In 1556 Franciscan missionaries from the city of Mexico arrived in the then remote area of Zacatecas to begin what was expected to be a crucial but difficult evangelization of the area. They had been preceded by several other brothers who had not settled there despite having spent several years in catechizing the indigenous. The intention of these four missionaries was to stay and found a convent. Along with Fr. Pedro de Espinareda and Fr. Diego de la Cadena came one lay brother, Fr. Jacinto de San Francisco, and one donado simply called Lucas.Footnote 1 Fr. Joseph Arlegui, chronicler of the order, assumed the presence of those friars would lay the foundation for the difficult task of evangelizing such distant lands and such unwilling peoples.
Pressing for historical accuracy, Fr. Joseph also acknowledged the work of the two humbler men who accompanied the friars.Footnote 2 The presence of a lego and a donado in that early conversion enterprise calls our attention to the participation of these two categories of men in the history of the mendicant orders in the evangelization of New Spain. While the lion's share of historical memory belongs to the ordained mendicants, lay brothers have remained in relative neglect. Standing discreetly at the sidelines, these men performed the essential work of maintaining the rhythm of daily and ritual life in the convents, and saw to the welfare of the ordained friars. They also established a link with the “common folk” in terms that the ordained friars could not.
In general, lay brothers did not have a strong profile in the memory of the orders, even though some were later elevated to sainthood or to the category of beato.Footnote 3 They lacked a voice within the convent, and their activities were of a nature that did not require official recording. Only a few chosen lay brothers attracted the attention of chroniclers, for reasons that will be explained in this work. So, why should we try to rescue the memory of men whose lives remain obscured by the more outstanding figures dedicated to the tasks of active conversion, preaching, or writing theological tracts? This question provides us with an exercise in learning about patterns of masculine behavior within the church, a topic that is notably underrepresented in historical attention.Footnote 4 The prominent task that men of the cloth exercised in the shaping of the religious and cultural life of New Spain calls for a review of all members who had a role in that work, including those who most often remained at the bottom of the ecclesiastical hierarchy.
We must also question received views of the lay brothers' apparent homogeneity. The chroniclers, the true shapers of historical memory, followed a spiritual agenda in delineating the lives of these men, but they also furnished enough materials for us to appreciate the nuances of their lives. What were the qualifying abilities and virtues that took lay brothers out of obscurity? What did these men do to earn that distinction? To answer these questions we will draw a profile of the men who shared some of the values ascribed to lay brothers' religious masculinity and at the same time personified values viewed as specific to their rank and appointed roles. By doing this we can grasp and understand the vision of the historians who recorded their lives, as well as the behavior of the historical actors themselves.
The community of men living within the walls of a mendicant convent was not a homogeneous social body. The friary was a mixture of personalities, social and economic backgrounds, education, and intellectual abilities. The ideal, and primary goal, of conventual living was to make this variety of men adopt a life with very well-defined religious objectives and follow a close observance of their duties, regardless of social background or level of education. Mendicant orders had two distinct social and religious categories in their convents: the preeminent one was the priests (sacerdotes or frailes clérigos), men who after several years of study and preparation were entitled to perform the Mass, provide the sacraments, and devote themselves to spiritual and intellectual pursuits. Below them in rank were the lay brothers (hermanos legos), who performed the hard physical work of the convent and were exempted from theological studies and the heavier spiritual duties of the religious day. The distinction had its roots in the medieval period and the Cistercian order, but these categories were later adopted by the mendicant orders. Franciscans, for whom work and prayer were fundamental, adopted the guidance of Pope Nicholas III (1277–1280), who determined that those dedicated to study were not obliged to corporal labor.Footnote 5 Housekeeping was the main occupation of lay brothers, and they substituted many of the daily religious offices with a prescribed number of prayers. Their habits differed from those of the frailes clérigos in length, the color of the scapular, or other significant details. However, they had to observe the rules and constitutions of their respective orders as did the rest of the ordained community.
Around 1607, there were between 12 and 15 lay brothers in the Dominican convent of Mexico City, serving the needs of about 40 ordained friars, 50 or 60 novices, and some guests: the convents provided shelter to traveling brothers and chosen secular men. In spite of the imprecise numbers, the information provided by the chronicler Hernando de Ojea suggests that the lay brothers ministered to the needs of about 120 men, a demanding task anywhere.Footnote 6 In meeting the material demands of daily life for all, lay brothers were involved in a wide range of activities. They were in charge of maintaining the sacristy in perfect order and cleanliness, so that it would be ready for the regular daily masses as well as for special occasions. They kept the time for prayers with the bells, a task that demanded punctuality and was essential for maintaining the rhythm of community duties and prayers. As doormen (porteros) they were in charge of access to the convent. They were nurses in the infirmary under the supervision of a fraile clérigo. Nursing the sick was regarded as an act of charity and a path to sanctity.Footnote 7 As nurses, these friars accompanied the doctors in their visitations, took mental note of the medications prescribed, and then administered them. It was the nurse-lego who called for the extreme unction rite when death approached and took care of the body of the deceased. One lay brother who was remembered for his role in the infirmary was the Franciscan Francisco Tabares, born in Zacatecas to a Portuguese doctor reputed to be as the best in the Indies. Fr. Francisco professed in Guadalajara, where, following his father's lead, he was head nurse, physician, and pharmacist, in addition to working in the kitchen and begging for alms.Footnote 8 He also visited the sick in town, attended to their needs, and provided medications, presumably taken from the convent's supply. He died of typhus (tabardillo) on one of his mercy visits. These were the kinds of activities that fixed lay brothers in the memory of the community outside the convent.
