The university in the kingdom of Guatemala 2j62s5223

Table of contents :
Frontmatter (page i)
Foreword (page v)
Acknowledgements (page xi)
Illustrations (page xvii)
Tables and Graph (page xviii)
Part One. Foundations (page 1)
I College or University? (page 3)
II Dominicans and Jesuits Fight It Out (page 15)
III Pedro Crespo Suárez Makes a University Possible (page 32)
IV The Civil Authorities Launch the University of San Carlos de Guatemala (page 49)
V Immemorial Peculation Overcome (page 63)
VI Jesuit University versus Public University (page 86)
Part Two. Academic Organization and Life (page 99)
VII University Government: The Salamancan Tradition (page 101)
VIII Ceremonial Honors, and Saints' Days (page 122)
IX The Academic Chair (page 144)
X The Student: His Life in and outside the University (page 174)
XI The Academic Degree: Formalities and Fanfare (page 200)
XII The Academic Degree: Problems and Priveleges (page 227)
Part Three. Struggle with Nature and Economics (page 265)
XIII Money, Shelter, and Earthquakes (page 267)
XIV The Library: Useful versus "Stale Scholastic" Books (page 293)
XV An "Anguished State" (page 300)
Glossary of Academic and Other Words and Terms (page 309)
Index (page 321)

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The Un versity an the Kingdom

of Guatemala - JOHN TATE LANNING

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CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca, New York

© 1955 by Cornell University _

Cornell University Press | London: Geoffrey Cumberlege Oxford University Press

First published 1955

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE | VAIL-BALLOU PRESS, INC., BINGHAMTON, NEW YORK

Foreword

UNTIL the early 1930’s I could not even discover whether or not a University archive existed in Guatemala. In 1936 a single citation of such a depository sufficed to set me upon the search. In the Archivo General del Gobierno I found the bulk of the archive of the University of San Carlos, still so unexploited as to tempt me to turn aside momentarily from a general history of the Spanish universities in America to

the specific story of the University and the Enlightenment in the Kingdom of Guatemala. The capital city of “St. James of the Knights of Guatemala,” neither the largest nor yet the smallest academic center, would serve as a cross-section of university culture as it was in the Spanish Indies. Accordingly, the first draft of this book was written en-

tirely from manuscript and other inedited materials. This, it seemed to me, was the only sound way to assemble the sources and to avoid dependence upon the interpretations of authorities who generally touch ©

the subject on the periphery of some other topic, some of them without disturbing the dust on the records. This volume was first planned as a section introductory to my study of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment in the University of San Carlos de Guatemala. The undertaking could have been kept within such limits as to make it a fitting introduction, but it soon became apparent that

the full, coherent story of the long struggle to win a “public” degree- _ . conferring institution needed to be undertaken for its own sake. Moreover, a full account of how a Spanish university operated in its everyv

vi FOREWORD day life is wanting in English. Even in Spain, where it is assumed that they understand such things, there is no adequate historical description, and many university practices and institutions are rapidly fading from the memory of the race. One of the most learned men in Seville, when asked about the protomedicato, could only conjure up vaguely that he had heard his grandfather say that the doctor was “as learned as the royal protomedicato.” The most treacherous thing in academic history is the subtle evolution in institutions or practices with no corresponding change in their names and terms. A historical monograph on university life would, therefore, do no harm in the Spanish-speaking world. For this purpose the statutes of a university are not necessarily more adequate than the Eighteenth Amendment would be as a history of prohibition. Having made the decision to go into the founding and operation of the University of San Carlos, I could not shrug off my feeling that I was working on a level of detail making me responsible to specialists,

who will regard the “foundations,” where there are many unsolved problems, as a place in Central American history inviting clarification. American laymen, thinking in terms of their own university life, will be more intrigued with the “quaint” academic life of those days. This first

part—foundations and operation—had to be cut so thin as to render it valueless to the historian and colorless to the layman or, as I have

now decided, it had to be published as a volume in itself. Publication of this work was delayed first by the enforced postponement of a trip to Spain (a trip planned to determine whether a search in the Archive of the Indies would modify what I had already written) and then by my assumption of the editorship of The Hispanic American Historical Review (1939-1945). Having been poised to go to Spain in July, 1936, the very month “The Movement” started, I found myself obliged to wait out the Spanish Civil War, World War IT, and then the tedious interval before the arrival of my next sabbatical. At long last, in 1949, I went to Seville, but there I found very little on

Guatemala not already available to me. Such fresh and important sources as I uncovered were incorporated into the text I had already prepared. Despite the many years of reflection I have given to the technical difficulties of writing such a book as this in English, the risk remains that some meticulous linguist may assume that my translations are superficial because they often appear to be a casual copy of the root word.

FOREWORD tt In reality, the want of established translations for practically the whole Spanish academic vocabulary is the most perfect proof that I have had

virtually no predecessors in the study of Spanish university culture. If there are no such terms, the defect is not owing, as one might gather,

to any heedless neglect of mine. Since it would bind and gag me to cramp every term I need into the last edition of Webster, I long ago accepted the challenge of placing in the English vocabulary, or restoring to it, terms applicable to Spanish academic institutions of two centuries ago. Many of the words needed are merely obsolete. Of 317 Spanish and Latin terms yielded by my study of San Carlos alone, 198

were without modern English equivalents. An examination of three of these 198 cases, three of the most common at that, will show that so ticklish a business cannot be approached in a dogmatic and self-assured

spirit. :

1) The rendering of such an ordinary word as constituciones can be made complex. Should my translation (“statutes” or “constitutions” ) be challenged, as I suspect it may, I can only say that the constituciones of the University of San Carlos were issued as orders-in-council in exactly the same way as the statutes of Oxford or the constitutions and canons of the Church of England. Such regulations become “constitutions” by imperial decree in the Roman, the Spanish, and the English sense, Literature contains repeated proof that the Latin word constitutiones comes into English as “constitutions” as it does into Spanish as constituciones.t The paternalistic Spanish crown, when there was no such thing as the constitution, issued sweeping “pragmatics” in the same way that it grappled with the most surprising minutiae, lumped them all together, gave them equal force as fundamental law, and reserved ‘the right to revoke or reverse any of them by contrario imperio. The constituciones of San Carlos determined how the University was “constituted” and, there can be no doubt, were its fundamental law. So, they can be, and perhaps should be, translated “constitutions.” “By-laws,” regulations enacted by a corporation or society for the conduct of its internal affairs, are not royal orders-in-council, as are the constituciones of San Carlos, and will not do in this case. Fortunately, by long English 1 Three English instances will suffice: An Abstract of Certain Acts of Parliament:

of certaine her Maiesties Iniunctions: of certain Canons, Constitutions, and Synodalles provincialles . . . (London, 1583); Thirty-Nine Articles, and Constitutions and Canons, of the Church of England; together with several Acts of Parliament (London, 1724); The Constitutions of the Most Ancient and Honorable Free and Accepted Masons (1762).

viii FOREWORD and Spanish usage, these may also be rendered as “statutes” or estatutos. In the 812 pages of the Statuta et Decreta Universitatis Oxoniensis no translation but “statutes” is used, and the English medievalists writing of universities invariably accept this version. 2) No purist would permit me to translate claustro as “cloister,” when referring to the governing body of the University, for the English word traditionally conveys the architectural and monastic concept and not the academic meaning long current in Spain. Yet, to use the Oxonian

, “Convocation of Doctors and Masters” or “Great Congregation,” aside from being inaccurate, would soon involve me in such absurdities as “the minor Great Congregation.” Besides, claustro could be little more foreign in the United States than one of these British terms. Claustro is not a faculty senate, even if we Americanize “faculty,” for claustro

in the Spanish university included not only the professoriate, but all men holding recognized degrees, especially of licentiate, doctor, and master, within or around the university city. Thus, many members of religious orders, judges and attorneys of the royal audiencia, members of the cathedral chapter, and medical doctors of the Royal Board of Medical Examiners, without being professors at all, were members of the claustro. “Academic Senate,” while more justifiable historically, would convey to the modern American the entirely false notion of an exclusive, limited upper house instead of the full academic electorate that was the claustro. The Spanish use of this word for the building and for such an academic corporation is parallel to the English practice of calling both the room and the council of ministers a “cabinet.” (If the Spaniards are justified in translating “cabinet” as gabinete, why am I not justified in translating claustro as “cloister”? ) Medievalists often evade the difficulty by resorting to claustrum, even in a vernacular text. | Despite this dodging, other scholars have felt the need of a word for claustro. The late Herbert Ingram Priestley, the first man I ever knew to mention this corporation in English, simply says “cloister” without

explanation. Clarence H. Haring, Robert Woods Bliss Professor of Latin-American History and Economics in Harvard University, takes the same natural course: “Government was in the hands of a ‘cloister’ composed of the faculties and the doctors and masters residing in or near the university city. . . . Asin Oxford and other medieval universities, the rector possessed police jurisdiction over members of the cloister. . . .” My determination is nothing less than to invest “cloister” with ange Spanish Empire in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947), p. 2280.

