The Boxer codex is a stunningly-illustrated bound manuscript housed at the Lilly Library that has inspired generations of scholars who study the Philippine Archipelago. Souza and Turley, the editors of this critical edition, have made a momentous contribution by making the manuscript available for the first time in a printed format. Their decision to include the original Spanish text along with an English translation ensures that the manuscript will have the wider audience it deserves.
The book's introduction explains the provenance of the codex, describes its contents (reports, accounts, and illustrations by named and anonymous creators), and lays out some postulations for why it got made. The edition has two parts. The first part is a faithful transcription of the Spanish text. The original is fully-digitized and available online (Boxer Manuscript II). Those unfamiliar with Spanish palaeography will now have this edition to facilitate their reading and research. The second part contains Turley's English translation, an excellent scholarly apparatus that promotes understanding of the text. A useful glossary precedes it, with terms related to commerce, local customs, governance, religion, and other aspects of human life. The origin of these words, borrowed from Cantonese, Malay, Nahuatl, Visayan, and many other languages, is a testament to the multilingualism and ethnic diversity of the region that produced the codex. A short bibliography of secondary sources and helpful index are at the end.
This reviewer's understanding of the codex is that it consists of documents collected from the mid-1570s to 1590s by Spanish Hapsburg officials in Manila to inform their colonial project in the Archipelago and beyond. They worked at a precarious time for the newly-established trading outpost, which had a skeletal military crew mandated with establishing a colony and maintaining alliances with local chiefs (i.e., principales). Manila-based officials gathered descriptions from informants and wrote down accounts about three main groups because garnering information was central to the work of empire. The first group was people who lived in Luzon, the Visayas, and other islands where Spain claimed some sovereignty. Imperial policy necessitated having information about new vassals (tribute payers) to promote good government and guarantee a financial return for the crown's investment. The second group were people ruled by sultanates who lived in Mindanao and other islands in the Sulu Sea. Colonial officials mainly sought out intelligence about Muslim subjects (so-called Moros) for defensive purposes. The sultanate of Brunei was particularly threatening to Spain's aspiration of expanding its geopolitical footprint in the region. The third group were those who lived in polities further afield: Champa, China, Japan, Java, Maluku Islands, New Guinea, Patani, and Siam. Knowledge about these societies was critical to diplomatic relations and to fostering mercantile connections. Officials organized materials about these three main groups into chapters (22 sections in the codex), with titles that refer to linguistic families, such as “Tagalogs”, and more topical titles like “Chinese deities”.
Secular and ecclesiastical officials in the employ of the Hapsburg were conscientious researchers; they interviewed locals, conversed with visitors, read widely, corroborated reports, worked with translators, and generally collected intelligence in a pretty systematic way. They wrote regional histories and reported ethnographic information about societies throughout the empire. The materials in the Boxer codex are akin to these writings, which await intrepid researchers in archival repositories in the Philippines, Mexico, and Spain. The information gathered by Spanish bureaucrats was only as good as their informers, and they synthesized the data according to their world views. So, readers of the Boxer Codex, as with all primary sources, must be cautious with the contained facts and sceptical of generalized opinions.
The Boxer Codex reads like an encyclopaedia of Spanish knowledge about the broader region at the end of the sixteenth century. The chapters, for example, have information that merchants would have wanted to know upon settling in Manila, such as the location of essential ports. There is also information about people's beliefs that would have interested Jesuit priests. Read from this perspective, the book offers a window into late-sixteenth century Southeast and East Asian societies, especially of peoples from the Philippines. Colour images from the original codex will inspire imaginative readers.
The Boxer Codex is an absorbing collection of information. All research libraries deserve a copy, and specialists will find it a beautiful addition to their bookshelves.