Another occupation usually in the hands of lay brothers was that of refitolero or general purveyor and overseer of the convent's material needs. The refitolero was responsible for the overall cleanliness of the convent, the planning and preparation of all daily meals, keeping the infirmary supplied, and the governance of the brothers and servants working in the kitchen. During meals they kept the dinner table well provided with bread, water, and hand towels. Below the refitolero was the cook, another expected assignment for a lay brother, and one of the least mentioned in the convent. Humble as the kitchen was, it could become the theater for quotidian miracles or exceptional “marvels” enacted by lay brothers who transformed the cooking area from a place of mundane activities into a theatre of revealed truth, as proven by Fr. Cristóbal de Molina, an Augustinian lay brother in Puebla, who merited a biographical treatment by Fr. Nicolás Ponce de León.Footnote 9 Some ordained friars chose to share the work of the kitchen as an act of humility and brotherly empathy. Such was the case of the Franciscan Fr. Juan de Béjar, reputed to have spread the devotion of San José in New Spain, who also helped with the administration of the supplies and other manual labor in the convent.Footnote 10 Another form of exemplarity was that of kitchen brothers who became models of austerity in their diets, refusing to eat meat even though they cooked it on a daily basis.Footnote 11
Some occupations were less likely to stand out as noteworthy in the chroniclers' minds but nonetheless had a long historical tradition in monastic history. Such was the upkeep of a vegetable garden, a tradition among most European convents. The gardens (huertas) provided herbs, vegetables, and fruits for the largely vegetarian meals that were the main fare of many friars. The Franciscan commissary general Fr. Alonso Ponce, traveling in central and western Mexico in 1586, never failed to mention the huertas of the convents he visited in New Spain, evidence that they were part of those convents' religious and dietary culture.Footnote 12 For Franciscans, physical labor in the huerta was part of a designated plan of spiritual development. In large convents lay brothers might require the assistance of servants who were hired to alleviate their labor, especially in the kitchen. In New Spain and other parts of Spanish America, the Augustinians and the Dominicans had slaves to help in the convent and in their properties.Footnote 13 However, the Franciscans refused to own slaves. For them the command “ora et labora” (pray and work) went hand in hand with their rules of observance. Neither Dominicans nor Augustinians were bound to official poverty rules, and the rural properties they owned required the services of a general administrator (procurador), another task regarded as appropriate for lay brothers.
The example of the Dominican Fr. Alberto de Garnica is illustrative. He had been a soldier in Italy and was the nephew of Phillip II's solicitor in the royal chancery of Valladolid. Being “touched by God,” he abandoned the world to live as a lay brother in Spain and later moved to Mexico, where he died in 1598. Although he was said to have been illiterate in spite of his social background, he learned to read and write after he took the habit, and continued to improve his intellect. The chronicler Fr. Alonso Franco states that Garnica was versed in mathematics, geometry, architecture, and the liberal arts, and had an entrepreneurial vein that he used for the advantage of his order. He single-handedly acquired and administered the sugar mill in Coahuixtla de las Amilpas, in the Marquesado del Valle. The chronicler does not provide details as to how he managed to do that (from his viewpoint it was inconsequential), but he does remark that the heavy duties of Garnica's administrative work were his “purgatory” in life, an unintended consequence of his earthly work that could help him in the other life.Footnote 14 This comment deterred the potential criticism of those who might think that involvement in such activities distracted a friar from his spiritual duties.Footnote 15 Garnica's career spoke of alternative forms of authority and empowerment in the mendicant orders for men who lacked a formal education.Footnote 16 Examples such as his almost trumped the value of the higher education acquired by the ordained friars, but the weight of tradition conspired against any changes in the evaluation of manual versus intellectual work.
The housekeeping and nursing tasks performed by the brothers could be regarded as “feminine,” or appropriate for women. Yet, these men were never regarded or portrayed as feminine in any respect. Rather, their occupations and roles in the hierarchy of the convent were praised as an alternative form of masculinity. They were remembered as emblematic of a much-appreciated form of male spirituality that comprised the virtues of humility, personal sacrifice and renunciation of mundane glory, kindness to the poor, and service to God through their dedication to the religious community to which they belonged. They were the antithesis of the hero, but heroic in their fortitude. It is worthwhile reviewing how this emblematic and distinctive model of manhood, one that disregarded social origins, was developed through the appointed keepers of their memory.
Chroniclers of the Lives of the Lay Brothers
Chroniclers differed considerably in the weight they gave to the memory of lay brothers in their work. The Augustinians Juan de Grijalva, Diego de Basalenque, and Juan González de la Puente did not include any lay brothers in their works.Footnote 17 The Franciscan Fr. Antonio Tello includes one lay brother and one Indian donado.Footnote 18 Baltasar de Medina, chronicler of the discalced Franciscan province of San Diego in Mexico included several legos, whereas the eighteenth-century Franciscan Fr. Juan Domingo Arricivita remembered two lay brothers and one donado of his Colegio de la Santa Cruz in Querétaro at great length and with an extensive eulogy.Footnote 19
To begin the survey of chroniclers, there is no better example than the work of the Franciscan Fr. Jerónimo de Mendieta. He acknowledged the presence of many legos who arrived in New Spain in the sixteenth century to pursue their own spiritual goals and serve their order. Mendieta was fortunate in that he could praise one of the founding members of his order, Fr. Pedro de Gante, a Flemish subject of Charles V and a lay brother by choice, who volunteered to travel to Mexico as soon as the task of conversion was announced. He admired Gante as a man who had renounced opportunity for rank and distinction within the order to devote his time to the education of indigenous children in Christian doctrine. The result of 50 years of preaching was that Gante's authority among the Indians on ecclesiastical matters was widely recognized by other members of the Church, including Archbishop Alonso de Montúfar. As a lay brother Gante had a hands-on approach to his chosen work and mastered the art of spreading the faith in practical terms through his “ingenuity for all the arts and occupations useful for human and Christian good breeding.”Footnote 20 Writing a Christian doctrine in Nahuatl (in 1545) and teaching the catechism with pictograms was not enough for him: he made sure the Indian children learned music and crafts brought from Europe such as masonry, carpentry, tailoring, smithing, and cobbling—all occupations required to meet the demands of a culturally European market and the expansion of a militant church that needed labor in addition to believers. Mendieta stressed Gante's spirituality, observance, and commitment to his order and to New Spain. He rejected offers to return to Flanders, as well as several offers to become an ordained priest that would have led to higher appointments. Even though Gante's life sketch is not long, Mendieta understood that he was no ordinary lay brother: he was a unique combination of high social status (linaje) and humility, as well as a model for others to understand and imitate.