}

FOREWORD ix the academic meaning of claustro, after making the sense limpidly | clear, and to establish the meaning in the English language. Presumption or no presumption, most of the words in the dictionary got there in some such way, else how do we have “cedula” (without accent! ) in

our dictionary and where did we get “hoosegow” (juzgado)? New meanings are added to popular English words every day by the translation of technical terms. 8) For variety, I sometimes use “opposition” to translate oposicidn, a trial-lecture and disputation staged in competition for an academic chair. I have always been aware that this usage may give an English reader pause, if it does not enrage him. Samuel Pepys, much less at a loss, confided (January 5, 1659/60) to his diary: “I rose early this morning and looked over and corrected my brother John’s speech, which he

is to make the next opposition,” by which he meant the pitting of “scholars” against one another in an effort to win top place. Hastings | Rashdall, our pre-eminent authority on medieval universities, although his need for the term was infinitely less pressing than mine, confirms my judgment in this passage: “Every student of the faculty had a vote,

providing he had heard the trial-lectures of all the candidates. This system of ‘oppositions’ or competitive trial-lectures is established here as in many other Spanish and French universities.” * Although the term is obsolete in English (except as “apposition” or “Speech Day” at St.

Paul's School), I have deliberately invested “opposition” with the academic meaning of the Spanish word oposicidn, confirming a practice once in vogue in English. “Competition” will not suffice, for it is a gen-

eric word, translatable into Spanish as competicidn, and does not convey the technical sense of oposicién any more than it does of a horse

race. “Opposition,” as the same root word, actually does suggest the } Spanish academic meaning and is immediately recognizable by those who know Spanish. One criterion I have tried to use in making translations is: Could a Spaniard translate me back into Spanish and come up with something a little short of comic? I am beginning to understand why no English version of Don Quixote has ever had an intelligible rendering of the residencia of Sancho Panza, Island Governor.

| Joun Tate LANNING ’ The Universities of Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. by F. M. Powicke and A. B. Emden (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), II, 73.

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Acknowledgments

SINCE this study and its companion volume are one phase of a life work, it would be appropriate but hardly possible to enumerate all the many kindnesses I have enjoyed in my investigations. With the hope that I may ultimately do justice everywhere it is due, I here simply express my deep personal thanks to Professor J. Joaquin Pardo, archivist

of Guatemala, not only for facilitating my access to the archives, but for allowing me to work over-hours and on holidays in his own house, for patiently helping me over many an annoying impasse, and for being my working companion, especially in Antigua Guatemala, during my repeated sojourns in his country. In the last stages of this search my work was expedited by Mrs. Lilly de Jongh Osborne, an American who has created for herself a unique place in the cultural life of Guatemala. My colleague, Dr. I. B. Holley, read the first eleven chapters and gave me the benefit of his judgment on the many problems I put to him,

and Dr. S. D. Markman let me have several photographs of details of the University building in Antigua. I am especially indebted to Professor J. Fred Rippy, who helped me to get financing and gave me the sympathetic encouragement so much needed in my apprenticeship. Now, after many years and without complaint, he has gone over the entire manuscript of the work and its companion volume and made useful suggestions. Professor Irving A. Leonard read the first draft of both books and, I hope, teased me out of a couple of persistent foibles. It gives me confidence that Professor Arthur P. Whitaker took the time x1

xit ACKNOWLEDGMENTS to read and pass judgment upon these studies. If I had not had help _ from the Guggenheim Foundation, I could not have got my studies in this field under way. Without the Duke University Council on Research, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Social Science Re-

search Council, I could not have brought to completion this or any other project in the academic or intellectual history of the Spanish Em-

| pire that I so blithely undertook when I emerged from graduate school. Joun TaTE LANNING

Contents

Foreword V , Acknowledgments xi Illustrations XVii

Tables and Graph xviii Part One. Foundations

I College or University? 3 Bishop Marroquin Seeks a College, 5; The Ayuntamiento _ Strives for a University, 8

II Dominicans and Jesuits Fight It Out 15 Struggle for the Exclusive Privilege of Conferring Academic Degrees, 15; End of the Dream of a Permanent University

; in the College of Santo Tomas, 24; The Jesuits in the Ascendancy, 26; Agitation for a “Public” University Renewed, 99

III Pedro Crespo Suarez Makes a University Possible 82 IV The Civil Authorities Launch the University of San

Carlos de Guatemala . 49 xiii

Xiv CONTENTS ,

V_ Immemorial Peculation Overcome 63 Endowment Consolidated “with All Judicial Compulsion and Vigor,” 65; Government by Junta or Government by Cloister, 72; Professors from Abroad, 75; Solemn Inaugura-

tion, 78; The New University a Farce?, 81 |

VI Jesuit University versus Public University 86 Concordia, 90; Higher Education and the Expulsion of the Jesuits, 95

Part Two. Academic Organization and Life VII University Government: The Salamancan Tradition 101 Cloister, 101; Rector, 104; Maestrescuela (Chancellor), 108;

The Secretary and the Records of the University, 109; - Bedels, 111; Oaths of Officers, 111; The Handling of Money: The University Chest, 118; Church and State, 114

| VIII Ceremonial, Honors, and Saints’ Days 122 Ordo Ceremoniarum, 122; Pride and Precedence, 180; Spe-

, cial Honors and Festivities of Patron Saints, 136 _

IX The Academic Chair 144 Oposiciones: Filling the Academic Chairs, 144; Mendicant Orders and Special University Chairs, 158; Starting a New Class Every Year, 163; “Cutting” Classes, 165; Substitutions,

166; Retirement, 169; Salaries, 171 ,

X~ The Student: His Life in and outside the University 174 Brawls, 175; Gil Rodriguez and the Inquisition, 181; Politi- , cal Unrest and Lawlessness, 187; Holidays, 189; Student Dress, 191; Matriculation, Race, and Society in the Uni-

, versity, 192; The Conduct of the Class, 196

XI The Academic Degree: Formalities and Fanfare 200 Meaning and Distribution of Academic Degrees, 200; Preliminaries to the Bachelor’s Degree, 204; Formulas for “Lit- _ erary Acts,” 213; Requirements for the Licentiate, 215; The

| Doctor’s Degree, 221

CONTENTS XD XII The Academic Degree: Problems and Privileges 227 Burdensome Fees, 228; Scholarships and Exemptions, 234; Integrity of Degrees, 239; Incorporation of Degrees: The Case of Dr. Esparragosa, 245; Pomp and Parades in Aca-

demic Investitures, 256

Part Three. Struggle with Nature and Economics

XIII Money, Shelter, and Earthquakes 267 Spanish Justice to the Indian Takes Precedence over the University, 268; Economics and the Convulsions of Nature, 270; Ruin and Removal, 280; Contrivance and Construction, 288

XIV The Library: Useful versus “Stale Scholastic’ Books 293

XV_ An “Anguished State” 300 “Miserable State” of Finances in San Carlos, 801; The Professor and “the Ruinous and Decadent State,” 302; Fundraising Devices, 303

Index , 321 Glossary of Academic and Other Words and Terms 3809

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Illustrations

_ A View of the Court of San Carlos Frontispiece Seal of the University of San Carlos Title Page

