A History Of Christianity Part 10

LIVES SEPARATED: SAINTS, SPLENDOUR, s.e.x AND WITCHES.

The Reformation and Catholic Reformation dividing Latin Christendom, previously remarkably united across a whole continent, produced a rift in the rhythms of life to a degree without parallel in Christian history. The shape of the year became experienced in very different ways in Protestant and Catholic regions. Protestant societies which had rejected the power of the saints observed few or no saints' days, so holidays ceased to be the 'holy days' of the saints and some (usually not many) were reinvented as Protestant feasts. In England, yearly November bonfires and celebrations reminded the English of their new Protestant heritage in defeating the Spanish Armada (1588), foiling a Roman Catholic who tried to blow up the king and Parliament (1605) and eventually ejecting a Roman Catholic king who appeared to threaten the whole Protestant settlement of the British Isles (1688). By contrast, the Europe loyal to Rome discovered new saints and festivals to emphasize that loyalty. A happy coincidence helped: in 1578 a large number of Christian catacombs (see p. 160), almost unknown for centuries, were rediscovered beneath the soil of Rome and seemed to be full of the bones of early Christian martyrs. The bones were exported all over the Catholic world, a great morale-booster against Protestants in underlining the glorious history of suffering in the Roman Church, and they were joined in their fruitful travels by countless fragments of Ursula's eleven thousand virgins from Cologne. The Jesuits were chief brokers in this sacred commerce.39 The greatest separation came in the way in which Protestants and Catholics approached their G.o.d in church. In most Reformed Churches, it quickly became the norm to lock church buildings between services to discourage superst.i.tious devotions by individuals who did not have the benefit of community instruction from the pulpit (and those who tried were often punished). This went hand in hand with the drastic slimming down of the Protestant ministry in the interests of greater professionalism in preaching: churches were there for sermons and the occasional community Eucharist. Their most prominent piece of furniture was not an altar but a pulpit. With varying degrees of thoroughness, Lutheran church interiors tended to be remoulded in this pattern, as were parish churches in the Church of England, increasingly ambiguous in its Reformed ident.i.ty though it was.40 By contrast, Catholic churches continued as in the pre-Reformation past to be open and available for private devotions between the frequent communal liturgical acts. As before, there would be plenty of clergy for laypeople to encounter on the premises. Priest-confessors would commonly be available to relieve afflicted consciences, increasingly using a new piece of liturgical furniture, an enclosed double box with a communicating grille hiding the ident.i.ty of priest and penitent, which was pioneered by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo for his archdiocese of Milan, as part of his intensification of confessional discipline for the faithful. By contrast, Catholic churches continued as in the pre-Reformation past to be open and available for private devotions between the frequent communal liturgical acts. As before, there would be plenty of clergy for laypeople to encounter on the premises. Priest-confessors would commonly be available to relieve afflicted consciences, increasingly using a new piece of liturgical furniture, an enclosed double box with a communicating grille hiding the ident.i.ty of priest and penitent, which was pioneered by Archbishop Carlo Borromeo for his archdiocese of Milan, as part of his intensification of confessional discipline for the faithful.41 Borromeo's penchant for order was paired in Counter-Reformation Catholicism with a carefully regulated enthusiasm for the extrovert. Counter-Reformation clergy and their architects, anxious to harness and concentrate the devotional enthusiasm of its people, swept away the screens of medieval churches which obstructed congregations' view of the high altar in church. They placed the tabernacle of the reserved eucharistic Sacrament on the altar itself, where previously the tabernacle had often been separate from it. So the high altar became overwhelmingly the visual focus of a Counter-Reformation church, just as the single altar had been in the early basilicas, though the Western Church's medieval host of side altars remained undisturbed. After some initial gestures towards remedying late medieval excesses in architecture and music by greater austerity, Catholics realized that splendour was one of their chief a.s.sets. Wors.h.i.+p in Catholic churches became ever more expressive of the power and magnificence of the Church, as a backdrop to feast and fast.

The city of Rome, enhanced by its newly discovered martyrs and receiving crowds of pilgrims to its ancient holy places, was the greatest of all these Catholic theatre sets. It now became ever more stately after centuries of decay, through a huge investment in building. This was led by the papacy and aided by the wealth of the cardinals resident in the city, who paid particular attention to the various parish churches of which they were theoretically the parish priests, together with palaces to provide a suitable backdrop for their own lives of splendour. The centrepiece of Rome was not its cathedral of St John Lateran, grand though that was, but the triumphant (not to say triumphalist) completion of the new St Peter's Basilica. Between 1602 and 1615, this was hugely extended by Carlo Maderno, westwards from the earlier centrally domed building designed by Donato Bramante and Michelangelo and slowly completed over the previous hundred years. Maderno's least happy achievement is the basilica's western facade, which partly thanks to problems with its foundations that became apparent during its construction, fails to soar or inspire. Yet the resulting architectural bathos was redeemed within half a century by being fronted with one of the most extraordinary public s.p.a.ces not just of the Counter-Reformation, but of all Christian architecture.

This oval colonnaded piazza was designed by Gianlorenzo Bernini, Baroque architect of genius as well as inspired sculptor. Bernini had already provided the chief coup de theatre of the basilica's interior, the monumental bronze canopy or baldachino over the high altar and tomb of St Peter. His piazza, which he artfully extended at either end by smaller funnel-shaped piazze, so that it could lead up to the basilica and still fit round older buildings impossible to pull down, brilliantly performs two functions. It provides a breathtaking pathway to the basilica from the River Tiber (an effect helpfully enhanced by Mussolini's modern demolitions), but it is also a s.p.a.ce capable of holding thousands of pilgrims, ready for their glimpse of the pope if he chooses to appear at one of the windows of the Vatican Palace, which rather untidily looms above the south colonnade. Over the last century, the technology of amplification has made this piazza an especially effective dramatic backdrop for the pope when he communicates from his palace with a constantly changing mult.i.tude of the faithful from all over the world, week by week eager to pray with him or cheer to the skies his greetings and devotional and ethical p.r.o.nouncements. No other modern Christian leader enjoys a setting so ready-made for dominating his flock, although some contemporary Pentecostals and televangelists have done their best. The combination of microphone and Baroque architectural magnificence offers formidable obstacles to overcome, should any future pope wish to depart from the monarchical style to which the Bishops of Rome have become accustomed.

