Table Of Contenti
Bad Christians, New Spains
This book centers on two inquisitorial investigations, both of which began
in the 1540s. One involved relations of Europeans and Native Americans in
the Oaxacan town of Yanhuitlán (in New Spain, today’s Mexico). The other
involved relations of Moriscos (recent Muslim converts to Catholicism) and
Old Christians (people with deep Catholic ancestries) in the Mediterranean
kingdom of Valencia (in the “old” Spain).
Although separated by an ocean, the social worlds preserved in these inquisi-
torial files share many things. By bringing the two investigations together,
Hamann reveals how very local practices and debates had long- distance
parallels, parallels that reveal larger entanglements of the early modern
world. Through a dialogue of two microhistories, he presents a macrohistory
of large- scale social transformation. We see how attempts in both places to
turn old worlds into new ones were centered on struggles over materiality and
temporality. By paying close attention to theories (and practices) of reduction
and conversion, Hamann suggests we can move beyond anachronistic models
of social change as colonization, and place early modern concepts of time
and history at the center of our understandings of the sixteenth- century past.
Overall, this project intervenes in major debates from both history and
anthropology: about the writing of global histories, our conceptualizations
of the colonial, the nature of religious and cultural change, and the roles of
material things in social life and the imagination of time.
Byron Ellsworth Hamann is Hanna Kiel Fellow at I Tatti, The Harvard
University Center for Italian Renaissance Studies, Florence, Italy.
ii
The Anthropology of History
Series Editors: Stephan Palmié and Charles Stewart
Anthropologists have taken apart Western assumptions about Law,
Economics and Religion in order to overcome ethnocentrism in the study of
these domains in other societies. The category of History, however, has not
been subjected to such treatment. Although anthropologists and historians
have collaborated to produce a large and vibrant subfield of “History and
Anthropology”, they have tended to be guided by a readymade model of his-
tory. There has been little systematic reflection on the Western commonsense
idea of history, nor much focus on the particular assumptions about the past
that animate other societies. With this book series, we are calling for a new
orientation that will concentrate squarely on how people, whether far away or
within our own society, establish relationships with the past.
Examples of such alternative historicities (culturally particular ways of
relating to the past) include spirit possession, popular genealogy and gen-
omics, rituals ranging from shamanic practices to Easter processions,
reenactments, and video gaming among many other possibilities. The editors
invite monographs that approach the question of history through histor-
ical research, ethnography, cultural studies or other relevant methodologies.
The past may be experienced through various senses and genres including
music, drama, film and digital media thereby making the Anthropology of
History a wide domain of interdisciplinary collaboration extending beyond
Anthropology and History to approaches from Music, Art, Archaeology,
Drama, and STS.
The Varieties of Historical Experience
Edited by Stephan Palmié and Charles Stewart
Bad Christians, New Spains
Muslims, Catholics, and Native Americans in a Mediterratlantic World
Byron Ellsworth Hamann
www.routledge.com/ The- Anthropology- of- History/ book- series/ ANTHIST
ii i
Bad Christians, New Spains
Muslims, Catholics, and Native
Americans in a Mediterratlantic World
Byron Ellsworth Hamann
iv
First published 2020
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2020 Byron Ellsworth Hamann
The right of Byron Ellsworth Hamann to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks,
and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-i n- Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-i n- Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested for this book