Francisco Marroquin and His Blazon 6 St. Thomas Aquinas. Decoration from Miguel Herida’s Thomistica

asserta de logica, phisica, et metaphisica. In honorem Divi

Thomae Aquinatis (1794) 12

Pedro Crespo Suarez and His Escudo 33 Fray Payo de Rivera and His Escudo 40 Juan de Ortega y Montaiiez and His Escudo 54 Title Page of the Constituciones of Sarassa y Arce 64 Corner Detail of the University Building in Antigua 115 Disputed Coat of Arms on the Fagade of the University and the

Coat of Arms Published in the Constituciones 117

New Royal Coat of Arms for the Fagade of the University 121

Bachelor of Arts Theses of Félix Antonio Barreda 206 Bachelor of Arts Theses of José Rafael de Molina 208 xvii

xviii ILLUSTRATIONS | Bachelor of Arts Diploma of Mariano Bouzas 210 Cayetano Francos y Monroy and His Escudo, Used to Decorate Bernardo Martinez Enchyridion Thesium ad Certamem Dog-

matico-Historico-Critico-Morale-Theologicum (1787) 255 Royal and Pontifical Arms Facing One Another across the Court in

the University Building in Antigua 279

Tables and Graph

1821 | 201

Graph of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1625Analysis of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala 203 Grand Total of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala 204

Part One

FOUNDATIONS

ay

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I

College or University?

FIFTY Spanish universities came into being in the Iberian Peninsula and the New World before July 4, 1776. More than a score of these were in the Americas. On the basis of population, the young whites of Spanish America were better provided with these institutions than the Peninsular Spaniards and were entitled by law to enjoy the “exemptions, privileges, and posts” open to Spanish citizens anywhere. This

was in keeping with the eagerness of the Spanish crown to do justice to its American subjects, including the pure-blooded Indians. Despite an element of truth in the charge that Spaniards elbowed the Americanborn from positions of honor, profit, and authority, Spanish universities in the New World conferred 150,000 academic degrees between the Conquest and 1821. When the cynic replies, as surely he will, that these

universities were but the dry bones of learning, let him compare his assumptions with the findings of this study. People in the United States are bound to be astonished by a record so remarkable and yet so in keeping with Spanish colonial policy. Perhaps they need to be reminded that the quartet of renowned medieval universities embraced Salamanca as well as Oxford, Paris, and Bologna. Indeed, Alfonso the Learned (1252-1284) in his Siete Partidas (laws of Castile) gave western Europe its first university code. In one notable section of this famous compilation he prescribes the conditions for his

ideal university: The distractions of court cities and the temptations of seaports make such sites ineligible. The seat of learning must be in 3

4 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA : “a town of beautiful portals,” enjoying “salubrious air,” “abundant provisions,” and “cheap lodgings,” so that the talented but poor youth as

well as the wealthy one may have his chance to enjoy a “literary” career and to prepare himself to serve the state. Citizens, as required | by law, “make visible signs” of respect to professors. Doctors of civil law, when walking abroad, are addressed as “Knights” or “Lords of the Law.” When these visit the courts, the judges stand up and proffer

| them their own seats on the bench. Thus the prestige accorded uni| versity learning by the Castile of that day was not surpassed elsewhere

in Europe. Oo

A coincidence of great significance, therefore, is the fact that at the time Cortés marched into Mexico City, Salamanca, with four thousand

students, was at its pinnacle of glory. At that moment of its preeminence, it was seen in America, not like a changing thing, but more —

like an image suddenly arrested on the screen in the midst of a motion picture. That flash of Salamanca became a model for the American

institutions yet to be founded. In fact, in the eighteenth century one of the “enlightened” ministers around Charles III complained with some reason—and some sophistry—that the American university, frozen in the mold of the famous Salamanca of the Golden Age, was |

incapable of progress.

The university was, in truth, as firmly fixed and as conventionalized _ in sixteenth-century Spanish education as a refectory in a monastery.

In the English colonies, the farmer administered the common law and individuals or sects served as their own theologians, without “doctors of the faculty.” Among the Spaniards, who had a large body. of

| authoritative knowledge and doctrine in every field, anarchy, irreligion, and “a barbarous youth” were the grim prospects of a single generation without “academies” on a tropical frontier in the midst of a primitive, pliant race. Notoriously tender of their children and “family honor,”

the Spaniards paused as soon as they got their breath after the spec-

| tacular Conquest to transplant the university, to them the absolute prerequisite of an urbane life. It would not do to have “the sons of Conquerors’ without “literature,” much less illiterate, even if their hard_ campaigning fathers had sometimes used the “X” or turned the head to the side and clamped the tongue between the teeth as they traced out their names. Did not the very savages perceive that the main difference

dermis? _

between Indians and whites lay more in education than in the epi-

COLLEGE OR UNIVERSITY? 5 The moment of the first overture to the crown to establish a “Spanish Minerva” came at precisely the time the eldest sons of the well-to-do

Conquerors reached college age. The cabildos, or town councils, rep- | resenting the “American” element, were the first to take up the burden of promoting universities and the most relentless in pressing for their establishment. Sometimes high civil officials, such as Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza of New Spain, joined the town fathers in advancing the cause. As likely as not, a public-spirited prelate, uneasy about the lack of theological training and of academic culture in general, took a place in the vanguard. In Guatemala the civil and ecclesiastical promoters

seemed to alternate in a campaign that stretched out for more than a century. The first bishop there and, later, the postmaster general —both Spaniards, be it noted—created educational endowments in their last wills. It is with the life of one of these benefactors, the Licentiate Don Francisco Marroquin, that we get to the roots of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala.

Bishop Marroquin Seeks a College When the Conqueror, Don Pedro de Alvarado, sought to raise the church of Guatemala to the status of a cathedral, he advanced the name of this very Marroquin, already curate, to be the first bishop of the new diocese. Marroquin was named in 1533 and, although not

consecrated until 1537, governed the bishopric by virtue of bulls dispatched by Paul III in 1584.1 Coming in with the very Conquerors themselves, he found himself in a favored position to acquire properties that would become valuable with the growth of the incipient city. Although the increase of the Marroquin interests gave ample evidence of his business shrewdness, it was in the sphere of education that this energetic and charitable man is best remembered in Guatemala. He initiated Latin studies—the sine qua non of higher education—in the kingdom. On his petition, the court on June 6, 1548, granted the right to institute a chair of Latin grammar in the City of Santiago de Guatemala and gave the income of a prebend for its support.” As his health began to decline, Bishop Marroquin could plainly see 1 Fray Antonio Remesal, Historia general de las Indias Occidentales, y particular de la Gobernacién de Chiapa y Guatemala, 2d ed. (Biblioteca “Goathemala,” IV and V; Guatemala, 1932), I, 92-93. 2Ramon A. Salazar, Historia del desenvolvimiento intelectual de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1897), p. 29. (Hereafter Desenvolvimiento. )

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fundacion, en dicha Ciudad, se pide a Su Magestad licencia. Goatemala, 17 de octubre de 1659.

42 | UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA tion for a university in the kingdom. First of all, without a university the faith was “defenseless.” Beyond that, a university by taking up the idle time of youth in “honest work” would encourage “good customs and moral virtues.” The give-and-take of university life would turn - out gentlemen—“politic, prudent, and courteous.” It went without saying that there was a crying need for university instruction in medicine, theology, and law. Specifically, Friar Payo made an eloquent plea for a chair of native languages, which, as will appear later, made a lasting impression upon the officers of the crown.