Two lay brothers, Fr. Andrés de Córdoba and Fr. Juan de Palos, came with the original 12 Franciscans who arrived in 1523. Unlike Gante, they were closer to the expectations of lay brotherhood in the early sixteenth century, since they were men without a distinguished ancestry or education. To eulogize them, Mendieta resorted to the well-known trope of the divine election of the humblest to spread the word of God. By choosing to downplay social lineage in their case, Mendieta struck a deep spiritual chord. There was nothing more precious for sixteenth-century Spaniards than bloodlines. Reminding his readers that lack of nobility was appealing to God, Mendieta reaffirmed the spirit of the reform-minded discalced Franciscans whose emphasis on poverty, spiritual purity, and strict observance was sweeping the order in the peninsula.Footnote 21 In spite of being a “simple” lego, Fr. Juan de Palos was declared “wise,” as he learned Nahuatl and preached in it, not an expected lay brother's task. Juan de Palos died an unexpected death in pursuit of the evangelizing enterprise. He perished of hunger in Florida with his companion Fr. Juan Suárez, the result of the ill-planned settlement attempt led by Pánfilo de Narváez. This sad ending gave Mendieta the opportunity to extol the spiritual fraternity encouraged and shared among the Franciscans. Rather poetically, he envisioned both men, ordained and lay friar, together in glory as they had been in the pilgrimage of their lives.Footnote 22
Another of Mendieta's lay brothers was Lucas de Almodóvar, a nurse, who was possibly the first lay brother to gain a reputation for this métier in New Spain. Looking after the sick with compassion, he stood as a Christian choice for healing against the incantations of indigenous shamans. The “gift “of healing, an almost miraculous ability, was regarded as a silent message of God's charity. After his death a cross was said to have appeared in the air, a sign for the people of his time that his soul had been received by God and a reaffirmation of the validity of the new religion.Footnote 23 Juan de Torquemada, who “borrowed” most of his material from Mendieta, characterized legos as simple but did so without malice, and also noted that they were humble and caring.Footnote 24 He also recorded the names of those martyred in the northern territories by the Chichimecs, such as Juan Calero, Miguel de Estivaliz, Juan de Herrera (a very capable evangelizer), and Augustín Rodríguez. Martyrdom, a blessing available to legos, immediately earned them a place in the memory of the order.Footnote 25
The early Augustinian chroniclers of the province of Michoacán, Diego de Basalenque and Juan González de la Puente, did not cite a single lay brother.Footnote 26 On the other hand, the Dominican chroniclers Fr. Agustín Dávila Padilla, Fr. Hernando de Ojea, and Fr. Alonso Franco did not forget to include them in their narratives. Dávila Padilla mentions six lay brothers and one donado among the illustrious men of the order. He had a great respect for their labor and character and described them as penitent, devout, obedient, willing to work, and observant of their rule.Footnote 27 In his opinion lay brothers deserved the confidence they enjoyed in the order as administrators and alms collectors in the mining towns.Footnote 28 His brief biography of the donado Miguel Ortiz gave him the opportunity to pontificate on the merits of serving a religious order in that status. Professing in a religious order leveled all social classes; after death, he wrote, “no one is third or first.” Charity embraced all men and removed their sins so they all appeared equal before God.Footnote 29 Miguel Ortiz was unusual in that he seemed to have had some intellectual abilities, and having gained the good will of Bishop of Guatemala, Francisco Marroquín, he was relieved from his state as donado and ordained in 1545. After that he devoted himself to learning Nahuatl and gained a reputation as a preacher.
Fr. Hernando de Ojea, who picked up the Dominican history where Dávila Padilla left it, also chose several exemplary legos for his chronicle. Ojea's lay brothers lived mostly in the sixteenth century and were Spaniards by birth. Three of them came from good families and one had been a rich merchant in the city of Mexico. Fr. Joan de Sena, Pedro de Solórzano, Juan de Paz, and Diego de Medellín openly rejected the possibility of becoming priests. Solórzano was a page of Viceroy Luis de Velazco, but as Ojea puts it, “God touched him,” and he took the habit in 1552. By refusing to become anything but a lay brother, he incurred his family's displeasure and became an outcast.Footnote 30 Some of these lay brothers knew how to read and owned devotional books but they were not really men of letters, a fact that did not compromise their moral virtues and spiritual worthiness in the eyes of the writer.Footnote 31 Ojea's analysis of what was understood as “saintly” reflected the heavily religious climate of the times. Saintliness was an achievable objective for any man regardless of social status. A saintly man was one who was truthful, believed in justice, did not hurt anyone in word or deed, fulfilled his promises, did not engage in usury, and was kind to others. Saintly men did anything in their power to ensure the glory that God promises, regardless of difficulties or hardship.Footnote 32 Ojea suggested that Solórzano's virtues echoed some of the Ten Commandments, the most important rules of behavior to keep the law of God and to love and worship Him.Footnote 33
The chronicler Fr. Alonso Franco picked up information from Ojea and included 12 biographies of lay brothers. Franco added details not available in Ojea's work, amplifying on the behavior and nature of the spirituality and devotional practices of his chosen subjects. For example, he praised Fr. Juan de Sena, who renounced the option of being considered for full ordination and took the habit of a lay brother in 158l, thus behaving as a self-effacing man who hid his intellectual and didactic abilities, which only his confessors knew.Footnote 34 Franco and Ojea complemented each other in portraying another lay brother, Fr. Diego de Medellín, born in Extremadura of a good family, who took the habit in Mexico City. Ojea stressed his robust physique and his ability to read and write, play the cithern (vihuela), and sing and dance. His “mundane” abilities and physical attributes were obstacles to overcome in the decision to take the habit, and the control he exercised over his body was a forceful statement on the strength of Medellín's character. Franco and Ojea praised his determination to remain a lay brother even when he felt tempted to ask for the profession of clergy-friar after he began to read the liturgy of the Mass. Medellín remained a humble man, working in the construction of the convent, taking care of the music books in his old age, never asking for permission to go outside the convent, and employing his time instead in his devotional practices. Here was a brother who was the living example of manly humility conquering pride.Footnote 35
The only donado to earn a long narrative in conventual chronicles was Gonzalo Juan de Pereyra, who resided at the Franciscan Propaganda Fide Colegio de la Santa Cruz, in Querétaro. The eighteenth-century chronicler Fr. Domingo Arricivita identified Pereyra as a native of the Canary Islands and a companion of Melchor López and Fr. Antonio Margil to Guatemala, where the two men gave him the habit of a Third Franciscan, probably to add to his respectability as their aide and servant. He shared in all the missionizing activities with López and Margil, the latter being his spiritual director. When Margil was appointed head of the Colegio of Santa Cruz of Propaganda Fide in 1697, Pereryra followed him on foot on his own. His loyalty and perseverance earned him the habit of a donado, and he was appointed to accompany Fr. Francisco Estévez on a business trip to Spain and Rome that lasted five years, a great privilege for a man of his status.Footnote 36 When he returned to Querétaro, he was a sick man in his fifties but in spite of his infirmities carried out his spiritual commitments, although the chronicler suggests that he was treated with charity owing to his infirmity. Arricivita showered this man with praise as observant, humble, and devout, and one who shared all the virtues and met the lofty standards of the select characters he chose for his chronicle. Arricivita's words, however, suggest that Pereyra understood his status in the convent. He followed his spiritual director with the reverence and “obsequiousness of a servant and obeyed and served him with the greatest respect.”Footnote 37 As such, he did not transgress the hierarchies of the convent and remained a model for other donados.