Jesuits, who had initially been discouraged by Ignatius even from celebrating sung High Ma.s.ses in their churches because of his fears of excessive elaboration, enthusiastically adopted the new extrovert strategy of the Church in tackling the problem of formalization of religious practice and indifference. Taking their cue from an order of priests known as Barnabites, who had been another product of the Italian renewal movements of the 1530s, the Society began drawing on every device of dramatic sensation to capture the imaginations of people who had a fixed idea of what the Church represented, and apparently thought little about it. They staged spectacular devotional missions, seizing the churches and streets of a particular community and its locality for days or even weeks on end. The Jesuits became actors and showmen: their visit must be a heart-stopping special occasion, bringing G.o.d's circus to town. This was carnival, but the carnival employed that ultimate carnivalesque reversal of human hierarchies, in which all humanity is laid low in death, as Jesuit preachers pitilessly reminded their enthralled audiences from pulpit or market cross. The Church offered the remedy: its contact with the divine, summed up in the consecrated Host exhibited amid a blaze of candles, promised hope and salvation. Although the means of salvation differed, the histrionics and the saving of the desperate from despair were not dissimilar in their message from themes prominent in the revivals which Protestants began to foment a century later (see chapter 20).42 Time itself was divided by the Reformation. An energetic and intellectually curious pope, Gregory XIII, took it upon himself, with the new-found papal confidence of the Counter-Reformation, to reform the deficiencies of the existing Julian calendar, from 15 October 1582. He was much concerned for unity with the Eastern Churches, that process which indeed did produce the Union of Brest under his one of his successors fourteen years later. So to emphasize the temporal as well as ecclesiastical role of the papacy as focus for world unity, Gregory decided to model himself on Constantine the Great. According to Eusebius, Constantine had been commanded by G.o.d to convene the Council of Nicaea in order to fix a universally reliable date for Easter in the face of the Julian calendar's inaccuracy. Unsurprisingly, Protestants took the papacy's overdue scientific correction as a sinister plot. They took a long time to accept it, at different dates in different parts of Europe, to the despair of later historians trying to work out relative dates in doc.u.ments. In England, the delay extended to 1752, over 150 years after the more Protestant but also more logical Scots had accepted (without obvious public grat.i.tude) that the Pope was right.43 Having made the correct scientific decision over the calendar, Rome made a disastrous miscalculation in its treatment of the great Italian astronomer and mathematician Galileo Galilei. Galileo was condemned by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 for providing empirical evidence for the radical revision of cosmology proposed by the long-dead Polish cleric Nicolaus Copernicus. In 1616 the Church had belatedly declared Copernicus to be in error; the Roman authorities then forced Galileo to deny that the earth moved round the sun and not the other way round, because his observations challenged the Church's authority as the source of truth. There were good theological reasons why they should reject heliocentric theory: the Bible presents creation in moral terms, and depicts a cosmic drama of sin and redemption centred on G.o.d's relations.h.i.+p with humankind. It was not unreasonable to a.s.sume that in his creation, he would have made the planet earth, the stage for that drama, the centre of his universe, rather than a morally neutral fiery disc.

Yet Galileo's observations represented reality. Obstinately he turned his humiliation by the Roman authorities to positive use: after they had forced him in 1633 to abject recantation for the boisterous boldness of his astronomical discussions in the Discorsi Discorsi, he set to work in house arrest secretly producing a new version, calmly discussing the physics of motion. This last work before his death was perhaps his greatest contribution to Western thought: an enterprise of truly rational investigation of empirical evidence, ignoring the pressure from powerful traditional authority. It antic.i.p.ated the detached investigation of phenomena which has become one of the hallmarks of Europe's Enlightenment culture. Were it not for the papacy's defensiveness after Luther's rebellion, it is unlikely that the Catholic Church would have made such a major mistake. Galileo's trial also happened during the Thirty Years War, a destructive battle for the soul of central Europe between Catholic and Protestant, and a time when the Pope was feeling unusually vulnerable. Protestants should not be too quick to sneer at Pope Urban VIII, because much Protestant scholars.h.i.+p showed itself just as suspicious of the new science of observation.44 For there was much to unite the Church of Rome and the magisterial Reformations, both Lutheran and Reformed. Both sides based their beliefs on the p.r.o.nouncements of the Bible, however much they disagreed on what the Bible meant. Those who appeared to challenge that authority, like radical Christians or Galileo, could expect to find themselves regarded as enemies of G.o.d. Both sides remained suspicious and contemptuous of other religions, although Protestants generally were more inclined to tolerate Jews because they found Jewish biblical scholars.h.i.+p a useful tool against Catholics. The Reformed in particular, thanks to their various political troubles, came to have the same experience of exile and loss as they saw in the history and present experience of the Jewish people.45 Such impulses notwithstanding, there was still a powerful hankering for a restoration of a lost Christendom which would be characterized by a single G.o.d-given order on both sides of the Reformation. Europe became a newly intensively regulated society, as Catholics and Protestants vied with each other to show just how moral a society they could create. More than a century ago, the sociologist Max Weber wrote at length to argue for a fundamental difference between the two religious groupings, which resulted in Reformed Protestants becoming identified with self-discipline and a 'spirit of capitalism', and Protestants a.s.sociated with a highly regulated 'work ethic' rarely possessed by Catholics. The notion still holds some sway in popular consciousness, but detailed acquaintance with the story of Reformation and Counter-Reformation makes it dissolve into qualification and contradiction; it is an idea best avoided. Discipline and the urge to order people's lives were ec.u.menical qualities. Such impulses notwithstanding, there was still a powerful hankering for a restoration of a lost Christendom which would be characterized by a single G.o.d-given order on both sides of the Reformation. Europe became a newly intensively regulated society, as Catholics and Protestants vied with each other to show just how moral a society they could create. More than a century ago, the sociologist Max Weber wrote at length to argue for a fundamental difference between the two religious groupings, which resulted in Reformed Protestants becoming identified with self-discipline and a 'spirit of capitalism', and Protestants a.s.sociated with a highly regulated 'work ethic' rarely possessed by Catholics. The notion still holds some sway in popular consciousness, but detailed acquaintance with the story of Reformation and Counter-Reformation makes it dissolve into qualification and contradiction; it is an idea best avoided. Discipline and the urge to order people's lives were ec.u.menical qualities.46 One motive for this had little to do with the Reformation and much to do with that newly rampant s.e.xually transmitted disease syphilis, which generated much anxiety about social habits. Also echoing in the minds of rulers was Erasmus's rhetorical question, 'What is the state but a great monastery?' (see p. 600). When Protestants closed the old monasteries en ma.s.se, that question became all the more pressing - including subsidiary problems, such as how Protestant societies would relieve the poor or disabled if there were no religious houses or confraternities dependent on the soul-prayer industry to do the job. Protestants had another new reason for unease and social regulation, because they were s.h.i.+fting the moral emphasis in s.e.xuality. When they closed celibate communities and proclaimed that clergy were no different from other men and should make a practical demonstration of a theological point by getting married, they were prioritizing heteros.e.xual marriage over celibacy: indeed, casting a large question mark against the motives for compulsory celibacy. Protestant ministers were soon in the habit of growing substantial beards to back up their theology.47 Both sides of the religious divide energetically shut down the brothels which the medieval Church had licensed as a safety valve for society (though brothels had a way of discreetly reopening). Both sides stepped up the pressures to suppress male h.o.m.os.e.xuality, the celibate Catholic clergy especially terrified of anything which might justify Protestant slurs on their s.e.xual inclinations. In self-defence, Catholics could point to a long tradition of discussion and celebration of the family, but Protestants could point to an innovation which was distinctly theirs in Western Christendom, and which overall proved a real success: their reestablishment of the clerical family. The parsonage was a new model for Europe's family life. It was perhaps not the most comfortable place to live, on a modest income and under constant public gaze, but children grew up there surrounded by books and earnest conversation, inheriting the a.s.sumption that life was to be lived strenuously for the benefit of an entire community - not least in telling that community what to do, whether the advice was welcome or not. It was not surprising that clerical and academic dynasties quickly grew up in Protestant Europe, and that thoughtful and often troubled, rather self-conscious parsonage children took their place in a wider service. Such personalities as John and Charles Wesley, Gilbert and William Tennent, a trio of Bronte novelists, Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Jung, Karl Barth and Martin Luther King Jr took their restlessness and driven sense of duty into very varied rebuildings of Western society and consciousness, not all of which their parents might have applauded.