Friar Payo was stern in his treatment of Jesuit obstructionist tactics. He proved false their allegation that Mexico was only thirty leagues away, quoted the cloister of the University of Mexico that a university

, in Guatemala would not be prejudicial to Mexico, and established that the literal sense of the Crespo Suarez will could be legally altered. Although, as argued, the Jesuits enjoyed much prestige as teachers, their college was not impressive, for it numbered only fourteen, including Jaymen, and their instructors included only two professors of theology and one of arts—a record equaled in the convents of Santo Domingo, San Francisco, and La Merced. Far from teaching all that was needed, the Jesuits colored what they did teach with their own theses without

reference to the much-needed “contrary doctrines.” Although they conferred degrees, “something was not the same as much,” and a Jesuit degree was not the same as one conferred by a “general university.” In short, Payo de Rivera flatly asserted and convincingly maintained that the Jesuits would rather see the legacy of Crespo Suarez dissipated than have a public university erected. The junta of which Fray Payo was a member strongly recommended chartering a university.** The campaign

climaxed by this memorandum was so long drawn out that, as was , nearly always the case, when the Council of the Indies decided to do something, it had to start over again. Thus this junta to study and report on the question was authorized in 1653, reported six years later in 1659, and even that document was cold when a final decision was

reached sixteen years later. , | ,

Every aspect of the agitation culminating in 1663 was inspired by the action of a single man. Serrezuela Calderén, named rector of the Colegio in 1659, was so mortified at seeing edicts posted calling for the “sons of the principal inhabitants” to compete for scholarships in a nonexistent institution, that he bitterly complained to the king in

86 On October 28, 1659. ( Ibid.) | ,

CRESPO SUAREZ: THE FOUNDER 43 1662 that, after ninety-nine years, Marroquin’s dream of a college “had fallen into the same oblivion as before.” While complaining, Serrezuela begged that a university be established in the building constructed for the college. This occasioned the royal decree by which

the king required Cristobal Calancha, oidor and alcalde de corte, to make a full investigation of the motives and causes which the trustees, the dean of the cathedral, and the prior of the Dominican convent had had for carrying out the will of Marroquin.* So, in 1663, there was another wave of memorials and petitions from

corporations in Guatemala. Almost mechanically, after the lapse of another biennium, the ayuntamiento agreed to go still another time before the Council of the Indies.*® The Franciscan convent six days later drew up a plea reiterative of all those sent to Spain in the 1640's and 60’s.*° Anti-Jesuit bias, however, was now the dominant note in everything. The “Company” did not prepare men for degrees in law, canon law, and medicine and thus continued to frustrate youth inclined to a secular career. The Jesuits served only themselves “and not the common body of priests and religious.” They lacked, the Franciscans claimed, the authority of a royal cédula anyway, supposedly because

the right to confer degrees authorized in 1625 for a ten-year period

had been renewed in 1634 by the Pope and not by the king. The Franciscans wanted the chairs awarded after competitive trial-lectures but felt that the Dominicans were entitled to the prima chair of theology

after a contest among themselves.*° The Mercedarians, unlike the Jesuits, soon gave up their efforts to get a large share of the Crespo Suarez money and were now petitioning the king in the same vein as the Franciscans.‘ When in 1665 the agent of the ayuntamiento, Gaspar

de Aybar, got around to informing his employers on the steps taken

to promote a university, he said they “had got absolutely nowhere,” ** and Calancha, who went off to Mexico, had not launched the institution nor straightened out its finances in 1666.** Nevertheless, the Council 87 AGG, Al. 36-1, 13361, 1968, fols. 1-2v. Real cédula al Licenciado Don Cristébal Calancha oidor de la Audiencia de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 18 de junio de 1662. 88 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 71; Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacién florida, II, 239. The letter of the cabildo was dated February 20, 1663 (AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373). 89 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373. The memorandum is dated February 23, 1663.

40 [bid, Guatemala, February 26, 1663. 41 [bid. February 23, 1668. 42 “No han progresado en nada.” (Pardo, Efemérides, p. 73.) 48 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378. Carta de Don Antonio de Serrezuela. Guatemala, 9 de junio de 1666.

| 44 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA — of the Indies issued a decree ordering the Dominicans to get reports from the audiencia and Bishop Payo de Rivera about all the problems of a university in Guatemala.** The town council once again demon-

: strated its dauntless spirit by seconding the petition of Santo Tomas to be converted into a university.*®

Captain General Sebastian Alvarez Alfonso, newly established in the presidency of the audiencia and extraordinarily energetic in reviving languishing public projects, added the weight of the Superior Government to the pressure upon the Council of the Indies. In a long memorial he argued that a university was the one thing wanting for “the royal glory” of the kingdom. The arguments of his brief had already been made by a score of petitioners, but he especially emphasized

the need of a university to control epidemics and protect the public health. He joined the clamor for chairs of native languages. Most practical of all, he said that the building was “almost in the last state of perfection,” suggested twelve chairs, and claimed that the deficit of 1,125 pesos in a total university budget of 4,690 pesos could be raised

by assigning vacant encomiendas.*° | a

In these same years the trustees worried about the possible maladministration of the funds of the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino, perhaps stimulated by the knowledge that the oidor Calancha, who had returned to the City, had a royal order to check on their administration

of the Marroquin bequest. Since the curator of the property of the college was also the administrator of the Crespo Suarez endowment, the accounting would establish the total assets of the proposed university.* Although the endowment of approximately forty-two thousand pesos 44 Ibid. Decreto del Consejo de Indias. 7 de julio de 1665. ,

florida, III, 239. | | 45 Ibid. Carta de 9 de mayo de 1667. See also Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacién

46 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373. Guatemala, March 5, 1667.

#7 Tt was Fray Juan de Ullarai, prior of the Dominican convent, who requested the

audiencia to see that the account of Antonio de Quiroz, custodian of the college property, was audited. The audiencia appointed one of its own oidores, Dr. Juan de Garate y Francia, to undertake this work. When the proper summons was issued

and the accounts rendered in 1666, it was found as follows: .

Nature of property , Value Annual interest , Seventeen mortgages and |

Marroquin terrazgo of , Jocotenango .................... [PJ] 883 tostones terrazgos ..........44...44+44..+ 28,000 tostones 1,152 tostones

2,085 tostones

CRESPO SUAREZ: THE FOUNDER 45 was small, Bishop Payo de Rivera had insisted in 1659 that not one of the universities of Toledo, Valladolid, Sigiienza, Osuna, or Seville had a more adequate income.*®

In the summer of 1667 the executors of the Crespo Suarez estate suddenly applied to charitable works money amounting to more than twenty thousand pesos, presumably the forty thousand tostones left for the university *® on the condition that it be licensed in six years. The six years allowed for the establishment of a university had long since elapsed. Only the energetic efforts of men like Bishop Payo de Rivera had kept this money from falling into private hands years before 1667. But at last, on July 31 of that year, Juan de Binueza, back at his

old tricks, distributed twenty-one thousand pesos *° as dowries for orphans, as ransom for the redemption of captives, and for other “pious

work.” Another trustee, Fray Francisco Gallegos, prior of Santo Domingo, objected that he had not endorsed the distribution, and a new one was made totaling 21,011 pesos.®! The accounting of Binueza

Nature of property Value Annual interest Juros of the Crespo

Suarez foundation ............... 10,000 pesos

sugar mill and 1,175 pesos

Mortgages on the Amatitlan property of the Gonzalez

Donis family ................... 18,500

Sancho de Baraona endowment

of a chair of sacred

scriptures ................-02--+ DP] 100 ducats Interest paid in

(Crespo Suarez money) .......... [PJ Unknown

(AGG, Al. 86-2, 18869, 1970. Legajo que contiene la rendicién de las cuentas hecha por el administrador de ella, Antonio Quiroz. Afio de 1666. Calancha reported

[AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378. Carta a S.M. 30 de noviembre de 1663] that the principal funds of the college came to 43,755 tostones. ) 48 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378. Informe de Payo de Rivera (1659), fol. 12.

