Christian Works : Nahuatl-Latin Lectionary

Christian Works

This manuscript is a translation of the Latin epistles and New Testament gospels into Nahuatl, an indigenous language of Mexico and the lingua franca of the early Spanish-Colonial period. It was produced by more than twelve scribes, likely in the sixteenth century or shortly thereafter, and its readings begin with the first Sunday in Advent (Romans 13), continuing through the calendar. It ends with the chapter heading for John 2:12 (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(885);return false;'>438r</a>), and this ordering of the epistles and gospels tracks with the reforms to doctrine for teachings and canon for the Council of Trent, circa 1545. It would have been intended to be read on Saturdays, Sundays and holy feast days, such as Epiphany, Lent, the Passion, Easter, and Pentecost. The body of the text is written in brown, iron gall ink and the chapter headings are in crimson vermillion-based ink (Fiorillo and Fitzgerald, forthcoming). The original lectionary is on European paper, which was cut from large folios, each roughly 102 x 165 mm, with watermarks located at the inner edges of the cuttings. Watermarks appear to date the paper to the 1570s (Mena, 1926). Preliminary examination suggests that twelve to thirteen authorial hands wrote MS 375, in three phases of production. First, five sections of roughly 50 folios per author open the manuscript, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>1r-250v</a> (Hands 1-5). This is followed by a middle portion (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(511);return false;'>251r-304v</a>) of mixed-length, short and long authorships, with the ninth author producing the greatest number of folios in the volume (Hands 6-9). Finally, the production returns to a consistent apportioning of nearly 20 folios per hand to finish MS 375, ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(751);return false;'>371r-438r</a> (Hand 10-13). Currently, there is no indication that this difference in hands correlated with time of production of each section. Extant lectionaries and gospels more commonly feature fewer authors throughout the volume. Additionally, MS 375 is unique among its peers because of the decorative elements in the first section of the volume (Fitzgerald, forthcoming). Associated with Hand 1 alone (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>1r-49r</a>), these designs mirror both Mesoamerican and European symbolic traditions, using negative or 'void' space within the vermillion capital letters to produce these distinctive designs at sporadic intervals throughout this section (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(10);return false;'>1v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(34);return false;'>13v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(36);return false;'>14v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(39);return false;'>16r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(41);return false;'>17r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(52);return false;'>22v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(56);return false;'>24v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(59);return false;'>26r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(61);return false;'>27r</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(64);return false;'>28v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(66);return false;'>29v</a>, <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(85);return false;'>39r</a>). Otherwise, the initials are plain, with one notable exception, executed in ink, which includes vine and floral ornamentation more typical of European decorative styles (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(762);return false;'>376v</a>). Initials in the capitular rubrics are not ornamented, but comprise merely litterae notabiliores, most executed in red vermillion and some in brown iron gall ink. Finally, MS 375 joins at least two other lectionaries and more than a dozen manuscripts produced in the sixteenth century from Colonial Mexico that feature the use of white paint applied as an early-modern liquid correctional fluid (Fitzgerald, forthcoming). Nearly every author of this volume deploys the paint in a sophisticated manner, correcting, erasing and revising the text. Based on recent non-invasive analysis, this substance comprises gypsum (calcium sulphate) mixed with a binding agent, though the specific admixture appears to change towards the latter portions of MS 375 (Fiorillo and Fitzgerald, forthcoming). This substance appears to relate to pre-existing usage of white paint, similar to gesso and chalk (calcium carbonate), by record keepers of Mesoamerica, before contact with Spain, as well as having roots in early modern European manuscript production. A single 'bookmark', consisting of a piece of torn modern paper, holds the place at the reading for the Third Sunday of Eastertide (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(370);return false;'>181v-182r</a>). Notes have been inscribed on three of the opening page, but were later struck through and are now illegible (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(3);return false;'>i recto-ii recto</a>). Further notes are found on the last leaf (f. iv recto), only part of which has been crossed out. These provide three separate dates that apparently relate to events in the life of the manuscript's owners in the 1640s, mentioning some relation to Hernán Cortés (1485 – 1547), the Marquis de Valle and famed conquistador. MS 375 is one of only a handful of extant full sixteenth-century Nahuatl-Latin lectionaries. Its sister copies are: <ul><li>Mexico City, Biblioteca Nacional de México, MS 1482</li><li>Toledo, Archivo Capitular de Toledo, MS 35-22</li><li>Milan, Biblioteca nazionale Braidense, AH X.9</li><li><a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://archive.org/details/ayer_ms_1467/mode/2up'>Chicago, Newberry Library, Ayer MS 1467</a></li></ul> One of the earliest studies of the Nahuatl lectionary genre was conducted by the Italian Bernardino Biondelli (1804–1886), who published <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://archive.org/details/evangeliariumepi00cath'>Evangeliarium, epistolarium et lectionarium Aztecum...</a> in 1858, based on extensive study of the Milan copy. The production of manuscript and imprint copies of Nahuatl translations of lectionaries and gospels continued into the seventeenth century and persists to the present, demonstrating the enduring relationship between languages, education and religion. The volume appears to have spent time in the either the personal library of Mexican Catholic priest Padre José Antonio López García de Salazar or, possibly, had once been part of the library of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora. According to Rev. James Thomson's letters - the British and Foreign Bible Society agent who collected MS 375 - the lectionary was acquired in late 1827 from Padre José, traded for recently printed Bibles in Chinese (by Dr Robert Morrison, FRS) and Arabic-Malay (by Rev. Robert Sparke Hutchings). Both Padre José and his colleague Dr José María Luis Mora (1794 – 1850) had access to the latter, and Dr Mora is known to have traded off the infamous Crónica Mexicayotl to Thomson the same year (Schroeder (2011); Anderson and Schroeder, eds. (2016); Kenerick Kruell (2013); Muñón (1997)). Thomson intended to reference MS 375 in the production of Nahuatl translations, though there is no clear indication that this occurred. MS 375 was once thought to have been copied by the hand of the author of the Crónica Mexicayotl, Domingo Francisco de San Antón Muñón Chimalpahin Cuauhtlehuanitzin (formerly BFBS MS 374, currently with the National Institute for Archeology and History, Mexico City), but this is not the case.My thanks to Ben Leeming, Berenice Alcántara Rojas and Andrew Laird for their consultation on MS 375 and the extant lectionaries. Dr Joshua Fitzgerald Munby Fellow 2024-25 Cambridge University Library