One of the aspects of Reformation in which there are the most puzzling connections between Catholic and Protestant is in the treatment of witches. Both sides, with honourable exceptions such as Martin Luther and the Spanish Inquisition (an unpredictable combination), moved from the general medieval belief in witches to a new pursuit, persecution and execution of people thought to be witches. Encouraged by the precedent of medieval scholarly a.n.a.lysis dating back to the fourteenth century (see p. 420), they considered these unfortunates to be agents of the Devil. It is remarkable how seriously Protestants fearful of witchcraft took a misogynistic and rambling textbook on witchcraft written by two pre-Reformation Dominicans, one of whom, Jacobus Sprenger, had also been instrumental in promoting the Marian devotion of the Rosary: this was the egregious Malleus Maleficarum Malleus Maleficarum ('Hammer of Witches'), first published in Stra.s.sburg in 1487. ('Hammer of Witches'), first published in Stra.s.sburg in 1487.48 Maybe forty or fifty thousand people died in Europe and colonial North America on witchcraft charges between 1400 and 1800, most noticeably from around 1560, at just about the time when large-scale execution of heretics was coming to an end. The activity had curiously different peaks and troughs in different parts of Europe, and the common stereotype of the witch as a gnarled old woman does not reflect the reality in England that accused were characteristically prosperous or significant figures in their community, though commonly not the most peaceable. If they were indeed elderly women, there was often a long history of accusations against them, but also a sudden lack of male protection when their husbands died. Maybe forty or fifty thousand people died in Europe and colonial North America on witchcraft charges between 1400 and 1800, most noticeably from around 1560, at just about the time when large-scale execution of heretics was coming to an end. The activity had curiously different peaks and troughs in different parts of Europe, and the common stereotype of the witch as a gnarled old woman does not reflect the reality in England that accused were characteristically prosperous or significant figures in their community, though commonly not the most peaceable. If they were indeed elderly women, there was often a long history of accusations against them, but also a sudden lack of male protection when their husbands died.49 A high incidence of witchcraft prosecutions was often found in western European regions, both Protestant and Catholic, which evolved effective systems of court discipline which people living under them would have difficulty in challenging. Individual personalities might then make all the difference. Some of the worst persecutions took place in the Archbishopric of Cologne after it was secured for the Bavarian Wittelsbach family. Ferdinand, Archbishop of Cologne from 1612, was a typical product of the radical Counter-Reformation self-discipline which characterized both his own Wittelsbach dynasty and the more militant Habsburgs in alliance with them (see p. 671). It has been plausibly suggested that these devoutly Catholic rulers were fighting more than the Protestantism which certainly obsessed them: their Jesuit mentors gave them a preoccupation with sin and judgement, now strengthened for the clergy among them by the new demands of a clerical celibacy much more conscientiously maintained than in the pre-Reformation Church. As Habsburgs, Wittelsbachs and an array of conscientious Counter-Reformation bishops struggled with their own temptations, witches became symbols of the general temptations which Satan used to torment society.

Among Protestants it took one independent-minded Dutch Reformed minister, Balthazar Bekker, to excoriate witch-hunting in an influential book, Bewitched World Bewitched World (1691); this finally shamed many Protestant authorities in Germany into giving up witch trials. The Dutch Reformed Church did not thank him. Their colleagues in the mid-seventeenth-century Church of Scotland had distinguished themselves by one of the most statistically intense persecutions in Europe, which was not unconnected to the Scottish clergy's constant struggle to a.s.sert their authority in the kingdom against secular authority. The Scots Kirk had the distinction of inventing that form of torture still popular in the contemporary world, sleep deprivation, in order to extract confessions. (1691); this finally shamed many Protestant authorities in Germany into giving up witch trials. The Dutch Reformed Church did not thank him. Their colleagues in the mid-seventeenth-century Church of Scotland had distinguished themselves by one of the most statistically intense persecutions in Europe, which was not unconnected to the Scottish clergy's constant struggle to a.s.sert their authority in the kingdom against secular authority. The Scots Kirk had the distinction of inventing that form of torture still popular in the contemporary world, sleep deprivation, in order to extract confessions.50 The pattern in eastern Europe was different again: the paranoia started later, lasted longer and in fact climaxed in the eighteenth century. By then half of those charged with witchcraft in now strongly Catholic Poland ended up being burned, whereas the proportion had been around 4 per cent in the sixteenth century. The 'State without Stakes' was increasingly belying its reputation, in parallel to the decline in its tolerance of religious diversity. The executions ended only with a Polish royal decree in 1776, by which time perhaps around a thousand people had died, a similar figure to that in Hungary and Transylvania through the same period. The eastern persecutions were being fuelled by new crises and social tensions in the lands where Habsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollern were remaking the map and disposing of ancient political rivals. The pattern in eastern Europe was different again: the paranoia started later, lasted longer and in fact climaxed in the eighteenth century. By then half of those charged with witchcraft in now strongly Catholic Poland ended up being burned, whereas the proportion had been around 4 per cent in the sixteenth century. The 'State without Stakes' was increasingly belying its reputation, in parallel to the decline in its tolerance of religious diversity. The executions ended only with a Polish royal decree in 1776, by which time perhaps around a thousand people had died, a similar figure to that in Hungary and Transylvania through the same period. The eastern persecutions were being fuelled by new crises and social tensions in the lands where Habsburg, Romanov and Hohenzollern were remaking the map and disposing of ancient political rivals.