49 Crespo Suarez had provided that when the 40,000 tostones were paid, the rest of the estate, except for some devoted to “the rest of his soul,” should go to charitable works. The distribution of the surplus, had it not been reserved for the university, would certainly have taken place before the lapse of twenty-one years. 50 Binueza thought he had distributed 21,500, but the entries made in his accounts did not correspond with the totals. 51 AGG, Al. 20, 727, 427. Los albaceas del Correo Mayor Crespo Suarez asignan

tres mil pesos mas a favor de la dotacién de la universidad y en especial para la fundacién escolastica. Afio de 1667. In neither distribution did the items set down in the writing correspond with the sums in the margins. A puzzling fact is that in

46 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA indicates that the Crespo Suarez legacy of twenty thousand pesos earmarked for a university was now distributed once and for all and that . the money was already in the hands of the beneficiaries. However, there must have been some legal hitch.°* Certainly there was a moral

one. - | ,

At this moment the University of Guatemala was saved for posterity —

by the rarest chance—the sudden regeneration of a character. Poor - Binueza, while never saying that he had falsified the will of Crespo Suarez, confessed that, borne away by resentment and eager to inflict suffering upon the other executors, he had put a sharp, interested interpretation upon it and arbitrarily made “donations” of the twenty thousand pesos. Overcome at last by the feeling that his motives had been

unworthy, he revoked everything, begged the pardon of the other executors, the provincial, and prior of Santo Domingo, and declared null and void all the “donations which he made.” ** Thus, though nothing could save the legacy from a dishonest and malicious, not to say greedy

and confused, administration, the groundwork was at last laid for financing a university without obstruction. In a society where money was all but impossible to come by, the prospect of an endowment for a religious order or the hope of a dowry for a marriageable girl brought __ irresistible pressure down upon poor, weak, and probably vain Binueza. In the end he acted like a man who has just had some good but strong advice from his confessor. Some highly persuasive friend of the univer-

sity had certainly reached him. |

On January 31, 1676, without warning, the king at long last authorized

the establishment of a university in the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino.* The university problem had reached a climax every decade both distributions “3,000 pesos more” were earmarked for the foundation of a chair of scholastic theology, provided the king authorized the very university presumed by the allotment to be lost. It is impossible to make complete sense of this document. 52 We know that the accounts of the Crespo Suarez estate were for a very long time in the hands of the Juzgado de Bienes de Difuntos. (See AGG, A1. 36-2, 13367, 1969. Autos seguidos en el Juzgado de Difuntos sobre el dinero que dejé el Correo Mayor Pedro Crespo Suarez para la dotacién de una universidad en el Colegio de

versity. ] | Santo Tomas de Aquino. Afios 1660-1680. )

53 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 135, fol. 47 to the end of pieza 6. Retractacién de Vinuesa. Guatemala, 7 de julio de 1670. See also pieza 15. This is further proof that the sum distributed by Binueza in 1667 was money intended originally for the uni-

31 de enero de 1676. ,

54 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12235, 1882. Real cédula a la audiencia de Guatemala. Madrid,

CRESPO SUAREZ: THE FOUNDER 47 in the seventeenth century—1624, 1634, 1643, 1653, 1663, 1676.°° Why, then, did the royal government act in 1676 and not in the previous dec-

ades? The unremitting barrage upon the home officials, especially the informe from Mexico and the one from Bishop Payo de Rivera, all of which seemed to yield so little, nevertheless had a softening effect. Despite the weight of this long-accumulating evidence, if we are to judge by the official records, it took the “learned, clear, and polished”

statement of the bishop and the all-important opinion of the fiscal of the Council of the Indies to turn the tide.®* A more realistic view is that Bishop Rivera brought the university in Guatemala, for the first time, the indispensable friends at court. Proof of this immense prestige in Spain is that, as the son of the Duke of Alcala, the viceroy of Naples, he could move from Guatemala to become, in 1678, archbishop-viceroy of Mexico.

The thirty years between the contract of Crespo Suarez in 1646 and the cédula of foundation in 1676 had been years of determined activity on the part of the traditional enemies of the university. The Jesuits, not

fully trusting their prospects before the Council of the Indies, now tried other devices. They gave their college the pretentious name of Universidad Pontificia y Regia, obviously to show that no other royal and pontifical university was necessary. This title the fathers entered upon the written conclusions and theses defended by their students. Between 1662 and 1676 the Jesuit “university” conferred doctors’ degrees where before it had granted only the master’s. In the year 1676 the Jesuits proceeded in unseemly haste to celebrate the initiation of their university on its new footing with the solemnity customary in the major universities. Dr. Nicolas Roldan donned the cap and hood of a doctor and ascended the ceremonial chair for this inauguration on St. Luke’s Day, October 18, 1676. The elated fathers of the Society then betook themselves to Contifio’s mill to make merry and celebrate their academic triumph with a picnic. But in the midst of the festivities, on 55 The twentieth-century North American will want to know why, instead of agitating for a century, the town council did not simply launch a privately endowed university. This was out of the question, because Spanish universities without exception had been royal creations and, in the enormous paternalism of the American empire, they fell by law under the “royal patronage.” Besides, the king, terrified of new expense and enamored of all income, knew that the endowment was marginal if not downright insufficient. 56 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378. Consulta del Consejo de Indias, 28 de octubre de 1675. See also Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion florida, III, 239.

| 48 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA October 22, the mail arrived bringing news of the cédula creating an exclusive university in the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino. Their joy turned to wormwood and gall.°” 57 Ximénez, op. cit., II, 249-250; AGG, Al. 38-1, 12285, 1882.

IV The Civil Authorities

Launch the Unwersity of San Carlos de Guatemala

WHEN the crown, having waited over 110 years from the first overture for a university, at last sanctioned a “Guatemalan Salamanca” in 1676, in typical fashion it named seven chairs and stipulated salaries. These stipends are anomalous, for the professors of canon and civil law got twice as much, and the professor of medicine almost twice as much, as the professor of theology, whereas in the “model” universities of the empire—where it was not necessary as in Guatemala to bring professors from Mexico or Spain—the first chair of theology rather than those of law or medicine occupied the most dignified position and brought the

highest salary. And, even if it does make the president of Harvard wince, administrative and maintenance costs were only 29 per cent of instructional. Since the total income expected from the original legacies —2,261 pesos a year—fell some six hundred pesos short of the minimum

budget, the king authorized the supplementing of the receipts by encomiendas of Indians falling vacant. 1 The cédula of foundation provided for a chair of moral theology with a salary of 250 pesos, one of scholastic theology at 250, one of canon law at 500, one of Roman or civil law at 500, one of medicine at 400, and two chairs of native languages at 200

pesos each. The combined salaries of secretary, bedel, and other “administrative” officers would be no more than 400 pesos. 49

50 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA A most enlightening set of detailed instructions accompanied the concession of a university. It must be a royal university, conspicuously showing the king’s coat of arms from the first possible moment. A Junta Extraordinary ? must oversee the auditing of the Crespo Suarez books, render an account of what was owing, collect and invest that money with the rest—in short to see to all matters relating to finance. Businesslike

at last, the government ordered the readying of the building of the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino, near the Convent of Santo Domingo, to accommodate the University chairs, and asked the same

| committee to propose to the Council of the Indies the statutes and regulations most suitable for the election of the first professors as well as those who should come later and for the general launching of the

University. The crown enjoined the president and bishop to execute everything as soon as possible and to report when convenient.’

Despite the harrowing delays of the past, the first meeting of this Junta, occurring one day after official receipt of the cédula of foundation,* was marvelously prompt. It was also surprisingly decisive. It required the trustees of the Colegio de Santo Tomas to turn over the endowments and money entrusted to them, to terminate the work of the college, and to deliver the building unencumbered. All administrators of the Santo Tomas money must present their accounts. The probate court (Juzgado de Bienes de Difuntos) got orders to explain the status of the Crespo Suarez endowment. Dr. Don Jacinto Roldan de la Cueva was appointed to attend to all these matters and to audit the accounts. He in turn characteristically appointed Nicolas de Maeda __ scrivener “to prepare the writings” (to make the autos). After the conventional paper work, De la Cueva made an inspection—vista de

ojos °—of the building of Santo Tomas with the master builder and master mason.° He did not wish to take the responsibility for the fitness"

or unfitness of the structure and dropped the matter back into the lap of the Commission (Junta). The commissioners, in a meeting of April 7, 1677, approved De la Cueva’s steps respecting the accounts and the 2 Created by the king and composed of the president of the audiencia, the two senior oidores, the fiscal, and the bishop or the dean of the cathedral. 8 There are two cédulas dated January 31, 1676; the second, establishing the conditions, was addressed exclusively to the president of the audiencia. AGG, Al. 8-1, 12235, 1882. See also Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, and Al. 23-2, 1556, 27. ~