All these chroniclers and others not surveyed here, have in common the purpose of painting certain character traits and personal virtues that would convey the essence of a dedicated lay brother. Above all, they were expected to exercise self-discipline and observe their rule with the same intensity as the ordained brothers.Footnote 38 Mansedumbre (docility), humility, the modest concealment of abilities that might draw attention, and self-control over weaknesses such as pride and concupiscence, were the qualities that made them shine. That these virtues were earned through much personal struggle was another characteristic that endeared some lay brothers to their secular admirers. It was the process of “becoming” a virtuous man that captured the imagination of the writers, who regarded the legos' efforts as edifying and educational, as well as a mirror of their respective orders.Footnote 39
Paramount in lay brothers' lives was their close contact with common city and rural folk such as small traders, muleteers, farmers, and miners. Since non-elite sectors of the population were by and large the majority of the faithful, reaching out to them as models of good and pious behavior made pastoral sense. Lay brothers could talk with them, unofficially preaching and catechizing in plain words, thus becoming unpretentious teachers as well as models of piety.Footnote 40 Equally important, their role as limosneros (alms collectors) made them freelance economic agents who collected cash, corn, wheat, and money essential for provisioning the convents. However, chroniclers astutely underplayed this activity and used the examples of pious legos to underline the issue of equality before God in contrast with the inequalities one must bear in this life. Without denying hierarchical distance within the convent's own population or in social life, a saintly lay brother could be shown as the embodiment of the basic virtues that should adorn all friars and that could be imitated by seculars in humble occupations. As was the case with respected friars when they died, the faithful crowded the churches for the funeral services of well-known lay brothers, and in some cases tore their habits to pieces and sought objects they had used to take them home as protective relics.
Baltasar de Medina tells the story of the funeral of Fr. Marcos Sánchez Calderón, a Spaniard who died in 1625 as a lay brother in the convent of discalced Franciscans in Oaxaca. He was very popular because of the largesse of his charitable gifts to the poor and was respected for his “miraculous cures.” He was reputed to have saved men who invoked his name in dangerous situations and had even helped a couple of secular priests achieve promotions they sought. The demonstrations of popular piety after his death took unbelievable turns, despite plans for an early internment. Once city cabildo members showed up, the crowd came into the church and ripped off the Spaniard's habit. A member of the cathedral council stole the mat he used to sleep on, only to be assaulted at the convent exit by other anxious relic seekers. He lost most of the mat. Further, a pious man came to kiss the corpse's feet and bit off one of the toes, which he kept as a precious relic.Footnote 41 After the Dominican lay brother Fr. Miguel de Zamora died, people gathered pieces of his old clothes and socks and his drinking and eating utensils “as if they were precious stones.”Footnote 42 These expressions of popular religiosity and spontaneous inclusiveness were gold nuggets in the chronicler's narratives. It is not surprising, given such popular appeal and devotional admiration, that some special legos earned full-length biographical treatment, a genre often reserved for the most exalted members of the church.
Hagiographic Narrative: Three Saintly Lay Brothers
Three lay brothers were the subjects of printed biographies in New Spain: the Franciscans Sebastián de Aparicio and Antonio de los Ángeles Bustamante and the Augustinian Cristóbal de Molina.Footnote 43 The details of their biographies corroborate and expand on the shorter narratives that appear in the chronicles of the orders and invite further scrutiny into their lives and the agenda the orders had for their promotion as models of “saintly men.”
Fr. Sebastián de Aparicio
Chronologically, the earliest lay brother to be written about was Sebastián de Aparicio, (1514–1600), most often called ‘beato Aparicio.’ Expectations regarding his potential sainthood arose shortly after his death, and the search for corroboration of his virtues and saintliness became unstoppable in the course of the seventeenth century. He was the subject of ten biographies, five of them written in the seventeenth century; these works succeeded in maintaining his name in the list of potential beatos until he achieved that state in 1789.Footnote 44 Aparicio was a seventeenth-century phenomenon in terms of his meteoric rise to popularity, comparable only to that of Fr. Felipe de Jesús.Footnote 45 Riding the wave of post-Tridentine changes favoring the cult of saints and the search for memorable lives in the Roman Catholic world, his hagiographic persona benefited from models of piety eulogizing the humble and simply faithful. Aparicio was born in Galicia in a large, poor family, and as did many in early modern Spain left his home to make a living, moving from serving in wealthy homes to working as a hand on rural properties in Spain.Footnote 46 The lure of the new world caught him and he immigrated to New Spain in 1531.Footnote 47 Before he left, he experienced an odd incident in which he encountered a young woman eloping with her suitor to escape a family-imposed marriage. Returning her to her family to prevent her from being dishonored, he established his possession of one important virtue, that of his virginity, because he refused to be tempted by her. He claimed that he preserved his chastity for the rest of his life. In the eighteenth century, he was represented either surrounded by lilies or emerging from these flowers to signify the sexual purity that distanced him from most other men.