By the end of the seventeenth century, despite losses to Russian Orthodoxy in the east, far more of the religious life of Europe was under Catholic obedience than in 1600. There had been a number of political milestones on that journey: the Union of Brest in 1596, which had seemed to absorb most of the Orthodox of eastern Europe into the Catholic Church; the Battle of White Mountain, which had crushed Bohemian Utraquism in 1620; the Treaty of Westphalia, which restricted Protestant recovery of territory in 1648; the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, which repudiated Henri IV's generous vision of two Christian confessions coexisting in a single kingdom. The story was partly of war, high diplomacy, official persecution and coercion; but it was also the result of much patient missionary work, preaching, rebuilding of a devotional life part traditional and part as innovative as anything Protestants did. And those Jesuits, friars or secular priests who laboured in the forests and plains of eastern Europe, or tried to spark fresh vigour into Church life in secretive villages down the heel of Italy, were encouraged to do so because they knew that they were part of a still wider mission. Not for nothing did the Jesuits refer to the remote parts of Europe in which they laboured as the 'Indies' - because the Society had also reached Indies overseas, both India and lands newly named and hitherto unknown to Europeans. The missionary goal was to make a reality of Pope Gregory VII's ancient vision: to see the world turning in obedience to the Church ruled over by Christ's Vicar on earth.

19.

A Worldwide Faith (1500-1800) IBERIAN EMPIRES: THE WESTERN CHURCH EXPORTED.

The distinctive Christianity of Spain and Portugal in the Iberian peninsula, which during the fifteenth century had destroyed the last non-Christian societies in western Europe, simultaneously began to extend Western Christendom beyond its historic frontiers across the sea. Their successes were in sharp contrast to Christian defeats and contraction in the East. The Portuguese took the lead: their seafaring expertise was forced on them by their exposed position on the Atlantic seaboard and by their homeland's agricultural poverty, but they also had a tradition of successful crusading against Islam. They began in North Africa, capturing the Moroccan commercial centre of Ceuta in 1415, and went on to contest for dominance in African trade, seeing their efforts as a fight for Christianity as well as a quest for wealth. Portuguese s.h.i.+ps soon became more ambitious, fuelled in their adventures by the optimistic myth of 'Prester John', an unbeatable ally against Islam (see pp. 284-5), and although he never fulfilled European hopes, the galvanizing effect was enough. The Portuguese eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, reaching India by 1498 and sailing around the Chinese coast by 1513. In 1500 they made their first landing on the east coast of what later became their colony of Brazil.

Once abroad, the Portuguese turned their crusading ethos to religious intolerance as extreme as anywhere in western Europe. Having established a secure Indian base in Goa in 1510, they ma.s.sacred six thousand Muslims, and by mid-century they had also forbidden the practice of Hinduism in Portuguese royal dominions; for good measure they despised and severely hara.s.sed the heretical 'Nestorian' Dyophysite Christians of India.1 If later Christian missions based on the worldwide Portuguese Empire showed a certain humility and caution in their operations, it was largely because the Portuguese never overcame their poverty. Their empire, run on a shoestring, consisted of a motley collection of fortified but under-garrisoned coastal trading posts. The historian Garrett Mattingly once unkindly but accurately commented that by the mid-sixteenth century the King of Portugal had become the proprietor of 'a bankrupt wholesale grocery business'. If later Christian missions based on the worldwide Portuguese Empire showed a certain humility and caution in their operations, it was largely because the Portuguese never overcame their poverty. Their empire, run on a shoestring, consisted of a motley collection of fortified but under-garrisoned coastal trading posts. The historian Garrett Mattingly once unkindly but accurately commented that by the mid-sixteenth century the King of Portugal had become the proprietor of 'a bankrupt wholesale grocery business'.2 Consequently the Portuguese usually lacked the military power to impose Christianity over widespread territories or on their African or Asian neighbours, with significant consequences for missionary strategy (see pp. 704-9). Consequently the Portuguese usually lacked the military power to impose Christianity over widespread territories or on their African or Asian neighbours, with significant consequences for missionary strategy (see pp. 704-9).

The frayed texture of Portuguese empire-building contrasted with spectacular parallel achievements under the Spanish monarchy. In 1492, the same year that the Muslim kingdom of Granada fell, the adventurer Christopher Columbus rewarded Fernando and Isabel's trust by making landfall across the Atlantic on islands in the Caribbean. His achievement caused tension with the Portuguese, which prompted Pope Alexander VI (a former subject of King Fernando) to part.i.tion the map of the world vertically between the two powers in 1493, intending the Spaniards to enjoy the fruits of their new discoveries westwards. As the King of Portugal remained aggrieved at the result, the kingdoms revised this agreement in 1494 with the Treaty of Tordesillas. Uncertain conditions of mapmaking meant that the revised line was still not as clear a division through Atlantic waters as intended, and the Portuguese were later able successfully to appeal to the geographical bounds established at Tordesillas when they established their transatlantic colony of Brazil. Nevertheless, the bulk of westward activity was Spanish (technically their new dominions became part of the kingdom of Castile), while the Portuguese put most of their efforts into Africa and Asia. Over the next three decades the Spaniards realized that their westward discoveries promised not merely Columbus's scattering of islands, but a whole continent.

An important part of this militantly Latin Christian enterprise was the promotion of its faith among peoples now encountered, although Ferdinand and Isabel had originally envisaged evangelizing Asia (hence the Spanish named the native peoples 'Indios', in allusion to Columbus's ever more desperately messianic belief that G.o.d had sailed him to Asia). Pope Julius II further granted the Spanish monarchy a Patronato Patronato, exclusive rights to preach the Gospel in its new territories: a major step in a gradual papal abdication of real authority within Spanish dominions. He granted the Portuguese a similar right in their empire, the Padroado Padroado, and his successors rapidly regretted both concessions, without being able to withdraw them. Now good intentions clashed with naked greed and brutality.

