Sociedad y gobierno episcopal: las visitas del Obispo Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo (Cuzco, 1674–1687) (review)

Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo is well known to scholars of colonial Peru as the “obispo mecenas,” patron of the arts during his long tenure as bishop of Cuzco (1673–99). In this fascinating book, Pedro Guibovich Pérez and Luis Eduardo Wuffarden provide a much richer view, both of the bishop and of the rural highland areas he visited between 1674 and 1687. Such pastoral visitations were more the exception than the rule, as Guibovich notes in his historical introduction. Mollinedo’s were unusually thorough (see maps following p. 67). With his entourage, he braved treacherous roads and freezing weather—even lightning strikes, which fell inside the church in Azángaro as he was celebrating Mass, terrifying parishioners and raising a cloud of dust and an “intolerable stench” (p. 80). His aim was to improve the spiritual care of his flock, “new sheep in the Christian religion,” who thus “needed more than any others the visitation and presence of their shepherd” (p. 71; translation mine). This meant both removing anything he saw as an impediment to their spiritual progress and adding whatever would advance it.

Mollinedo’s travels gave him a close view of conditions in Cuzco’s rural parishes or doctrinas. The heart of the book is a transcription of his detailed reports, made from copies in Seville’s Archive of the Indies (pp. 69–232). These contain surprises large and small on almost every page. In Quiquijana in 1674, for example, the bishop orders the local priest to “remove the habits from certain Indian women who, calling themselves Franciscan beatas, wore them while living in community” (p. 72). While in San Sebastián, Andahuaylillas, and Caycay in 1687, Mollinedo orders the royal fringe or mascapaycha, a symbol of Inca authority, to be removed from images of the Niño Jesús (pp. 142, 146, 150). Here and elsewhere, we see that a distinctive Andean Christianity has taken shape, not always along lines acceptable to the ecclesiastical authorities.

As Mollinedo went from parish to parish, he devoted special attention not only to the priests (whose name and age he recorded) but also to the finances of each: the income churches received annually and its sources; priests’ additional sources of income; how many head of livestock in the herds that supported each church or confraternity. A detailed, uneven picture emerges. In some places, account books were adequately kept; in others, the most recent official visitor had merely left blank pages with his signature at the bottom for the priest to fill in (pp. 73, 77). Some parishes boasted half a dozen or more thriving confraternities while others had none. Where there were none, Mollinedo made sure to establish two: one for the Santísimo Sacramento and another for the Souls of Purgatory. Simultaneously, Wuffarden argues, Mollinedo advanced an iconographic agenda and promoted a visual politics that aligned him with Spain’s faltering Habsburg dynasty. At the local level, this meant raising numerous churches, as well as elaborate pulpits, paintings, and other artistic expressions meant to enhance the decorum and “decency” of the sacraments.

The bishop’s visitations also point to local-level tensions and flash points—for example, between priests and the local magistrates, or corregidores, who might both be avid for indigenous laborers to work their fields, pasture their herds, and satisfy tribute and labor quotas. The bishop was critical of the regular clergy who were still in control of many highland doctrinas, whether Mercedarians, Augustinians, or Dominicans (pp. 28–29). Even more conspicuous was the problem of debt to the church and its confraternities. Obviously the church provided a means of credit that was frequently abused by powerful local people. Whenever he found outstanding debt payments on the books, Mollinedo ordered the debtors to pay up. He also...