Virginity aside, Aparicio came to New Spain to make his way in the world. After arriving in the viceroyalty, he held various occupations related to his training as a farmer. He also established a reputation as a handler of oxen. His association with them came to be seen as emblematic of a God-given gift of understanding, living with, and protecting animals as simple as the oxen, symbols of Saint Luke the Evangelist. However, a streak of entrepreneurial ability ran alongside his skill with animals. With the organization of an oxcart transportation business he took advantage of the introduction of the wheel in New Spain for commercial purposes, establishing a successful service to deliver merchandise to the booming mining town of Zacatecas. He also learned how to ingratiate himself with the volatile Chichimecs; providing them with beef and corn, he gained their good will and avoided their attacks. This “simple” man thrived in his business until 1552, when he sold it and returned to his rural origins by buying land between Atzcapozalco and Tlalnepantla, close to Mexico City. He was by all accounts a good manager who lived simply and accumulated wealth that he used for charitable purposes. This earned him a good reputation, albeit not that of a saint.
After Aparicio had become a successful landowner, the thought of getting married seemed to have entered his mind. He married twice, in both cases to very young women, but a potential family was not part of his plan. Apparently, he was not interested in heirs. The stories of both his marriages suggest a desire to test his sexuality by maintaining his virginity in the married state, while providing for his young brides. This spiritual challenge did not impress the family of either woman. He was accused of non-consummation by the parents of the first wife. Non-consummation was cause for annulment of the marriage, and the family probably felt that he could play foul and hurt their interests and that of their daughter if the marriage were dissolved. A voided marriage would mean the family lost any claim to Aparicio's wealth.Footnote 48 The death of the young woman put an end to the situation, and Aparicio compensated his in-laws. While we may ponder over Aparicio's decision at a mature age to marry pubescent girls, or speculate on his physical virility, the social expectations were that men would either use their sexual capabilities within marriage or give them up in the religious state. After the accidental death of his second wife, Aparicio decided he had had enough of marriage and chose to take the path of religion. His biographers could comfortably return to the eulogy of his chastity, now exercised in its appropriate state.
Franciscan authorities in Mexico City doubted his abilities to follow a religious life at his age, approaching 60, and with his questionable intellectual abilities. He was hesitatingly accepted as a donado and sent to serve the convent of Poor Clares in Mexico City, to which he later willed a large share of his fortune. After serving the nuns for some time, he was accepted as a lay brother by the Franciscan order in 1574, and beginning in 1577 served the convent of Puebla for the rest of his life. The order employed him in various occupations demanding strength and dedication, and he proved able to cope with them. He traveled for months collecting alms and was scrupulously honest with the money and the goods he collected. He refused to use a cell in the convent and instead slept under his carts, close to his animals. He wore a ragged habit, and when he returned from his long trips, he entered the convent and joined the religious services unwashed and unkempt.
While the appearance of this elderly man, oddly dressed and begging for alms for Saint Francis, touched the piety of common people, his neglect of the rituals and routine of conventual life, his disheveled personal appearance, and his poor knowledge of prayers raised the eyebrows of some of his brothers in religion. At one point he was sent back to the novitiate to relearn the rules and prayers. According to one of his biographers, the friar who sent him back to the novitiate became ill immediately after this order was given, a sure sign of God's displeasure with this ecclesiastical chastisement. Ultimately, Aparicio was allowed to go free and live as a plain, pious man who came close to God through his own simplicity. His closeness to animals evoked Saint Francis's own reputation for a similar ability, albeit exercised under different circumstances. His popularity may be ascribed to the fact that he was unpretentious and never used or abused the authority his habit conferred on him. The many anecdotes on his “simple-minded” answers to situations demanding etiquette sound less like ignorance than a straightforward critique to the rather superfluous conventionalities of social intercourse.
The hagiographic construction of Sebastián de Aparicio began early in the seventeenth century, as soon as Fr. Juan de Torquemada published his biography in 1602.Footnote 49 Each succeeding biography stressed and amplified the number of prodigious happenings in which he had been involved, so as to promote his beatification. In the miracle-saturated popular imagination of New Spain, Aparicio's direct contact with saints and his help to those suffering ailments earned him a warm welcome by the faithful. The sensibilities of humble men and women were not offended by his slack observance of conventual rules. They appreciated his Spartan way of life, his lack of pride, and his willingness to listen to their personal problems and do something for them. Francisco Morales OFM underscores how his simplicity fit into one deeply rooted aspect of Franciscan spirituality that flourished in the sixteenth century.Footnote 50 As Aparicio's biographies were published over time, Morales concludes, they reflected then current views of what constituted “sanctity” among the public and among the Franciscans themselves. Fr. Agustín de Vetancurt, writing on the Franciscan order toward the end of the seventeenth century, dedicated Aparicio the longest of the lay brothers' biographical sketches in an open endorsement of his qualifications as a potential saint.Footnote 51 The fact that Sebastián de Aparicio lived in the first century of Spanish settlement could also be taken as a proof of the orthodoxy of Catholicism among the Spanish population—not just the elite but also the humble members of society. This theme went well with the changing objectives of post-Tridentine Catholicism; it is a trait reflected in other religious biographies written in the seventeenth century.
Although Aparicio's popularity seems to have cooled down in the eighteenth century, the progression toward beatification continued to appeal to people in his birthplace, and Galician regional pride sustained the process. His cause was enhanced by Pope Clemente XIII (1758–1769), who on May 2, 1768, declared his virtues “heroic,” putting him still closer to beatification. Immediately thereafter, the Franciscan commissary general in New Spain supported a new biography, which appeared in 1769.Footnote 52 All these efforts yielded fruit in 1789, when Aparicio's beatification finally took place. Although his rise from lay brother to beatification was not unique, it would be unwise to discard the effect of popular religiosity, still thriving in the eighteenth century. On writing the required approval for the 1769 publication of Joseph Manuel Rodríguez's biography, Fr. Ignacio de la Rocha, choirmaster (chantre) of the Metropolitan Church of Mexico City, expressed the “religious fear” he had experienced on learning of the unique and extraordinary ways adopted by God to speak through a man who, by all accounts, could hardly pray properly. So inspired was he that he added the adjective “prodigious” to the title of the work. Even in the midst of a presumably enlightened culture, works addressed to foster piety and admiration found a warm welcome in the hearts and minds of religious authorities.Footnote 53
Fr. Cristóbal de Molina
Possibly inspired by the early popularity of Fr. Aparicio, the Augustinian friar Nicolás Ponce de León proposed the saintly qualities of Fr. Cristóbal de Molina (1592–1638), a lay brother of his order, in a full-length biography published in 1686.Footnote 54 Molina was born near Toledo, of “old Christian” and some hidalgo lineage. He was possibly of little means, since he was apprenticed to an embroiderer as a boy. Hoping for a change in fortune, his parents traveled to New Spain when he was very young and settled in Puebla. He was 20 when he entered the convent of San Agustín there on May 15, 1612, professing one year later on May 16. His biographer does not explain why he chose to become a lay brother, but it is implied that he lacked the means and possibly the desired degree of education to become a cleric. The chronicler based his narrative on a set of notes written by another friar, Fr. Estevan García, and the testimony of several admiring members of the community, thus adding the desirable element of pious verifiability to his story.