# It was obeyed November 3, 1676. , , | 5 January 5, 1677. a

6 Captain Martin de Andujar and Bernabé Carlos. }

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY ol next day, berobed and heavy with dignity, went in a body to inspect the building. As a result, they decided to build a new chapel and audi-

torium (general mayor), running north and south facing the street coming from the convent of the nuns of Santa Catalina. All agreed on the location of the royal arms (escudos de estuco) but left all minor decisions on remodeling and refurnishing to De la Cueva. The Junta’s decision to undertake a building program, absolutely necessary though it was, led to lasting complications. The appropria-

tion of four thousand pesos late in the summer’ to defray the construction costs was a most critical decision destined to intrude itself much in the future, for the Junta could return the four thousand pesos to the principal only by attaching the gratuities of academic degrees. In _ less than a month the Junta added three thousand pesos to this debt, and by the middle of the next year the indebtedness had increased to ten thousand pesos. Other unexpected charges against the endowment appeared. The number of chairs was increased from seven to nine by the addition of one for Institutes at 200 pesos a year and another for arts at the same figure.* The salaries of administrative officers increased the expenses— a secretary at 200 pesos a year, a bedel and master of ceremonies at 150, a second bedel at 150, and a treasurer (tesorero sindico) at 200. For this total the treasurer posted a bond of 2,000 ducats. The figure

thus allowed to pay the staff ran considerably in excess of the sum contemplated by the Council of the Indies.®

Naming the new university, setting up a permanent administration, , and selecting the faculty presented problems even more intricate than those of financial management. Where there had never been any aca7 At a meeting on August 17, 1677. 8 This step was approved in a royal cédula of September 19, 1678, and June 6,

1680. (AGG, Al. 23, 10076, 1521.) |

® The fiscal situation in this early period was too fluid to enable one to see it clearly.

Each administrator of the funds either disagreed with the one before him or sued him for mismanagement. According to an inventory dated September 25, 1677, the Marroquin and Baraona money, mainly invested in terrazgos or mortgages and ranging from 11,000 pesos in the Amatitlan sugar mill to items as small as 50 pesos, came to 33,754 pesos and 2 reales, which, added to the Crespo Suarez capital of 46,524 pesos and 2 reales, amounted on paper to 80,278 pesos and 4 reales, a sum much in excess of the liquid assets in 1666. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12285, 1882. Autos de la merced y fundacion de la Real Universidad de San Carlos, fols. 56-65. See also AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373. Testimonio de los bienes y rentas de la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala, de lo que para ella dejaron el Obispo Marroquin, Pedro Crespo Suarez y Sancho de Barrahona y su mujer. Guatemala, 26 de noviembre de 1677.)

, 52 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA demic organization, the Junta, as a commission extraordinary, could

| only try to apply the traditions and rules of Spain. First, it dubbed the institution the University of San Carlos “in happy memory of the king

| our lord Charles II.” Then it appointed the oidor, Dr. Juan Bautista de Urquiola Elorriaga, “judge-superintendent,” with the jurisdiction of

| the Spanish rector and temporary power to appoint the other administrative officers.° Dr. Urquiola, after accepting the financial responsibilities originally delegated to De la Cueva, undertook to examine the statutes of the universities of Salamanca and Mexico to see what fea-

tures were adaptable to Guatemala. oe |

Filling the chairs proposed for Guatemala proved a most troublesome task for the organizers of the incipient University. Philosophers and theologians were plentiful, but not experts in civil law, canon law, | and medicine. Bringing these men from the outside was an idea dear to Bishop Juan de Ortega y Montafiez, who broached the subject to Fray Payo de Rivera, now archbishop and viceroy of Mexico." Rivera willingly, even eagerly, exchanged letters with the Junta. The scarcity of suitable personnel in Guatemala had led the Junta Extraordinary to | agree 1? to invite any qualified person in Mexico to compete in the competitions (oposiciones). The idea of turning to Mexico to compensate for the dearth of persons in Guatemala with academic degrees was thus greatly strengthened. The Junta asked the judge-superintendent on January 12, 1678, to empower the rector of the University of Mexico to hold the competitions there in keeping with the usages of the universities of Mexico and Salamanca. The selection of professors by remote control was unsatisfactory, for Guatemalan aspirants were jealous and resentful of outsiders, whether Spaniards or Mexicans, and prac- — tically nobody in Mexico City except some fuzzy-faced boy cared to hazard a thousand-mile trek to a poorer environment than he already enjoyed. For these reasons, the Junta requested Fray Payo de Rivera

City. :

, to report confidentially on the persons winning the contests in Mexico The ayuntamiento meanwhile took an especial interest in filling the chair of medicine. Two days after the Junta Extraordinary of the Uni-

10 Pedro de Barcena was the first secretary, Juan de Molina, master of ceremonies and first bedel, Eusebio Diaz Cachorro, second bedel, and Juan de Arpide, treasurer. _ 11 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373. Bishop Juan de Ortega y Montajfiez to the king.

| Guatemala, November 28, 1677. — 12 At the August 17, 1677, meeting.

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY 53 versity authorized the holding of oposiciones in Mexico, the ayunta_miento voted favorably upon the petition of Diego Vasquez de Hinojosa of Oaxaca for funds to come to Guatemala to compete for the chair of medicine and subsequently sent him eight hundred pesos for that purpose. When Vasquez de Hinojosa suggested that he needed more than fifteen hundred for this purpose, the ayuntamiento sent him eight hun-

dred more and asked the rector to postpone the competition for the chair pending the arrival of this contestant.** The town council was so pathetically eager to have doctors that it voted to send, without security,

four times the annual salary of the chair involved to a man who, to cap the climax, got the money but never put in his appearance. Meanwhile the enmity existing between Bishop Ortega y Montafiez and Captain General Fernando Francisco de Escobedo, based “upon motives so public” that Fuentes y Guzman ** thought it unnecessary to repeat them, erupted in the Junta Extraordinary of the University, of which both were members. On July 13, 1678, the Junta had received a

letter from Fray Payo de Rivera stating that on July 16 the competitions in Mexico for the chairs in Guatemala would be closed. And on September 9, the Junta Extraordinary received the documents—the autos—of the contests held in Mexico. These were not complete, and

for that reason the captain general suggested that the competitions continue in Guatemala.” The necessity of conducting these oposiciones in Guatemala fanned

the latent animosity of the bishop, who wanted to keep the captain general from controlling the elections. That prelate was so incensed that, long after the ruling against him, he petulantly drove away the messenger sent to take his ceremonial chair from the episcopal palace to the meeting place of the Junta. He requested a special meeting of the Junta, at which he accused the presidential faction of deciding to go on with the competitions without consulting the Junta. He wanted to

know particularly whether he was a part of the Junta and whether he had any part in its jurisdiction. Certainly he wanted his position made clear. The cédulas touching the matter were then read, and the members agreed that the bishop was a voting member of the Junta.

Ortega, once his position was made clear, issued a vigorous chal18 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 88. 14 Recordacion florida, III, 240-247. The author undoubtedly made use of the expediente (AGG, Al. 8-1, 12235, 1882) followed here. 18 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 89.

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Juan de Ortega y Montafiez and His Escud

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY oo lenge.’* The bishop feared that the other members of the Junta would install professors unacceptable to him. Therefore he thought the method of filling the chairs was haphazard and hardly in accordance with the king’s wishes. He accused Juan Bautista de Urquiola Elorriaga, the judge-superintendent, of insulting him by the manner of summoning him to a professorial competition and thought it outrageous that the superintendent, when the captain general was present, should sit apart with the hourglass and bell as presiding officer. In fact nothing suited the bishop. Urquiola was not conducting the audit with sufficient vigor. The money should be kept in a chest with three keys. The ten thousand pesos already spent without visible results on the University building— when only five had been originally allotted for this purpose—so out-

raged the churchman that he insinuated that De la Cueva had embezzled some of the money. Urquiola, the tirade went on, had taken no steps to determine exactly who owed the University money, with the

result that the accounts were in a muddle. The strongest indignation was reserved for the servile, unauthorized copying of the statutes of the University of Mexico. True, the king had ordered ordinances drawn up and submitted as soon as possible. The first Junta had empowered Urquiola to make adaptations and permit the Junta to study the results

before they were submitted to the king. Bishop Ortega y Montafiez

accused Urquiola of highhandedly and literally applying the statutes of Mexico in defiance of these instructions. Whatever others might do, he would not approve something he had never seen, much less discussed. Moreover, Urquiola was failing in even a literal application of the Mexican statutes, which required holders of chairs to have university degrees—an impossibility in Guatemala.