There had in fact been a precedent both well intentioned and ultimately unhappy. The earliest Western conquests and missionary work outside continental Europe were in the Canary Islands off the west coast of Africa, while successive Iberian powers fought for mastery there up to a Castilian conquest in the 1480s - the Canaries were the first place in which medieval Europeans encountered the Stone Age. Even before the Castilian conquest, there were missionary friars in the Canaries, first Aragonese Catalans and Majorcans, latterly Franciscans from Castile's southernmost province, Andalusia; their behaviour contrasted with that of later Portuguese in Africa. They spoke out strongly against enslaving native people who had converted to Christianity, and sometimes made a leap of imagination to oppose enslaving those who had not converted. They also persuaded the authorities in Rome to allow ordination of natives. But in any case, in a sad antic.i.p.ation of what was to happen elsewhere in Iberian conquests, by the sixteenth century most of the indigenous people were dead from European diseases, and some had been deported to Spain as troublemakers.3 Franciscan att.i.tudes in the Canaries offered possible precedents for what Europe now came to call 'the New World', or, through a somewhat tangled chain of circ.u.mstances, 'America'.4 One problem with improving on the Canary Islands model was the contrasting and appalling record of military adventurers who undertook Spain's forward movement in America: notably Hernan Cortes against the Aztecs in Central America and Francisco Pizarro against the Inkas of Peru. Many who took part in these unsavoury and unprovoked feats of treachery, theft and genocide saw themselves as agents of the crusade begun back home with the One problem with improving on the Canary Islands model was the contrasting and appalling record of military adventurers who undertook Spain's forward movement in America: notably Hernan Cortes against the Aztecs in Central America and Francisco Pizarro against the Inkas of Peru. Many who took part in these unsavoury and unprovoked feats of treachery, theft and genocide saw themselves as agents of the crusade begun back home with the Reconquista Reconquista, the destruction of Spanish Islam and Judaism. Crusading rhetoric there was in plenty, but there was something else. It has been well said that the Spanish Empire is unequalled in history among similar great territorial enterprises for its insistent questioning of its own rights to conquer and colonize.5 From 1500 there were Franciscans in America, and within a decade Dominicans had also arrived. Very soon the Dominicans began protesting against the vicious treatment of the natives. The authorities at home did go some way to responding to such appeals to conscience. As early as 1500 Fernando and Isabel formally forbade enslavement of their subjects in America and the Canaries. The Laws of Burgos tried in 1512 to lay down guidelines for relations, and even created a set of 'rules of engagement' for further conquests: newly contacted peoples were to be publicly read (in Spanish) a so-called Requirement, formally explaining the bulls of Alexander VI which granted Spain overlords.h.i.+p of their territory. If they cooperated and agreed that Christianity could freely be taught among them, then no force would be used against them. From 1500 there were Franciscans in America, and within a decade Dominicans had also arrived. Very soon the Dominicans began protesting against the vicious treatment of the natives. The authorities at home did go some way to responding to such appeals to conscience. As early as 1500 Fernando and Isabel formally forbade enslavement of their subjects in America and the Canaries. The Laws of Burgos tried in 1512 to lay down guidelines for relations, and even created a set of 'rules of engagement' for further conquests: newly contacted peoples were to be publicly read (in Spanish) a so-called Requirement, formally explaining the bulls of Alexander VI which granted Spain overlords.h.i.+p of their territory. If they cooperated and agreed that Christianity could freely be taught among them, then no force would be used against them.

Alas, the atrocious exploits of Cortes and Pizarro postdated the Laws of Burgos. The friars' fury at the injustice continued. Their most eloquent spokesman was a former colonial official and plantation owner, Bartolome de las Casas, galvanized out of making money by hearing a Dominican sermon about the wickedness of what he and his fellow colonists were doing. The shock turned him to ordination, and he made it his especial task for half a century from 1514 to defend the natives - he became a Dominican himself in 1522. He won sympathy from the aged Cardinal Ximenes; later his insistence that native Americans were as rational beings as Spaniards, rather than inferior versions of humanity naturally fitted for slavery, sufficiently impressed the Emperor Charles V that debates were staged at the imperial Spanish capital at Valladolid on the morality of colonization (with inconclusive results).

Las Casas insisted that Augustine of Hippo's gloss on the biblical text 'Compel them to come in' (see p. 304) was simply wrong: Jesus had not intended conversion to his 'joyful tidings' to be a matter of 'arms and bombardments' but of 'reason and human persuasion'.6 His writings about Spanish barbarity in America were so angry and eloquent that ironically they became part of the general Protestant stereotype of Spaniards as a naturally cruel race. At one stage he suggested a fateful remedy for the exploitation of native labour: African slaves should be imported to replace natives on plantations, radically extending the slave trade which the Portuguese had pioneered in the previous century. Las Casas eventually realized his mistake, but it was too late. His writings about Spanish barbarity in America were so angry and eloquent that ironically they became part of the general Protestant stereotype of Spaniards as a naturally cruel race. At one stage he suggested a fateful remedy for the exploitation of native labour: African slaves should be imported to replace natives on plantations, radically extending the slave trade which the Portuguese had pioneered in the previous century. Las Casas eventually realized his mistake, but it was too late.7 Here idealism trying to end one injustice blundered unhappily into colluding with a genocidal crime of three centuries' duration, whose consequences are still built into the politics of both Americas. Here idealism trying to end one injustice blundered unhappily into colluding with a genocidal crime of three centuries' duration, whose consequences are still built into the politics of both Americas.

Rather more equivocally expressed, but equally important for Latin Europe's future relations with other world civilizations, was the work of a Dominican who never saw the 'New World'. Francisco de Vitoria, for the last two decades of his life highly influential as the leading theologian in Salamanca University, built on earlier Dominican thought to consider what was happening in America in the light of 'just war' theory. Conventional Christian legal wisdom saw nothing wrong in enslaving non-Christians captured in a just war, but there seemed to Vitoria little that was just in the idea of a crusade, particularly in its exploitation in America. War was only justified as a response to inflicted wrong, and the various peoples of America had offered no wrong to Spaniards before the Spaniards decided to move in on their territory. The Aztec practice of human sacrifice did offer a different justification for Spanish action in Central America, since it was a clear offence against universal natural law. There were other possible interpretations of wrong: resistance to preaching the Gospel, for instance, once the intention to do so had been proclaimed in the Requirement. Vitoria also considered authority within commonwealths. He discussed it in terms of sovereignty, a ruler's untrammelled power within the boundaries of a commonwealth or state. Such sovereign commonwealths need not be Christian: Aztecs or Ottomans were as sovereign as Fernando and Isabel. If so, Pope Alexander had no right to grant sovereignty in America to Spaniards in 1493, at the same time as he perfectly legitimately granted them exclusive rights to preach the Gospel. Such reasoning (coming from an Iberian Catholic tradition which had already put the pope firmly in his place) was a clear denial of that idea of universal papal monarchy which had originally fuelled Western Christendom's unity in the twelfth century.