Ponce de León presented Fr. Cristóbal as a man close to the common people, following the trend of seventeenth-century hagiography. In the kitchen, where he worked without respite, he catechized the black men, who were presumably slaves, and other kitchen helpers, praying with them and teaching them Christian doctrine amid “the fire of the hearth, pots and pans, dishes and bowls.” Ponce de León wrote: “That kitchen was the site of Catholic teaching and a pulpit of evangelical truths.”Footnote 55 Fr. Cristóbal rose at 4:00 am each day to fulfill his religious devotions and prayers before going to the kitchen. In addition to cooking, he was in charge of cleaning, cutting wood, and shopping for the necessary victuals. Returning to the convent burdened with his purchases, he became a familiar sight in Puebla's streets, where he used to distribute small crucifixes to the faithful while engaged in his daily errands. This activity brought him the ire of his brothers in the convent—such unblessed crosses could attract the attention of the Inquisition or the ecclesiastical courts. Also, his liberality with alms and leftovers brought him the verbal reprimand of his own prelate for taking resources away from the community.Footnote 56 The biographer also commented on the humility with which Fr. Cristóbal faced the difficulties of trying to meet the needs and demands of others who were not always appreciative of his work and activities as a lay brother.
The goal of Ponce de León's biography was to display Fr. Cristobal's virtues, among which the observance of the rules of his order was the foundation stone. Testing his vow of obedience, he worked for 24 years in the convent's bustling kitchen, the direct opposite of the silence of the cells where his more exalted brothers spent their time. Second to his obedience was his poverty, which he displayed in his habit. Cristóbal wore a secondhand habit and coarse underwear. However, his habit though old was neither torn nor ill-kempt, in spite of the fact that he was surrounded by cooking appliances, charcoal, and other sources of dirt. In this respect he was the antithesis of Sebastián de Aparicio, and the biographer reminded readers that Cristóbal's care of his habit reflected the Augustinian high standards of behavior. In contrast, the Franciscans showed greater toleration toward brother Aparicio's unkempt figure. Biographers paid attention to such details, as they mattered in a man whose character would be judged not by the heights of his intellect but by the piety expressed in the performance of the ubiquitous demands of daily life.
To promote the devotional practices that the church wished to see in the general population, the biographer presented Fr. Cristóbal displaying deep reverence to the life and passion of Christ, the Virgin Mary, and the saints of his order.Footnote 57 His penitential practices, his devotional stamina, his disregard for food, and his constant concern about his physical chastity all underscored that this friar was a composite of the desired virtues of a religious man. To Cristóbal's exercise of conventual discipline, his biographer Ponce de León added the gift of prophecy and the ability to know the arcane corners of people's minds. Ponce de León claimed he wished to exclude miracles from his narrative: the Augustinians, he argued, relied more on the exercise of virtues with humility.Footnote 58 However, he contradicted his own statements by citing a string of homely miracles performed by Fr. Cristóbal. It was difficult for a seventeenth-century writer to disavow miracles—the inevitable and indispensable ornaments of sainthood—as they were essential to the image of a potential candidate for exaltation within the church.Footnote 59
To prove that the lay brother was not totally devoid of writing abilities, Ponce de León gathered from Fr. Estevan a collection of small pieces of paper with brief devotional messages in matter-of-fact language written by Fr. Cristóbal: “Our body is like a rental house where the soul resides; we pay for the rent with work, and the affronts and persecutions we bear for the love of God.” Another message: “The soul is a walled garden [huerta] where we must plant cilicios [instruments of bodily torture used in ascetic practices], discipline, fasting, mortifications, prayer and other virtues.”Footnote 60 These pearls of simple wisdom seemed to have variously confused or impressed some of his brothers in religion who were dedicated to conventional theology. In fact, they were short, devotional expressions of Fr. Cristóbal's personal faith, without aspirations that they be recorded or remembered. If they impressed his brothers in religion, it was perhaps because they did not expect writings from their cook. Ponce de León expounded their meaning with quotations and glosses from Saint Augustine, and the New and Old Testaments, and wrote three chapters to explain the meaning of one letter of spiritual advice that Fr. Cristobal had sent to two cousins who were nuns in a convent (which one he does not bother to mention).Footnote 61 The lego probably never intended to pontificate beyond the boundaries of his state, and Ponce de Leon's efforts to infuse this short, pious letter with the depth and wisdom of well-known sources of Christian spirituality is testimony to his desire as a writer to elevate the intellectual stature of his brother in religion. The brief and rather pious nature of Fr. Cristóbal's extant writing hardly rises to the level of an educated preacher's output. Ponce de León's amplifications provided a depth they did not have; he gives the reader the impression that the humble friar had wisdom beyond his state as a lay brother.
Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles
Aparicio and Molina represented the seventeenth-century quest for examples of virtue and faith among men of the cloth. This tradition was strengthened by the publication of the biography of Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles Bustamante, written by Fr. Isidro Félix de Espinosa in the eighteenth century.Footnote 62 Straddling late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Fr. Antonio (1659–1711) was spiritually a seventeenth-century man, but his biography offered an important variation in the pattern of exemplary lay brothers: it was written by a cleric who could be considered an eighteenth-century intellectual. Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles was not a humble man but a successful businessman who chose to practice humility by taking the habit of a lay brother. He became associated with the effort to reinvigorate the Franciscan order in its evangelizing mission in northern Mexico during the 1700s.
