Building Colonial Cities of God: Mendicant Orders and Urban Culture in New Spain

摘要

The historiography on the mendicant orders in New Spain is one of the more developed subfields in the history of Spanish colonialism. As Karen Melvin points out in this valuable new book, however, our knowledge of their work is surprisingly uneven. Previous scholarship has concentrated on the early colonial period and the mendicants' missionary activities, especially in the mostly rural doctrinas de indios or proto-parishes that Spanish offcials established for the religious conversion of native peoples. Melvin takes us beyond these traditional emphases in space and time, moving from the rural to the urban and from the so-called 'golden age' of missionary activity in the sixteenth century into the rest of the colonial period. She also widens our focus beyond the familiar triad of Augustinians, Dominicans and Observant Franciscans, which were the orders most involved in native evangelisation, to include the other mendicant orders in New Spain: Discalced (Barefoot) Franciscans, Discalced (Barefoot) Carmelites, and Mercedarians. The result is a fresh perspective on both the mendicants' activities and the diversity of colonial Catholicism.