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The Church and Culture in Spanish America*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Guillermo Lohmann Villena
Guillermo Lohmann Villena*
Affiliation:
Madrid, Spain
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Extract

For more than three centuries in the territories dependent upon the Spanish crown, the shields of bishops or of religious orders dominated the façade of the universities and of the institutions of learning; during that same period, the title pages of books of any scientific merit almost invariably carried the name of a tonsured author; architectural monuments of every class proclaimed the patronage of prelates or the protection of saints recognizing thereby their origin and purpose; schools, colleges and institutions of letters of every kind flourished in the shadow of the parishes and of the monasteries; music and theatrical functions confessed their origin in sacred ceremonies; the prirlting presses began their function under the auspices of ecclesiastics and their entire production during those centuries bears this seal. In short, the names of the university professors and of the teachers in the other educational institutions form an almost unending list of dignitaries, either of the secular clergy or of the regular, so that any summary of the outstanding figures of the intellectual life of that period shows a tremendous percentage of individuals who wore the clerical garb. It is an axiom, indeed, that the Church was in Spanish America the active patron of culture and the sponsor of knowledge almost from the day following that of the discovery. Today, fortunately, such a statement is again commonly accepted, although it was not an easy task to reach this agreement.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , January 1958 , pp. 383 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1958

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Footnotes

*

Translated by Fr. Antonine Tibesar, O. F. M.

Guillermo Lohmann Villena holds the position of Catedrático at the University of San Marcos and the Pontifical Catholic University, both of Lima, Peru. He is a Corresponding Member of the Real Academia de la Historia, of the Instituto Histórico del Perú, of the Sociedad Chilena de Historia y Geografía, and an honorary collaborator of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas de España. His chief publications include: El arte dramático en Lima durante el Virreinato (Madrid, 1945); El Conde de Lentos, Virrey del Perú (Madrid, 1946); El Corregidor de indios en el Verá bajo los Austrias (Madrid, 1957). Address: Embajada del Perú en España, Hermanos Bécquer, 8, Madrid, Spain.

References

1 Discourse of His Holiness Pope Pius XII to the X Congress of Historical Sciences. Rome, September 7, 1955.

2 See Albornoz, Claudio Sánchez, “La Edad Media y la empresa de América,” in España y el Islam (Buenos Aires, 1943), pp. 181–199 Google Scholar; the articles by J. C. Verlinden: “Les influences medievales dans la colonisation de l’Amerique,” Revista de Historia de America, Num. XXX (1950), pp. 440–450, “Le probleme de la continuité en histoire coloniale,” Revista de Indias, XI (1951), 219–236, and “Sentido de la historia colonial americana,” Estudios Americanos, IV (1952), 551–564; and the article by Luis Weck-mann, “The Middle Ages in the conquest of America,” Speculum, XXVI (1951), pp. 130–141.

3 Another argument, identical with the one used by Dawson to exonerate the Middle Ages from the charge of its supposed cultural backwardness, may be found also in Spanish America. If the culture of the Middle Ages were as deficient as it is sometimes charged, one would expect that the literature of Spanish America too would consist of crude narratives of barbarous deeds. Instead, it is made up of the works of professors, linguists, preachers, and others of the same quality. See Dawson, Christopher, Medieval Religion and other Essays (London, Sheed and Ward, 1934), pp. 98, 119–120.Google Scholar

4 Bayle, Constantino, España y la educación popular en América (Madrid, 1941), pp. 113–120.Google Scholar

5 “El sentido tradicional de la literatura peruana,” in the Colección Panamericana of the Editorial Jackson (Buenos Aires, 1946).