Espinosa was one of the best-known writers and missionaries of the period. A preacher in his own right, he was also the biographer of a notable Franciscan missionary, Fr. Antonio de Jesús Margil, and a chronicler of the order.Footnote 63 When Espinosa published the biography in 1731, Bustamante had been dead for twenty years. He had access to personal witnesses, personal writings, and convent records. However, these sources and their testimony did not change the basic intention of the biographer: the exaltation of the figure under review and the glorification of the Franciscan order. Bustamante, born a hidalgo in Burgos, was the social opposite of Aparicio and Molina, although he shared with Aparicio an experience in business and enterprising know-how. His grandfather was connected to the Holy Office and his father was a scrivener. He had a successful career as an administrator for a rich merchant in Seville, with access to the perquisites of wealth and a good social position. After a business transfer to the city of Mexico, he carved his own course as a successful merchant and eventually moved to Querétaro, where, in addition to his mercantile operations, he acquired a sheep-raising property. In spite of his social and financial successes, he did not seem to have lived a typical life for a young man. According to Espinosa, who remarked on his good looks and impressive figure on horseback, Bustamante had no interest in women or marriage.
A slow process of introspection and devotional conversion led him to the religious life. The sudden death of his friend, the powerful Juan de Urrutia y Retes, marquis of Villar del Águila, prompted this conversion.Footnote 64 The pious message of this narrative is based on the fast transformation of a man with power, wealth, and youth into a lay brother burning with the desire to please God and earn his grace through a full commitment to poverty and humility. His profession as a lay brother in 1690 at age 31 was an exercise in hope for the Propaganda Fide as well as for the novice, because the college, founded in 1683, was still in the process of putting down roots in the community and defining its agenda. Bustamante's profession enhanced the reputation of the establishment among both the general populace and the well-to-do in the city. As Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles, Bustamante refused to be admitted as a novice preparing for ordination, which was the desire of the Franciscan brothers. To test his vocation, he was asked to beg for alms in the city where he had been known for his display of wealth and prominent social status. In the end, the Franciscan community decided that he would be better employed as a portero or gatekeeper for the convent, and it was in this task that he exercised his vocation for the rest of his life. In addition, he helped in reviewing the accounts with the convent's administrator and served as scrivener-secretary under direct control of the convent's prelate.Footnote 65
This biography had not only an apt writer in Fr. Isidro Félix Espinosa, but also two remarkable features: it counted on a venerable witness, Fr. Antonio de Jesús Margil, and on Antonio's own writings, which were far more extensive and coherent than those attributed to Fr. Cristóbal de Molina.Footnote 66 Margil was among the Mallorcan Franciscans recruited by Fr. Antonio Llinás in 1683 to found the College of Propaganda Fide.Footnote 67 He soon gained a strong reputation as a missionary, prelate, and spiritual director, capable of inspiring intense devotional practices in his numerous followers in Guatemala, Querétaro, and Zacatecas. The relationship between these two men was well documented by biographer Espinosa and corroborated by both friars.Footnote 68 When Margil became the college's prelate in 1697, he and Fr. Antonio began to practice the Via Crucis together, continuing for four years through 1701. The Via Crucis was a devotional practice introduced by the Franciscans of the College of Propaganda Fide and consisted of meditation on the sufferings of Christ on his way to the cross. This exercise was complemented by sessions in which Fr. Antonio read a passage from Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda's writings, after which he listened to Margil's confession, gave him the advice that God guided him to give, and ended with Fr. Antonio stepping on Margil's mouth while he prayed three creeds. Then they changed places and Margil acted as confessor and chastiser.Footnote 69 When Margil returned to the convent in 1708 after several absences, they made a spiritual pact together. Fr. Antonio renewed his commitment to God, and they declared themselves the slaves of God (Margil) and the Virgin (Fr. Antonio), becoming one body and one heart in Christ. To this effect, Fr. Antonio drew a heart at the bottom of his written commitment containing the names of the two friars together.
While modern readers may read a somewhat homoerotic meaning in this pact and drawing, the biographer saw it through the lens of seventeenth-century symbolic piety, calling this “a most virtuous union,” whereby both men joined in meritorious exercises sharing the most secret “happening of their loving hearts; having at their disposal the key to each other's hearts.”Footnote 70 Be as it may, the fact is that these two men carved a spiritual brotherhood by sharing devotional practices that disregarded differences of rank, a point the writer also wished to underline. In most other ways, Bustamante's life reads like other conventional biographies. Espinosa explained the title of his work by casting Fr. Antonio as an imitation of Saint Anthony of Padua, and a cherub in custody of the “mystical paradise” of the College of Santa Cruz.Footnote 71 Espinosa praised his fortitude and his sexual chastity, albeit suggesting he had fought some battles to preserve it, and his constant fasts, the rigor of his penitential acts, his poverty, his obedience, and similar commendable character traits.
Fr. Antonio's portrait, engraved with the biography, represents an investment in cost for the book; it is also a persuasive means of visually conveying key features of Antonio's character (see Figure 1).
Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles
Standing in the middle of a windowless room, the friar has adopted a chaste demeanor, looking down and holding his arms close to his body in a pose that resembles that of a saint. A rosary suggests his devotion to Mary, while the keys of the convent express his role as porter. On the floor there is a kitchen pot, a basket of bread, and a cross. Both the breadbasket and the kitchen pot refer to his charity toward the poor. On one occasion, he miraculously stretched the number of bread pieces in his basket to feed a large number of beggars. The cross lying against the wall, ready to be picked up, is a reference to the exercise of the Via Sacra. It is also an emblem of his commitment to Christ; he often wrote about Jesus's live presence within him.Footnote 72
In regard to the quality and nature of the writings quoted by his biographer, it is evident that Fr. Antonio could express himself well and fluidly. Espinosa's selection aimed at illustrating the vicissitudes and rewards of his subject's spiritual life. They comprised messages sent to others and statements that the friar had presumably written for his own edification and spiritual relief; these had probably landed in the hands of his confessors. Espinosa implies that Fr. Ángel García Duque, his confessor for 12 years, was close to Fr. Antonio, and it is possible that the latter's writings were intended for his confessor's reading and to elicit his spiritual advice. Fr. Ángel also collected several letters sent to him by Margil as testimony to Fr. Antonio's spiritual life. Fr. Antonio's writings expressed devotional and spiritual traits of the seventeenth century. For example, addressing his spiritual suffering and resignation, he wrote: “A tribulation is the antechamber of a benefit. The latter is never true if it is not preceded by the purge of tribulation. The biggest and most fruitful benefice for our souls is suffering.”Footnote 73 Another reflection: “Beget Lord, in my soul, the rich treasures of gold and silver of charity; the bronze of fortitude; the lead of guarding your honor, even though I may become insufferable to the bad ones and the demons. Wipe and dry out the humidity of the appetites; break the darkness of sins transforming them into water of tears and penitence. Light up the love of your divine love in my soul.”Footnote 74
The extent of Fr. Antonio's devotional corpus, apart from the samples quoted by his biographer, will remain unknown. Unfortunately, no other efforts were made to print this scattered collection of writings. Those we do have show a man infused with his own faith and channeling it through writings that had no aspiration to be known by anyone except those to whom they were dedicated. His faith was anchored in Jesus and Mary, before whom he stood as a suppliant. As a lay brother, Fr. Antonio did not have the possibility of writing on theological matters. On the other hand, being a lay brother meant he was free to write on his own spiritual experience and faith. The excerpts included by Espinosa in the biography are the rare evidence of the spirituality in a member of the lower ranks of the order; apart from them there are very few extant examples of affective and intimate male spirituality in Mexican convents. Most of the writings penned by men are sermons, biographies of other members of the Church or the religious orders, devotional or didactic tracts, and theological treatises. Men did not seem to have followed the nuns' practices of writing spiritual diaries expressing their inner struggles and their often-visionary personal worlds.Footnote 75
Conclusion
My effort to reconstruct the profile of lay brothers as a category of “sainted” men who seldom took center stage in the history of the mendicant orders proposes to balance the view of men of the cloth in New Spain, which is often heavily tilted toward the “illustrious.” Even the shortest biographical notes regarding the lay brothers reveal efforts to prop up their figures as spiritual and morally edifying men, and afford us a view of the mendicant orders as aggregates of men of different social origins that bear further analysis. Legos were mostly peninsular by birth, but this fact was not addressed by their biographers, who cast them under a positive light of approval. That approval was based on the biographers' conviction that their subjects were able to meet the devotional expectations of the people of New Spain because they seemed to have successfully acclimatized to Mexican society. The biographers, as creators of a tradition, also made sure that they did not depart from spiritual and social orthodoxy. On the other hand it is worthwhile to note that these peninsular legos wished to break through social categories by embracing the role of social “inferiors” in their own religious communities as well as outside the convent.Footnote 76 The effect this may have had on the indigenous and mestizos, the poor, the servants, and even the slaves they dealt with is not quantifiable or even amenable to corroboration. Nonetheless, the sight of a member of the social elite performing humble roles was what first impressed the indigenous population about the early missionary friars, and it remained a potential factor of loyalty to them that the chroniclers wished to keep alive.
Sebastián de Aparicio was socially idiosyncratic and spiritually naïve, but he remained firmly anchored within the orthodox parameters of Catholicism. In fact, he personified a special form of simplicity that was acceptable as a path in life that would bring one close to God; thus he became instantly popular within Mexico and beyond. Unquestionably, his popularity in the seventeenth century was due precisely to the fact that a large number of the non-elite population felt that he represented them. Fr. Cristóbal Molina stood between the naïveté of Aparicio and the sophistication of Fr. Antonio Bustamante. He gained in intellectual rank because as we learn, he kept written records of his thoughts while excelling as a model of patience and service. At the top of this triad, Fr. Antonio de los Ángeles stands as having experienced the greatest social and personal sacrifice with his choice of life as a lay brother. His biographer also enhanced his figure by disclosing written samplers of an inner affective life, a sign of intellectuality among lay brothers hardly considered in Mexican chronicles.Footnote 77 The three biographies maximize in length and depth the experience of lay brotherhood, but they remained strongly connected to the base models projected by the shorter biographies of lay mendicants that were collected by the chroniclers.
The influence of the church in forging models of manhood through the various means at its disposal is well illustrated in the religious chronicles. Agustín Dávila Padilla, the Dominican chronicler of his order in New Spain, praised the role of lay brothers but did not fail to acknowledge differences in vocation and hierarchy. He considered legos “very deserving in the eyes of God. . .. They are very secure in their state . . . by way of simple obedience many have arrived at the pinnacle of perfection.” On the value of the legos' contribution and the spirit in which they performed their work: “If their love of God is equal to that of those who preach, their merit and reward would be the same, as it comes from love. It is true that the task of preaching carries a higher degree of excellence than the active life, but when such fire of charity inspires the humble exercises of a lay friar it will excel the preacher's.”Footnote 78
These words summarized the internal view of the orders about the men who voluntarily chose to remain in the lower echelons of the clerical hierarchy. While somewhat self-congratulatory, it also reinforced the current view on lower-class men in general. Of course, lay brothers came from a variety of social origins and, regardless of their social status, their membership in the church gained them not only access to spiritual security but also a place above the common man. Nonetheless, legos earned recognition not by heroic acts but by performing their humble tasks with intense dedication, thus defining a down-to-earth religiosity that most uneducated people could understand and share by emulation. In the hands of their biographers, legos emerged as shining examples of what could be accomplished by following one's assigned role in the Church as well as in life.
As far as the legos' own experience, there was no need to break down the walls of institutional order because they were within the institution that offered them a decent living, spiritual support, and the opportunity to serve as a role model for secular society. The facts of their lives were embedded in a spiritual message. They were not expected to preach (even though some did officially and unofficially), confess, or write on theological matters—the definitive masculine activities carried out by the majority of members of the mendicant orders—but their actions expressed alternate forms of being a man. Looking at the men who were their orders' own in-house labor force, chroniclers extolled those who would accept and share the apparent obscurity of the lower social strata and who, by doing so, could still be called exemplary because of their personal spiritual virtues and dedication to their faith. Lay brothers represented an alternative form of religious masculinity that served as a model for men of the lower social orders, as well as a corrective example for those above them within the ambits of the church itself.
