Shrines and Miraculous Images: Religious Life in Mexico Before the Reforma

4: Places of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Eighteenth-Century Mexico

117 4 Places of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Eighteenth-Century Mexico the main story of guadalupanismo in mexico during the eighteenth century is one of vigorous promotion and widespread devotion in which the 1730s, 1740s, and 1750s were the watershed. early in the great epidemic of 1737 peninsular Archbishop-Viceroy Juan Antonio de Vizarrón y eguiarreta, already a devotee, proclaimed our Lady of guadalupe patroness of Mexico City and New Spain and renewed the campaign for papal recognition of the apparition story.1 His initiatives were well received at home and abroad, culminating in a papal bull of 1754 in which Pope benedict XiV officially announced the miracle and recognized Mary of guadalupe as patroness of New Spain, borrowing the words of Psalm 147, “Non fecit taliter omni nationi” (He [god] has favored no other people in this way).2 A closer consideration of how the devotion grew in the eighteenth century, especially how it grew without tepeyac yet becoming a magnet for pilgrims from distant places, is the aim of this essay. in order to highlight the main points, most of the primary sources that substantiate them are left in the notes, usually with examples rather than an exhaustive listing of cases. Promotion and Growth by just about any measure a historian can summon, the devotion seems to have grown as never before after 1754. great celebrations of thanksgiving 118 part ii were ordered and undertaken in the cities of the viceroyalty after the bull was published in America in 1756. Soon every diocesan capital had a shrine to our Lady of guadalupe, and many other towns and occupational groups received licenses to construct their own church or resplendent altar to guadalupe.3 Holders of the winning tickets in the gran Sorteo Piadoso de Nuestra Señora de guadalupe, the blockbuster raffle to benefit the shrine in 1800, came from distant Durango, Veracruz, and Valladolid, as well as Mexico City.4 Some towns turned to guadalupe instead of the saints they had traditionally favored5 ; a veritable flood of devotional literature was published6 ; prints and painted copies of the image dating from 1740 to 1810 survive in far greater numbers in churches, archives, and private collections than from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and more are recorded in church inventories and wills of all classes of people in the late eighteenth century.7 Thousands of houses, probably tens or hundreds of thousands, boasted a painting or cheap print of the image over a home altar. young scholars at the university in Mexico City dedicated their academic theses to our Lady of guadalupe in unprecedented numbers after 1754. More places were named or renamed for her; guadalupe became a widely popular baptismal name for the first time8 ; and her presence was reported more often in events regarded as miracles, including healings, rescues , and sightings of the image in nature from the 1750s forward.9 one of these miraculous events, in 1783, put the spotlight on the shrine at tepeyac. That year a hot spring suddenly welled up from behind the main altar, bringing forth a fine oil as well as water.10 growing attention to the site of the original apparitions is indicated also by the rebuilding of the Capilla del Cerrito in 1749; groundbreaking for a new camarín (dressing room) in 177811 ; provision for repairs and maintenance of the original sixteenthcentury chapel in 178412 ; construction of a Capuchin convent next to the church from 1781–1787; and the exquisite Capilla del Pocito, begun in 1777 and completed in 1791. As guadalupe became more widely known and celebrated she was invoked for protection in new circumstances reaching far beyond her traditional role in turning back floodwaters. Throughout the eighteenth century , but especially after 1760, she was celebrated in New Spain as one of god’s chosen captains in Spain’s international wars.13 She guarded against fire and illness, and she protected miners and helped them find rich veins of ore.14 one sermonizer thought that her downcast eyes made her a natural protector against earthquakes. by midcentury she had become an 119 our lady of guadalupe all-purpose protector. in his sermon of 1741 Nicolás de Segura recommended her favor to the people of New Spain “in all their ailments” (en todas sus dolencias), and in his 1756 sermon Juan José de eguiara y eguren declared that her embrace was all-encompassing—“She...