The bishop’s solution of the impasse he described was to stop all proceedings immediately. Then, in a calmer and less confused atmosphere, the original cédulas could be reread and better understood. Besides this, he wanted the balances of the accounts of the treasurers and administrators brought together and audited at once without the unseemly delay of the past. As for the Junta, Bishop Ortega would

attend its meetings in the future only after the arrival of the new captain general, Don Lope de Sierra Osorio.

In response to this attack, the captain general expressed the view that the contests for the chairs should continue. The oidor Don Benito

16 In a memorandum dated September 28, 1678. ,

56 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA , de Naboa Salgado could hardly conceal his scorn of the churchman’s

vehemence. Indeed, he said Urquiola had presided at the “act of oposicién” only upon the orders of the president; otherwise he totally disagreed with the charges. Urquiola defended himself on the ground that his actions were the best calculated to get the University under way and that the accounts were in good shape, the bishop to the con-

trary notwithstanding. , | | | | There is sufficient evidence to think that the captain general was as active as could be expected. He asserted that too much time had passed

in executing the king’s orders about the University.’ Besides, the re- _ ports from the competitions held in Mexico had already arrived. The Junta, under his influence, quickly resolved to fill the chairs. The bishop,

still sulking, did not attend this meeting.** The captain general reemphasized the need for initiating the classes,’* but the Junta wasted

Oo its time in nervous quibbling about whether it had been right on the | preceding August 17 to authorize the two chairs of Institutes and arts _ over and above the seven approved in the cédula of foundation. This momentous question they could not decide, but on the same date they put into the record three letters (dated August 10, 1678) from Mexico —two from the oidores of the audiencia there, Juan de Garate and Juan de Arechaga, and the third from Juan Bernardo de Rivera, rector of the University of Mexico. These letters, in response to the captain general of Guatemala, reported on the Mexican contests and the can-

| didates the authors regarded as fit to come to Guatemala and hold the chairs in the University there. The implication is plain, especially in Arechaga’s letter, that the Mexicans seeking the Guatemalan posts were

| immature and insufficiently educated. But there was general agreement on the fitness of Fray Diego de Aguiar for the chair of prima of theology,

for medicine.?° | , ) ,

, , Licentiate de Carmona for that of laws, and Bachelor José Salmerén | , 17 In an auto issued on November 23, 1677. _ 18 The Junta had felt enough confidence to vote on September 9, 1677, to report in full to the king and to carry out the resolution on November 27, 1677, which was approved in a royal cédula nearly a year later. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12235, 1882. Real cédula. Madrid, 19 de septiembre de 1678. Al. 28, 10076, 1521. Cedulario de la

| Real Audiencia, VIII, fol. 183.)

, Juan de Bastidas. ,

19 In a summons on December 5, 1678, calling for a meeting of the Junta, the president, Oidor Dr. Benito Naboa Salgado, Oidor Juan Bautista de Urquiola, and

_ 20For a list of the papers on the oposiciones conducted in Mexico, see AGG, Al. 3-25, 18197, 1961. The details concerning the candidates and competitions, care-

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY 57 With oposiciones conducted in two places and all the papers assembled, the president now called upon the Junta to cast its votes for the professors and to select them pending the king’s approval or disapproval. Urquiola, the acting rector, thought that the king should be informed before they proceeded to name professors who were not university graduates. Nevertheless, the vote was taken next day.”* Both the Mexican oposiciones and the rivalries at home complicated

the choices. Although the Mexican candidates got several second places | in the voting, only Salmerén was selected. The Mexican contests did not produce a single candidate for the chairs of native languages—not even of “Mexican” language; thus this chair was not filled for want of a candidate from either Guatemala or Mexico. Dissatisfaction with the first selection of university professors was well-nigh universal at the beginning of 1679. Palacios de la Bastida, the fiscal and a member of the Junta Extraordinary, refused to vote on the

ground that he was not in the city when the competitions were held and could not be expected to know the best choices. He therefore challenged the appointments. Bishop Ortega challenged the legality of the elections on the same grounds. He was outraged that only one selection was made from the secular clergy—Bachelor Juan Meléndez Carreiio.

He denounced the whole procedure as illegal: chairs were filled by persons who had no degrees at all or degrees in a faculty distinct from the one in which they were selected to teach.” The City of Guatemala joined this complaint to the king, alleging that the president and oidores had proceeded to fill the chairs with “passion” and to put in Dominicans to the entire neglect of the brilliant figures among the secular clergy.”* Urquiola Elorriaga voted for the bishop’s candidate, Archdeacon José de Bafios y Sotomayor, as his second choice for professor of prima of theology, but the rest of the committee preferred Aguiar for this small fully prepared and kept by the secretary of the University of Mexico, Bernardo Plaza y Jaén, are to be found in AGG, Al. 3-8, 12437, 12440, 12441, 12442, and 12443, 1898.

21 Prima of theology, Maestro Fray Rafael del Castillo; visperas of theology, Fray Diego de Rivas; arts, Fray Agustin de Cano; prima of canons, Juan Meléndez Carrefio; prima of laws, Jacinto Jaime Moreno; Institutes, Antonio Davila Quifiones; prima of medicine, José de Salmerén; Cakchiquel, Fray José Angel Senoyo. 22 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 186. Carta del Obispo de Guatemala a S.M. Guatemala, 5 de enero de 1679. 28 Ibid., 378. City of Guatemala to the king. Guatemala, January 11, 1679. The city fathers recommended Dr. José de Bafios y Sotomayor as professor of prima of theology and Dr. Esteban de Acuifia Moreira professor of visperas.

58 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA honor. The preference for a remote person when there was at hand so prominent a churchman as Dr. Bafios suggests that the captain general’s faction, in the absence of the bishop, was having its own way. Other evidences of friction appeared in connection with the appointment to the chair of visperas of theology. Dr. and Master Esteban de Acufia

Moreira, senior cura rector of the cathedral and another favorite of the bishop, who had placed second in all votes on the chair of vespers of theology, asked the audiencia to suspend the appointment of his rival, Rivas, while he appealed to the Council of the Indies. His principal charge was that, since Rivas had no academic degree, the appointment was illegal.** The audiencia referred him to the Council and reported that the relevant documents were being sent there. It was an ill omen that the choice of the first professors should have occurred in such a

bitter factional atmosphere. a | |

With the initial filling of the chairs, the dawn of the year 1679 should

have been felicitous for the University, but a series of circumstances combined to postpone the first classes two years more. The new president and captain general, Lope de Sierra Osorio, was now on the scene with, perhaps, different prejudices and connections.*> An inspection _ of the building by the Junta on February 8, 1679, resulted only in a vote | to apportion Urquiola seventeen hundred pesos more to finish the chapel and main hall. The appeals made by the bishop of Guatemala and by

| disappointed aspirants to professorships kept the University in chaos. The crossing of the mails between Spain and Guatemala carrying conflicting decisions threatened to prolong the confusion forever. A

| cédula arriving in April, 1680, three years behind local developments, undid most of the painful work of selecting professors.?* The king, who could not know of the holding of competitions in Mexico, now dropped

| the news that he had given instructions to the archbishop-viceroy of Mexico to post edicts and stage competitions in Mexico City for appointments to the chairs of canon law, civil law, and medicine in Guatemala. 24 Dr. Acufia Moreira had his major degrees from the “College of the Company.”