Vitoria's discussions had a wider application. He was pioneering the concept of a system of international law, based on the older idea of ius gentium ius gentium ('the law of peoples/nations'), the legal principles applicable to humans everywhere. His a.s.sertions heralded the end of belief in the crusade as a means of extending Western Christendom, just when Europe began a wider mission to spread its particular brand of Christianity throughout the world. The question would soon arise as to whether Western Christianity was completely identical with authentic Christianity, but there was more to the development of international law than this. Western European political thought was to develop a relativistic concept of dealing with other cultures and other political units - eventually without reference to their religious beliefs or any sense that one religion was superior to another. Vitoria would have profoundly disapproved of this development, but it emerged as a consequence of Iberian worldwide adventures. ('the law of peoples/nations'), the legal principles applicable to humans everywhere. His a.s.sertions heralded the end of belief in the crusade as a means of extending Western Christendom, just when Europe began a wider mission to spread its particular brand of Christianity throughout the world. The question would soon arise as to whether Western Christianity was completely identical with authentic Christianity, but there was more to the development of international law than this. Western European political thought was to develop a relativistic concept of dealing with other cultures and other political units - eventually without reference to their religious beliefs or any sense that one religion was superior to another. Vitoria would have profoundly disapproved of this development, but it emerged as a consequence of Iberian worldwide adventures.

Christian mission nevertheless proceeded backed by military force: first in Central America including modern-day Mexico, which remained the flags.h.i.+p Spanish territory and was therefore styled New Spain, and later in South America. In large part because of the friars' scruples, there was no systematic intention to obliterate pre-Christian structures in government and society: a number of peoples allied with the Spaniards against their neighbours, or came to a deal with the newcomers, and preserved autonomous forms of government. Much destruction resulted not from Spanish arms but from a much more devastating weapon which Westerners did not even realize they possessed, the diseases they were carrying. No major native American kingdom succ.u.mbed to the Spaniards before disease took hold, but once it had, the effect was crippling, and maybe half the population of the Americas died in the first wave of epidemics. That in itself was a powerful argument to bewildered and terrified people that their G.o.ds were useless and that the G.o.d of the conquerors had won. It has been estimated that by 1550 around ten million people had been baptized as Christians in the Americas. Another informed and sobering estimate is that by 1800 indigenous populations in the western hemisphere were a tenth of what they had been three centuries before.8 [image]

20. The Iberian worldwide empires in 1600 [image]

COUNTER-REFORMATION IN A NEW WORLD.

The Council of Trent said nothing in its official statements about the world mission of the renewed Catholic Church, but this mission became one of the most distinctive features of southern European Catholicism, a project of taking Christianity to every continent, which made Roman Catholicism Western Christianity's largest grouping, and the Spanish and Portuguese languages the chief modern rivals to English as the mode of Western communication. Trent's silence seems all the more surprising since Catholic world mission had been in operation for over half a century when the council met - this was not like the council's silence on the menace of militant Calvinism, which had only emerged as a real threat just before its last session. Committees are even more p.r.o.ne than individuals to miss the point in the business in front of them, but it is worth observing that there was little that Rome could do about mission - at the beginning of the century, the papacy had signed away control of Catholic activity. Ignatius Loyola was characteristically more farsighted: it was no coincidence that Portugal was one of the first kingdoms on which he concentrated the efforts of his infant Society, founding as early as 1540 a headquarters in Lisbon and only two years later a Jesuit college for missionary training, set up with royal encouragement in the university town of Coimbra. A new world mission based on Portugal would more than compensate for his abortive plans for the Holy Land.

While the Jesuits rapidly began following up their initial advantage in Portuguese territories in Africa, Asia and Brazil, they were comparatively late into the Spanish Empire, since the Spanish Inquisition for a couple of decades after the Society's foundation remained suspicious of an organization whose leader had twice briefly spent time in their prison cells. The Society only began arriving in the 1560s and 1570s, after more than half a century in which Franciscan and Dominican missions had been forced to think out a new theology of mission. Western Catholicism had limited experience to draw on; the last great ventures had been by the friars in Central Asia during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries (see pp. 272-5). Apart from that not very fruitful precedent and small beginnings in the Canaries, only the officially sponsored changes of religion in medieval Lithuania and Spain provided any reference point.

