sanchez Ramos, Valeriano. “La Guerra de las Alpujarras” in Historia del Reino de
Granada, Vol. 2. Edited by Manuel Barrios Aguilera. Granada: Universidad de
Granada and El Legado Andalusi, 2000, pp. 507-542.
Sancho Corbacho, Antonio. La ceramica andaluza. Azulejos sevillanos del siglo XVI, de
cuenca. Casa de Pilatos. Sevilla: Laboratorio de Arte, 1954.
Santiago Cruz, Francisco. Las Artes y los Gremios en la Nueva Espana (1960). Mexico:
Editorial Jus, 1992.
Sartor, Mario. Arquitecturay urbanismo en Nueva Espana, siglo XVI. Mexico: Azabache,
1992.
Sayer, Chloe. Mexican Costume. London: British Museum Publications, 1985.
Saxl, F. Costumes and Festivals o f Milanese Society under Spanish Rule. Oxford: Oxford
Schwartz, Stuart B. “Cities of Empire: Mexico and Bahia in the Sixteenth Century” in
Journal o f Interamerican Studies 11:4 (1969), pp. 616-637.
Sebastian, Santiago. “Êxiste el mudejarismo en Elispanoamerica?” in Mudejar

Hispanoamericano: Del Islam al Nuevo Mundo. Madrid: Ludweig Editores, 1995.
. Techumbres mudejares de la Nueva Granada. Cali: Universidad del Valle, 1965.
Seed, Patricia. Ceremonies o f Possession in Europe’s Conquest o f the New World 1492-
1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Sekora, John. Luxury: The Concept in Western Thought. Eden to Smollett. Baltimore,
Johns Hopkins University, 1977.
Sempat Assadourian, Carlos and Andrea Martinez Baracs. Tlaxcala Textos de su historia.
Siglo XVI. Tlaxcala: Gobiemo del Estado de Tlaxcala, 1991.
Sempere y Guarinos, Juan. Historia del luxo y de las leyes suntuarias (1788). Madrid:
Ediciones Atlas, 1973.
Sicroff, Albert A. Les controverses des statuts de "purete de sang” en Espagne du 15e au
17e siecle. Paris: Didier, 1960.
304
Sintesis de culturas mudejar. Itinerario cultural del mudejar en Mexico. Edited by Rafael
Lopez Guzman. Granada: El Legado Andalusi, 2002.
Smith, Woodruff D. Consumption and the Making o f Respectability 1600-1800. New

York: Routledge, 2002.
Sociedad Espanola de Amigos del Arte. Album de la exposicion de antigua cerdmica

espahola, Madrid. Madrid: La Sociedad, 1910.
Soria, Martin S. “Una nota sobre pintura colonial y estampas europeas” in Anales del
Instituto de Arte Americano e Investigaciones Esteticas 5 (1952), pp. 41-51.
Stallybrass, Peter. “Worn Worlds: Clothes, Mourning and the Life of Things” in The
Yale Review 81:2 (1993), pp. 183-207.
Steele, Valerie. Fashion and Eroticism. Ideas o f Feminine Beauty from the Victorian Era
to the Jazz Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985.
Stothmann, R. “Takiyya” in The Encyclopedia o f Islam. New Edition, Vol. 10. Edited by
Th. Bianquis, C. E. Bosworth, et al. Leiden: Brill, 2000, pp. 134-136.
Sullivan, Edward J. “European Painting and the Art of the New World Colonies” in
Converging Cultures. Art and Identity in Spanish America. Edited by Diana Fane.
New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1996, pp. 28-42.
Szmolka, Jose. Epistolario del Conde de Tendilla (1504-1606), Vols. 1-2. Granada:
Universidad de Granada, 1986.
Tabbaa, Yasr. The Transformation o f Islamic Art during the Sunni Revival. Seattle:
University of Washington Press, 2001.
Talavera, Hernando de. De vestiry de calzar. Tractado provechoso que demuestra como
en el vestir e calzar comunmente se cometen muchos pecados y aun tambien en el
comer y en el bever. Edited, with an introduction, by Antonio Garcia Benitez. Sevilla:
Padilla Libros, 1998.
_. Tractado provechoso que muestra como en el vestir y calzar comunmente se

cometen muchos errores y aun en el comer y beber. Madison: Hispanic Seminary of
Medieval Studies.
Terraciano, Kevin. The Mixtecs o f Colonial Oaxaca. Nudzahui History, Sixteenth through
Eighteenth Centuries. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001.
Tlaxcala: Textos de su historia. Vol. 8. Tlaxcala. Edited by Andrea Martinez Barcas and
305
Carl Sempat Assadourian. Tlaxcala: Gobiemo del Estado de Tlaxcala, 1991.
Toro, Alfonso. Los Audios en la Nueva Espana: documentos del siglo XVI,
correspondientes al ramo de Inquisicion. Mexico: Archivo General de la Nation and
Torres Baibas, Leopoldo. “De ceramica hispanomusulmana” in Al-Andalus IV (1939),

pp. 412-431.
Toussaint, Manuel. Lapintura en Mexico durante el siglo XVI. Mexico: 1936
. El arte mudejar en America. Mexico: Porrua, 1946.
. “Geometria sugerente: Reminiscencias mudejares” in Artes de Mexico 54, pp. 34-