ISBN: 978- 0- 367- 22112- 6 (hbk)
ISBN: 978- 0- 429- 34419- 0 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman MT Std
by Newgen Publishing UK
v
For Adrienne, Adam, and Odette
vi
vi i
Contents
List of illustrations viii
Acknowledgments x
Preface: Bad Christians xiii
Introduction 1
1 Ashes and silkworms 11
2 Geographies of discord 41
3 Catholic Catholicisms 79
4 The poverty of economy 122
5 Ruination 164
6 The excavation of the dead 197
7 Chronologies at war 239
Conclusions: Conversion, reduction, and early
modern empire 267
Epilogue 288
Works cited 292
Index 336
viii
Illustrations
Figures
1.1 View of the Nochixtlán Valley 12
1.2 Sacred geography in the Nochixtlán Valley 13
1.3 View of the Valley of Seta 18
1.4 The city of Valencia in 1608 21
1.5 Title page of Riccoldo da Monte di Croce, Improbatio
Alcorani (1500) 26
1.6 Folio 19r of Pedro de Feria, Doctrina Christiana en lengua
Castellana y çapoteca (1567) 27
2.1 Page 3 of the Codex Nuttall 49
2.2 Pages 4 to 1 of the Codex Vienna 50
2.3 Page 23 of the Codex Vienna 51
2.4 View out La Cueva Larga, Yucuita 52
2.5 Page 47 of the Codex Vienna 53
2.6 The white mineral column in the cave of Yucumañu 54
2.7 Map of the Nochixtlán Valley in 1602 56
2.8 View of the Valley of Guadalest 59
2.9 The courtyard of don Sancho de Cardona’s palace in Bechí 60
3.1 Agostino Veneziano, Svliman Otoman Rex Tvrc X (1535) 103
3.2 Page 24 of the Codex Vienna 107
3.3 Page 24 of the Codex Nuttall 110
3.4 Title page of Ulrich Krafft, Das ist der geistlich streit (1517) 112
3.5 A prehispanic feathered serpent statue repurposed to be the
base for a wooden crucifix 113
4.1 The walled upper city of Trujillo 137
4.2 Palace built by Gonzalo de las Casas in Trujillo (1574) 143
4.3 Page 17 of the Codex Nuttall 146
4.4 Page 21 of the Codex Nuttall 147
4.5 Pages 3 and 4 of the Codex Selden 148
4.6 Truce signed between King Jaume I and Muslim leader
al- Azraq (1245) 154
5.1 Page 25 of the Codex Nuttall 168
5.2 Raffaello Botticini, Adoration of the Magi (circa 1494) 170
ix
List of illustrations ix
5.3 Detail of the broken idol from the central temple niche.
Raffaello Botticini, Adoration of the Magi (circa 1494) 171
5.4 Joachim Patinir, Rest on the Flight into Egypt (1518– 1520) 172
5.5 Detail of Joachim Patinir, Rest on the Flight into Egypt
(1518– 1520) 173
5.6 Altarpiece panel of Saint Bartholomew before the Emperor
(1450– 1480) 174
5.7 Carved stone from Etlatongo showing iconoclastic destruction 179
5.8 Page 22 of the Codex Nuttall 181
5.9 Church and Convent of Yanhuitlán (1550– 1580) 183
5.10 Folio 9v of the Codex of Yanhuitlán (circa 1550) 191
6.1 Sheet of four indulgences to fund the building of Saint
Peter’s (1517) 198
6.2 Altarpiece of the Mass of Saint Gregory (1572) 206
6.3 Detail, Altarpiece of the Mass of Saint Gregory (1572) 208
6.4 Greenstone penates, front and back views 216
6.5 Turquoise mosaic burial mask 217
6.6 Page 82 of the Codex Nuttall 218
6.7 Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Last Judgment (circa 1536– 1541) 220
6.8 Detail of Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Last Judgment
(circa 1536– 1541) 221
6.9 Tombstones in the floor of the Church of Saint Mary the
Greater, Trujillo 222
6.10 Auto de Fe held in Valladolid in 1559, as depicted in
Hispanische Inquisition (1560?) 224
6.11 Detail showing a coffin of exhumed bones and a victim in
effigy. Hispanische Inquisition (1560?) 225
6.12 Anton van den Wyngaerde, sketches of Morisco graves in
Sagunto (1563) 229
6.13 Title page of Johann Eberlin von Günzburg, Das Lob der
Pfarrer (1521) 233
Maps
0.1 Spain and New Spain 3
2.1 Witnesses in the Yanhuitlán investigation, 1544– 1546 43
2.2 Geography of “idolatry” in the Yanhuitlán investigation,
1544– 1546 47
2.3 Towns and hills in the map from AGN Tierras, 1520 57
2.4 Witnesses in the Valencian investigation, 1540–1569 58
2.5 Geography of Islam in the Valencian investigation, 1540– 1569 66
6.1 Locations of excavations in the Nochixtlán Valley, April 1546 214
Table
4.1 Don Sancho’s income from Bechí and Guadalest 127