America presented a complex weave of powers and hierarchies which the missionaries needed to navigate with care. The Spaniards were very ready to distinguish between tribal societies and the sophistication of city-based cultures with recognizable aristocracies like their own. In such urban settings, they might very willingly strike marriage alliances with members of the local elites, in a notable contrast with the att.i.tudes of Protestant English colonists in North America. Maybe Spaniards were simply more secure in their own culture than Tudor and Stuart Englishmen, who were products of one of Europe's more marginal and second-rank monarchies, and conscious that they had failed badly in their effort at cultural a.s.similation in their neighbouring island of Ireland. 9 9 The nephew of Ignatius Loyola, Martn Garca de Loyola, symbolizes the complexity in Spanish America. He led the expedition which in 1572 seized the last independent Inka ruler in Peru, Tupac Amaru, and executed him in the Inka capital, Cuzco, but Loyola also eventually married Beatriz, Tupac's great-niece. Their politically motivated nuptials were proudly commemorated (and idealized away from a murky reality) in a portrait which is still one of the most remarkable features of the Jesuit Church in Cuzco (see Plate 59). In it there stand beside the Spanish newcomers the Inka grandees in their traditional finery, but also duly equipped with the blazons of European heraldry. The nephew of Ignatius Loyola, Martn Garca de Loyola, symbolizes the complexity in Spanish America. He led the expedition which in 1572 seized the last independent Inka ruler in Peru, Tupac Amaru, and executed him in the Inka capital, Cuzco, but Loyola also eventually married Beatriz, Tupac's great-niece. Their politically motivated nuptials were proudly commemorated (and idealized away from a murky reality) in a portrait which is still one of the most remarkable features of the Jesuit Church in Cuzco (see Plate 59). In it there stand beside the Spanish newcomers the Inka grandees in their traditional finery, but also duly equipped with the blazons of European heraldry.10 As Christianity took shape in the new setting, it was hardly surprising that even those most concerned to protect the native 'Indio' populations brought with them the exclusive att.i.tudes of their Christian monopoly culture when dealing with the religions that they found. Sometimes one encounters echoes of Spain's non-Christian past, some presumably the result of craftsmen bringing their own style from Europe: for instance, the intricate Moorish abstract designs decorating the ceilings of the Franciscan church at Tlaxcala in New Spain (modern-day Mexico), which was built in the 1530s for a people who had done well out of a military alliance with the Spaniards against the Aztecs. More common was a conscious appropriation of important pre-Christian sacred sites, neutralizing or converting them by building major churches. The model was actually the missionary practice of Augustine of Canterbury's mission to the Anglo-Saxons back around 600 CE, with Pope Gregory's famous advice to Augustine's team of clergy to do precisely this - there were plenty of good libraries in Spanish America's rapidly developed network of colleges and universities where Bede's Ecclesiastical History Ecclesiastical History might be consulted. might be consulted.11 Not far from Tlaxcala in the highlands of New Spain is the sacred city of Cholula, whose princes made a treaty with the Spaniards after fierce resistance. It boasts amid its pre-Conquest pyramids a formidable array of churches, and the former chief temple, the largest man-made pyramid in the world, is now crowned by the Church of Our Lady of Succour: one place of sacrifice transformed into another. One Dominican, Diego Duran, even envisaged turning the great stone basin supposedly previously used for human sacrifice in Tenocht.i.tlan (Mexico City) into a font: 'I think it good that . . . what used to be a container of human blood, sacrificed to the devil, may now be the container of the Holy Spirit. There the souls of Christians will be cleansed, and there they will receive the waters of baptism.' Not far from Tlaxcala in the highlands of New Spain is the sacred city of Cholula, whose princes made a treaty with the Spaniards after fierce resistance. It boasts amid its pre-Conquest pyramids a formidable array of churches, and the former chief temple, the largest man-made pyramid in the world, is now crowned by the Church of Our Lady of Succour: one place of sacrifice transformed into another. One Dominican, Diego Duran, even envisaged turning the great stone basin supposedly previously used for human sacrifice in Tenocht.i.tlan (Mexico City) into a font: 'I think it good that . . . what used to be a container of human blood, sacrificed to the devil, may now be the container of the Holy Spirit. There the souls of Christians will be cleansed, and there they will receive the waters of baptism.'12 The most remarkable church in Cholula is the Capilla Real Capilla Real, built in the 1540s for the far-off Emperor Charles V as his symbolic Chapel Royal, but also as a gift to the defeated n.o.bility of the region. This presents a complicated message about past and present. It is unlike any Christian church building in Europe, for inside and out it is a deliberate replica of the Grand Mosque of Cordoba, without obvious orientation or liturgical focus, and with the same forest of arches inside and vast courtyard outside. Back home, Spanish Catholics had crushed Islam and turned mosques into churches. Now in New Spain they had crushed other false G.o.ds and conquered the native princes. So, here in Cholula, they celebrated a new victory in the same way by building the princes a church which looked like a mosque. Significantly, Cortes in his forays through the region habitually referred to the native temples he encountered as 'mosques'.13 While this building of the While this building of the capilla capilla at Cholula had a few companions in New Spain, there were many more parallels for its great square courtyard, with open corner chapels for devotional stations in processions ( at Cholula had a few companions in New Spain, there were many more parallels for its great square courtyard, with open corner chapels for devotional stations in processions (capillas posas), partly because of the courtyard's utility for an open-air wors.h.i.+p which presented Latin liturgy in a setting where many in the crowd might not have been baptized. Such courtyards have no exact precedent in Christian Spain, but they recall another Islamic building known to Spanish pilgrims, the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. At the time that structure was widely considered to be the Palace of Solomon, and so a second message of the Capilla Real Capilla Real and its courtyard may be that a New Jerusalem could be found in Cholula for a new Christian people - just at the moment in the 1540s when so many souls were being lost to Protestantism in Europe. and its courtyard may be that a New Jerusalem could be found in Cholula for a new Christian people - just at the moment in the 1540s when so many souls were being lost to Protestantism in Europe.14 The Spanish mission in America soon became not so much crusade as apocalypse. Franciscans coming from Iberia were particularly p.r.o.ne to the millenarian enthusiasm which gripped southern Europe around 1500, and which the Franciscan Order had so long fostered. They believed that they were living in the End Times and so their task of bringing good news to new peoples was desperately urgent (Chancellor Gattinara was not the only cleric to identify Charles V with the Emperor of the Last Days). In much of New Spain, an entirely new pattern of settlements of villages and towns was laid out on a grid plan - again, the ideal plan of a perfect Jerusalem - each centring on a church. This redrew the map of Central America, in a fas.h.i.+on which had no precedent in the architecture of old Europe and which, in its social engineering, made it impossible to separate out religious from secular concerns.15 Nothing could be further from the clergy's minds than any need for Christianity to develop a long-term strategy of coexistence with other world faiths; there was no more room for rival religions in the 'New World' than back in Spain. When clergy noticed curious a.n.a.logies in Aztec religion with Christian practice - an apparent sign of the cross, or belief in the virgin birth of a G.o.d - such similarities did not inspire them to inter-faith dialogue. These devices mocked and deceived G.o.d's Church in Satan's struggle against G.o.d's imminent Second Coming. Nothing could be further from the clergy's minds than any need for Christianity to develop a long-term strategy of coexistence with other world faiths; there was no more room for rival religions in the 'New World' than back in Spain. When clergy noticed curious a.n.a.logies in Aztec religion with Christian practice - an apparent sign of the cross, or belief in the virgin birth of a G.o.d - such similarities did not inspire them to inter-faith dialogue. These devices mocked and deceived G.o.d's Church in Satan's struggle against G.o.d's imminent Second Coming.16 Apocalyptic fervour merged with Dominican concerns for legalities. Since Dominicans like Vitoria denied that the pope had the right to grant temporal rights of conquest in the New World in 1493, they were driven to stress the rationale of what he had done in terms of bringing the good news of Christianity and banis.h.i.