45.
Tovar y de Teresa, Guillermo. Pinturay escultura del renacimiento en Mexico. Mexico:

INAH, 1978.
Trujillo, Tomas de. Libro llamado reprobacion de los trajes. Estella, Navarra: Imprenta
de Adrian de Anvers, 1563.
Uchmany, Eva Alexandra. La vida entre el judalsmo y el cristianismo en la Nueva

Espana, 1580-1606. Mexico: Archivo General de la Nation y Fondo de Cultura
Economica, 1992.
Valencia, Pedro de. Tratado acerca de los moriscos de Espana (1606). Edited by
Joaquin Gil San Juan. Malaga: Algazara, 1997.
Van de Velde, Paul and Henriette. Mexican Maiolica: The Potters ’Art o f Puebla.
Mexico: 1927.
Veblen, Thorstein. The Theory o f the Leisure Class (1899). New York: Penguin Books,
1994.
Veitia Linaje, Jose de. Norte de la contratacion de las Indias Occidentales (1672).
Madrid: Institute de Estudios Fiscales, 1981.
Velazco, Salvador. Visiones de Andhuac. Reconstrucciones historiogrdficas y etnicidades

emergentes en el Mexico colonial: Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Diego Munoz
Camargo y Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc. Guadalajara: Universidad de
Guadalajara, 2003.
Ventosa, Enrique Luis. Ceramica: Libros para artistas. Introduction by Jose Lopez
Portillo y Rojas. Puebla: Litotipografia Guadalupana, 1922.
306
A. M. Vera, “El levantamiento mudejar y su incidencia en los tributes de la seda” in

Actas del III Simposio Internacional del Mudejarismo. Teruel: Institute de Estudios
Turolenses, 1986, pp. 145-152.
Vidasy bienes olvidados. Testamentos indigenas novohispanos. Vol. 1-3. Edited by

Constantino Medina Lima, Elsa Leticia Rea Lopez and Teresa Rojas Rabiela,
Mexico: CIESAS, 1999.
Vilar Sanchez, Juan Antonio. 1526. Boda y luna de miel del emperador Carlos V.
Vilaseca Borras, Luisa. Los alfareros y la ceramica de reflejo metalico de Reus de 1550-
1650, Vols. 1-2. Reus: Asociacion de Estudios Reusenses, 1964.
Weckmann, Luis. La herencia medieval de Mexico. Mexico: Fondo de Cultura

Economica, 1984.
Weiditz, Christoph. Authentic Everyday Dress o f the Renaissance. All 154 Plates the
“Trachtenbuch ” (1927). Edited by Theodor Hampe. New York: Dover Publications,
1994.
Weigers, Gerard. Islamic Literature in Spanish and Aljamiado. Yea o f Segovia, His
Antecedents and Succesors, 1450. Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, 1993.
Weisman, Brent Richards. Pioneer in Space and Time: John Mann Goggin and the
Development o f Florida Archaeology. Gainesville: University Press of Florida,
2002 .
Weiss, Joaquin. La arquitectura colonial cubana (siglos XVI-XVII). La Habana:

Ediciones Arte y Sociedad, 1972.
. Techos coloniales cubanos. La Habana: Editorial Arte y Literatura, 1972.
Whishaw, Bernhard and Ellen M. Illustrated descriptive account o f the Museum ofA
Andalucian Pottery and Lace, antique and modern: together with notes on pre-
Roman Seville and the lost city o f Tharsis. Seville, s/n, 1913.
Wilson, Verity. “Western Modes and Asian Clothing: Reflections on Borrowing Other
People’s Dress” in Costume 36 (2002), pp. 139-157.
Wood, Stephanie. Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views o f Spanish Colonial Mexico.

Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2003.
307
Yannakakis, Yanna. Indios Ladinos : Indigenous Intermediaries and the Negotiation
o f Local Rule in Colonial Oaxaca. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 2003.
Zahar, Leon R. “Presencias y ausencias mudejares” in Artes de Mexico 54 (2001), pp. 46-
59.
. Taracea islamica y mudejar. Mexico: Museo Franz Mayer and Artes de Mexico,
2000 .

