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Prevailing Catholic thought in the sixteenth century perceived heresy as a cancer on society and the printed word an effective carrier. Acceptance of this view throughout the Spanish kingdom resulted in the vigilant scrutiny of printed works, in particular those imported or produced in the Americas. Who reviewed manuscript works destined for or written in Mexico before the printing block hit the paper? Did the New Spanish bureaucracy repress colonial authors intellectually or financially? This thesis examines preventive censorship, or the inspection and licensing of manuscripts considered for publishing, and printing privilege in sixteenth-century Mexico. Mexican books printed 1540-1612 and official correspondence form the basis of this thesis. The overarching analysis is diachronic-bibliographic in nature. It starts with the origins of preventing censorship in Spain, its transference to New Spain, and its administration during the first decade of the American printing press (1487-1550). Thrusting ahead, it then delves into the bureaucratic, political, and economic nuances of the mature publishing practice at the turn of the century (1590-1612). The conclusion compares the bookend phases, defines factors, and looks at prevailing practices in Europe to contextualize Mexico’s unique publishing industry. In the Americas, religious authors established, financed, and developed the publishing economy to facilitate indigenous indoctrination and enculturation, enforce Christian hegemony, and promote higher education. As these authors came to dominate in the writing, censorship, and production of Mexican printed books throughout the sixteenth century, printers increasingly assumed a subordinate role. In the European printing industry, non-cleric officials predominantly censored manuscripts and printers assumed primary ownership of intellectual work. Inversing European practice, published authors in Mexico enjoyed significant influence over the censorship, printing, and economic potential of their intellectual fruits from the onset of colonization to the remainder of the sixteenth century and beyond.
In a study published in the mid-twentieth century, French historian Robert Ricard postulated that the evangelization and conversion of the native populations of Mexico had been rapid and relatively easy. However, different forms of evidence show that the so-called “spiritual conquest” was anything but easy or rapid, and, in fact, natives continued to practice their traditional beliefs alongside Catholicism. Within several decades of initiating the so-called “spiritual conquest,” the campaign to evangelize and convert the native populations, the missionaries faced growing evidence of idolatry or the persistence of traditional religious practices and apostasy, straying from Church teachings. The evidence includes written documents such as inquisition investigations that resulted, for example, in the execution of don Carlos, the native ruler of Tezcoco, on December 1, 1539, or that uncovered evidence of systematic organized resistance to Dominican missionaries in the Sierra Mixteca of Oaxaca. Other forms of evidence include pre-Hispanic religious iconography incorporated into what ostensibly were Christian murals, and pre-Hispanic stones embedded in the churches and convents the missionaries had built. One example of this was the stone with the face of Tláloc at the rear of the Franciscan church Santiago Tlatelolco in Distrito Federal. During the course of some three centuries, missionaries from different Catholic religious orders attempted to convert the native populations of colonial Mexico, with mixed results. Native groups throughout colonial Mexico resisted the imposition of the new religion in overt and covert forms, and incorporated Catholicism into their worldview on their own terms. Native cultural and religious traditions were more flexible than the Iberian Catholic norms introduced by the missionaries. The so-called “spiritual conquest,” a term coined by Ricard, evolved as a cultural war set against the backdrop of the imposition of a foreign colonial regime. The 11 essays in this volume examine the efforts to evangelize the native populations of Mexico, the approaches taken by the missionaries, and native responses. The contributions investigate the interplay between natives and missionaries in central Mexico, and on the southern and northern frontiers of New Spain, and among sedentary and non-sedentary natives. In the end, many natives found little in the new faith to attract them, and resisted the imposition of new religious norms and way of life.
Detailed comparison of Aztec and Spanish religious devotion, examining the melding of practices during the first century of contact 1519-1600.
Beginning with one of the crucial technological breakthroughs of Western history - the development of moveable type by Johann Gutenberg - The History of the Book in the West 1455-1700 covers the period that saw the growth and consolidation of the printed book as a significant feature of Western European culture and society. The volume collects together seventeen key articles, written by leading scholars during the past five decades, that together survey a wide range of topics, such as typography, economics, regulation, bookselling, and reading practices. Books, whether printed or in manuscript, played a major role in the religious, political, and intellectual upheavals of the period, and understanding how books were made, distributed, and encountered provides valuable new insights into the history of Western Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries.
This book is the first comprehensive treatment in English of the ideology and practice of the Inquisitional censors, focusing on the case of Mexico from the 1520s to the 1630s. Others have examined the effects of censorship, but Martin Nesvig employs a nontraditional approach that focuses on the inner logic of censorship in order to examine the collective mentality, ideological formation, and practical application of ideology of the censors themselves. Nesvig shows that censorship was not only about the regulation of books but about censorship in the broader sense as a means to regulate Catholic dogma and the content of religious thought. In Mexico, decisions regarding censorship involved considerable debate and disagreement among censors, thereby challenging the idea of the Inquisition as a monolithic institution. Once adapted to cultural circumstances in Mexico, the Inquisition and the Index produced not a weapon of intellectual terror but a flexible apparatus of control.