+ng Satan. Yet sometimes their very anxiety to destroy the demonic quality of the religion they found affected their message: anxious to banish the wors.h.i.+p of the sun, priests appropriated sun imagery to the Christian Eucharist. One result seems to have been a notable stylistic innovation affecting the entire Tridentine Catholic world: eucharistic monstrances (vessels for displaying the consecrated wafer) which place their Host-container at the centre of a golden sunburst. Some of the earliest surviving examples were manufactured in the Spanish New World and imported back to Europe, and they were common in the Americas before they were in the Old World. They remain one of the most recognizable symbols of Tridentine Catholicism. Apocalyptic fervour merged with Dominican concerns for legalities. Since Dominicans like Vitoria denied that the pope had the right to grant temporal rights of conquest in the New World in 1493, they were driven to stress the rationale of what he had done in terms of bringing the good news of Christianity and banis.h.i.+ng Satan. Yet sometimes their very anxiety to destroy the demonic quality of the religion they found affected their message: anxious to banish the wors.h.i.+p of the sun, priests appropriated sun imagery to the Christian Eucharist. One result seems to have been a notable stylistic innovation affecting the entire Tridentine Catholic world: eucharistic monstrances (vessels for displaying the consecrated wafer) which place their Host-container at the centre of a golden sunburst. Some of the earliest surviving examples were manufactured in the Spanish New World and imported back to Europe, and they were common in the Americas before they were in the Old World. They remain one of the most recognizable symbols of Tridentine Catholicism.17 Clerical att.i.tudes to indigenous cults hardened from the 1530s. In 1541 and 1546, major uprisings among the Maya of Yucatan were directed against all things Spanish, including Catholicism; they involved savage revenge attacks on the Spanish settler population and were naturally suppressed with equal cruelty. In 1562, Franciscan missionaries in Yucatan discovered that some of their converts were continuing secretly to practise pre-Conquest religious rites. It was bad enough to find that people had been burying figures of the old G.o.ds next to crosses so that they could go on publicly wors.h.i.+pping them undetected, but those questioned reported cases of human sacrifice, some including crucifixions, staged with satirical blasphemy during the Christian solemnities of Holy Week. The Franciscan provincial Diego de Landa set up a local Inquisition which unleashed a campaign of interrogation and torture on the Indio population. A newly appointed bishop, horrified at zeal gone wild, abruptly stripped de Landa of his authority, and put a stop to the atrocities, but the Maya had already paid a terrible price.18 The effect of such disappointments was that Spanish clergy radically limited their trust in the natives. Indigenous people might become a.s.sistants in the liturgy, but never princ.i.p.als - catechists, sacristans, cantors and instrumentalists, not priests. At first, native men were not even allowed to enter religious orders. A problem arose which has remained constant for the Catholic Church entering new cultures (see p. 884): compulsory celibacy for the priesthood, restated with renewed vigour in the Counter-Reformation, was an alien idea in most cultures. Only in the eighteenth century did significant numbers of indigenous men become priests, at a time when consciously non-Christian religious practice in peoples under Spanish control had long ceased.19 There were even serious debates throughout the sixteenth century as to whether natives should be banned from receiving the eucharistic Host when they came to Ma.s.s - after all, European laity only did so once a year, while these people were barely fit to be considered full Christians. There were even serious debates throughout the sixteenth century as to whether natives should be banned from receiving the eucharistic Host when they came to Ma.s.s - after all, European laity only did so once a year, while these people were barely fit to be considered full Christians.20 In South America, first under Portuguese rule in Brazil and then in the south-eastern Spanish territories, Jesuits treated their hunter-gatherer converts almost as children, organizing them into large settlements to protect them against the greed and exploitation of the other colonists, but always in a benevolent European-led dictators.h.i.+p of estates, the 'Reductions'. When the Jesuits were forcibly expelled from the Americas in 1767, they left their natives without any experience of leaders.h.i.+p, and the carefully structured communities in the Reductions quickly collapsed. Only in Bolivia did priests of supposedly pure Spanish blood (Creoles) manage to carry on similar work after the Jesuits had left. In South America, first under Portuguese rule in Brazil and then in the south-eastern Spanish territories, Jesuits treated their hunter-gatherer converts almost as children, organizing them into large settlements to protect them against the greed and exploitation of the other colonists, but always in a benevolent European-led dictators.h.i.+p of estates, the 'Reductions'. When the Jesuits were forcibly expelled from the Americas in 1767, they left their natives without any experience of leaders.h.i.+p, and the carefully structured communities in the Reductions quickly collapsed. Only in Bolivia did priests of supposedly pure Spanish blood (Creoles) manage to carry on similar work after the Jesuits had left.21 Within this framework, the Church did achieve a remarkable degree of synthesis between Christianity and what it allowed to survive from native culture. Naturally friars and Jesuits worked with the languages which they found, particularly since they were reluctant to open natives up to unhealthy influences from colonists by teaching them Spanish. They had utterly different priorities from the Protestant Reformation's insistence on the vernacular. Protestants would demand vernacular Bibles, but for Tridentine Catholics, not even vernacular preaching mattered as much as safeguarding the confidentiality of sacramental confession: if a priest heard a penitent's confession through an interpreter, many felt that it made a mockery of the sacrament. As missionaries developed their vernacular work, they tended to privilege certain languages in order to simplify their task, choosing for instance in New Spain the former official lingua franca of Nahuatl. Sometimes they imported into these languages some Latin theological terms, such as the Latin anima anima for soul, to avoid further conscious or unconscious local syncretism with pre-Christian concepts - there were just too many possible conceptions of 'soul' in Nahuatl to risk using any native words. Nevertheless, priests recognized that too much borrowing like this might cause pastoral problems, so one early-seventeenth-century guide for priest-confessors suggested that they talk to their penitents about h.e.l.l using a choice of Nahuatl words: for soul, to avoid further conscious or unconscious local syncretism with pre-Christian concepts - there were just too many possible conceptions of 'soul' in Nahuatl to risk using any native words. Nevertheless, priests recognized that too much borrowing like this might cause pastoral problems, so one early-seventeenth-century guide for priest-confessors suggested that they talk to their penitents about h.e.l.l using a choice of Nahuatl words: Mictlan Mictlan (Place of the Dead), or more picturesquely (Place of the Dead), or more picturesquely Atlecalocan Atlecalocan (Place without a Chimney) or (Place without a Chimney) or Apochquiahuayocan Apochquiahuayocan (Place without a Smoke Vent). (Place without a Smoke Vent).22 Above all, missionaries realized that after the traumas of the conquest and epidemics, they must show that there was joy and celebration in the new religion. Frequently they turned their catechisms into song, just as the Jesuit Francis Xavier in India turned the creed into poetry for recital, and out of these initiatives sprang a vibrant indigenous tradition of music in church; many clergy also encouraged the Indios to dance, even inside the church buildings.23 In the mult.i.tude of new churches, the extrovert art and architecture of the developed Counter-Reformation gleefully fused with native artistic traditions to create some of the most sumptuous monuments of the Catholic world (see Plate 60). Catholic festival days were soon a.s.similated as community celebrations. In Peru, where the pre-Conquest aristocracy survived, Inka n.o.bles might send their daughters to convent school to receive a good Spanish education from Creole nuns, but then on Corpus Christi day or the like, the n.o.bles joined the euc