María Judith Feliciano Chaves-Mudejarismo in Its Colonial Context

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

María Judith Feliciano Chaves-Mudejarismo in Its Colonial Context

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

MUDEJAR1SMO IN ITS COLONIAL CONTEXT:

IBERIAN CULTURAL DISPLAY, VICEREGAL LUXURY CONSUMPTION,

Maria Judith Feliciano Chaves

Presented to the Faculties of the University of

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree

All rights reserved.

ProQuest Information and Learning Company

Maria Judith Feliciano Chaves

I owe a karmic debt of gratitude to my advisors and committee members, who

perspective in check and repeatedly asked me to question my own formulations of such

provided me with invaluable advice that guided my methodological perspective. Every

student should be as fortunate as I have been to count on a veritable advisory Dream

within the next ten lifetimes.

On my second semester of graduate work, Dr. Clara Bargellini introduced me to

Esteticas of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico during the Fulbright-Garcia

To her I extend my deepest gratitude.

Pennsylvania, the Fulbright-Garcia Robles (COMEXUS) Commission, the Samuel H.

Kress Foundation, and the Society of Architectural Historians.

and methodological perspectives significantly enriched the final product.

Notarias de la Ciudad de Mexico, Archivo Historico del Cabildo de la Ciudad de Puebla,

Archivo de Notarias de Jalisco, Archivo Historico en Micropelicula (Museo Nacional de

Antropologia e Historia, Mexico, D.F.), Biblioteca Francisco de Burgoa (Oaxaca), and

COLMEX’ library. The library staff at the Instituto de Investigaciones Esteticas

secondary research possible, but also expeditious and enjoyable.

In Spain, the staff at the Archivo General de Indias, Biblioteca Nacional de

Arqueologico Nacional, Biblioteca de la Fundacion Lazaro Galdeano, and the Biblioteca

Colombina assisted me in my research. Access to important visual collections was

Provincial de Sevilla. I would like to offer a special word of thanks to Cristina

generosity. Similarly, Dr. Gonzalo Borras Gualis (Universidad de Zaragoza) and

Mercedes Garcia-Arenal (Insituto de Filologia, Centro de Estudios Arabes, CSIC-

Madrid) offered helpful advice and facilitated contacts throughout Spain.

In Philadelphia, the staff at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fischer Fine Arts

years, Darlene Jackson, Administrative Coordinator of the History of Art Department,

am particularly indebted to Margaret Connors McQuade, Assitant Curator of Ceramics

Manuscripts, provided invaluable bibliographic information and research help. Edwin

Center have been tremendously supportive.

Amieva, and Gerard Wiegers.

A special word of thanks to my dear friends Asmaa Bouharass, Patricia Diaz

to provide long-distance archival and library research.

Lastly, I thank my family, to whom I dedicate this work. I am forever grateful to

have finished a dissertation masterpiece.

MUDEJARISMO IN ITS COLONIAL CONTEXT:

Maria Judith Feliciano Chaves

Dr. Renata Holod

employed in distinct ways by members of Iberian society. In the colonial context,

embattled period, and especially in the viceregal environment, indicates a radical

disconnection from anything traditionally considered Islamic. It also highlights

Mudejarismo as a wholly Iberian aesthetic choice, unambiguously laden with Iberian

disciplinary ethnohistoric approach that combines the interpretation of historical

incorporates the American Mudejar in a discussion of colonial power relations and

Introduction. Beyond the “Artesonado”: “Mudejarismo” and

1. The Myth of the Moriscos in the New World: The Physical

2. Lujo Indiano or Iberian Practice? Sartorial Display,

3. On Silk Turbans and Frayed Jubones, or the Changing Function of

4. Sixteenth-Century Viceregal Ceramics and the Creation

Appendix 1 Edicto contra herejes. AGN, Inquisicion, Vol. 159

1. Artesonado. Church of San Francisco, Tlaxcala (ca. 1660’s). 1

2. Artesonado. Church of San Diego de Alcala, Huexotzingo (ca. 1660’s) 8

3. Monastery of San Miguel, Huexotzingo (1544-1570) 11

5. Detail, Codex Tlatelolco o Manuscrito de Xochipilla (ca. 1562). Biblioteca Nacional

6. Detail, Reiacion de Michoacdn (ca. 1541). Real Biblioteca del Escorial, El

7. Detail, Codex Kingsborough o Memorial de los Indios de Tepetlaoztoc (ca. 1554).

8. Detail. Don Francisco de las Casas. Codex Yanhuitlan (ca. 1550’s) 88

produced goods, were subject to manipulation and transformation by different socio