Fray Agustin Cano, O.P., provincial de San Vicente de Chiapa y Guatemala, and the Mercedarian Fray Diego de Quiroz did not have any academic degrees. 25 Urquiola tried to resign on January 28, 1679, and called attention to his resignation again on April 3, 1680. He was still serving, however, in February, 1681. (AGG,

Al. 38-20, 13146, 1956. ) ,

26 Obeyed by the president and oidores April 30, 1680. The cédula (Madrid, September 19, 1679) approved what had been done when the Junta reported on No-

vember 27, 1677. a

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY o9 Any appointments already made in these chairs were declared null and void, If Juan Carrefio had been selected, however, that choice was to stand. Five hundred pesos from University funds for traveling expenses were to be given to each professor thus selected in Mexico.” In two later cédulas dated the same day the king approved the work and costs of the building and the increase of the chairs from seven to nine,” but for the second time revoked the appointments already made, ruling, however, that, until professors could be “canonically selected”

in new contests, the group of men already selected by the Junta in Guatemala should go on with their work.?° Conditions were not ready for the official opening of the University until December 2, 1680, At that time the captain general and oidores

confirmed the interim appointments and set January 7, 1681, as the date for the beginning of the first course of studies. That solemn in-

auguration required a Latin oration. Students coming from the provinces | were to matriculate within two months of that date; all professors should

possess copies of the cédula containing their appointments; the juez superintendente should assign rooms in accordance with the statutes of the University of Salamanca; each professor should “read” and elucidate for an hour each day except holidays.*° No courses in the same faculty would come at the same hour.

At the same time the real acuerdo (the president and members of the audiencia in executive or administrative session) instructed Dr. Urquiola to draw up a set of statutes for the government of the professors, graduates, administrative officers, and students of the University which, after review, the Superior Government would submit to the Council of the Indies. The cédula of June 6, 1680, upon which this auto was based, was published “in a loud voice,” on December 7, 1680,

in the Plazuela de San Pedro, the Plaza Mayor, the Barrio de San Sebastian, the Barrio of Santo Domingo, the Cemetery, the Convent of 27 For this cédula and the story of the organization of the University from receipt of the cédula of foundation to 1680, see AGG, Al. 3-1, 12235, 1882. Autos de la merced y fundacion de la Real Universidad de San Carlos de esta ciudad de Santiago de Guatemala. Afios de 1676-1681. 28 Real cédula al presidente y oidores de la audiencia de Guatemala. Madrid, 6 de junio de 1680. Obeyed October 16, 1680. (AGG, Al. 23, 10076, 1521.) 29 Real cédula. Madrid, 6 de junio de 1680. For the list, see Note 21, p. 57, above. 30 Prima of theology, 7-8 a.M.; visperas of theology, 38-4 p.M.; prima of canons,

7-8 a.M.; prima of laws, 8-9 a.M.; Institutes, 3-4 p.m.; prima of medicine, 9-10 A.M.; arts or philosophy, 9-10 a.m. and 4-5 p.M.; Cakchiquel language, 10-11 a.M.;

and Mexican language, 8-9 a.M. ,

60 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | Santo Domingo, and “at the doors of the University,” by Juan de la © Cruz, indio ladino. This town crier or “preconizer” was accompanied on his grand circuit by Don Juan de Molina, bedel and master of ceremonies of the University, and José de Mesa, Antonio Marqués, and Diego de Ardon, lieutenants of the alguacil mayor—all to the blare of a trumpet and rattle of war drums secured especially for the purpose. _ These interim professors appeared “within three days” for the assign- | ment of classrooms and texts. These first assignments of teaching materials, while they will surprise no one familiar with the “neoscholastic” university, show nevertheless the routine, formalistic concept of education, which goes far to explain the hundred years of unconcern by the _ crown about the University of Guatemala.” After the first year a special

meeting of the members of the professoriate solemnly assigned the “materials.” The thing that impresses a modern observer most about ‘the texts used in the scholastic university is that they were mentioned with almost biblical respect and with the same casualness and assump-

tion that everybody would understand that one would now feel in 81 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12245, 1885. Sobre el cumplimiento de la Real Cédula de 6 de junio de 1680 referente al servicio de las Catedras de la Universidad de San Carlos mandada erigir en el Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino, por real cédula de 31 de ©

enero de 1676. ' ,

82 It fell to Fray Rafael del Castillo, professor of prima of theology, to teach the “proemials” or introductory part of the Liber sententiarum by Peter Lombard, the Master of Sentences, covering the ground from the first to the twenty-sixth question inclusive. The professor of visperas of theology, Fray Diego de Rivas, got as his assignment the fourth book of the Master of Sentences, from the first to the seventh distinction inclusive—no more, no less. The professor of philosophy or arts, Fray Agustin Cano, for the first period was to “read” logic, the introduction and compendium (“Proemiales y sumulas” ). The professors of canons, civil law (“De liberis et post humis” ), and Institutes were assigned—title by title and chapter by chapter— the texts assigned for these chairs in the statutes of the University of Salamanca. The professor of medicine got from the Galenic texts the first and second doctrines of De elementis, from the first and second chapter the third doctrine De temperamentis, and from the last chapter the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth doctrines De membris. The professor-of Cakchiquel was to proceed with “Arte y gramatica” and the professor _ of Mexican with “Arte y lengua.” Each professor received legal notification of the _ “act” in which these assignments were made on December 18, 1680. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12245, 1885. Asignacién de las materias de los catedraticos. 13 de diciembre de 1680. For the assignments of materials in all classes for the first decade, see AGG, Al. 3-9, 12632, 1905. Legajo que contiene la asignacién de las lecturas y materias que han de _ leer los catedraticos de la Universidad de San Carlos en los cursos de 1681 a 1692 inclusivos, hechas por el Licenciado Don Francisco de Sarassa y Arce, oidor en esta Real Audiencia, Juez Superintendente y Rector de dicha Real Universidad. )

LAUNCHING OF UNIVERSITY | 61 mentioning Genesis. It is not the logic or Organon of Aristotle, but simply the prologue and compendium (stmulas) of that work. This is a habit which, when extended to obscure authors, sets the scholar thinking about the easy life of the professional detective. On December 18, 1680, in a series of ceremonies, each professor takes possession of his chair.?* At that time Captain Don Tomas Delgado de

Najera, Commissary General Pedro de Gastafiasa, Captain Francisco Albizuri, many other secular persons, many clerics, and a large group of religious of the Franciscan, Mercedarian, Dominican, and Augus-

tinian orders and from the order of San Juan de Dios assemble in the | great hall. Fray Rafael del Castillo goes up into the chair, which in the

university of that day is much like a pulpit, and makes a prefatory speech beginning with some Latin words which the scribe and notary duly take down for the delectation of posterity. One after the other, on the same day, the professors of visperas of theology, philosophy, and Institutes ascend into the chair and with invariable formality and,

in a few Latin words, take possession. However, the professor of Cakchiquel satisfies this requirement by talking to the assembled witnesses in the Indian language. Each professor descends to the polite but loud applause of the curious observers.** Even a “sweeper” for the cleaning “which must go on constantly in said house” is hired at one

real a day with as much solemnity as is a professor. The Jesuits are conspicuously absent from these crowning ceremonies,

At long last everything is ready for the opening of the University of San Carlos de Guatemala. At three o'clock on the afternoon of January 7, 1681, the president and captain general, Sierra Osorio; the oidores

Dr. Urquiola Elorriaga, Don Juan Palacios de la Bastida, and Don Jer6énimo Chacén Abarca; the aldermen and judges of the town council;

many members of the orders of San Francisco, Santo Domingo, Our Lady of Mercy, Saint Augustine, the Society of Jesus, and San Juan de Dios; clerics; inhabitants of the town; and students foregather in the University of San Carlos for a ceremony of great symbolic importance. The professor of philosophy, Fray Agustin Cano, takes the chair and, “with an air of urbanity,” for “three quarters of an hour more or less” 838 Salmerén, professor of prima of medicine, was still in Mexico. Jacinto Jaime Moreno, professor of prima of laws, asked to be excused on the ground that he was soon to sail in the Vera Cruz fleet for Spain.

84 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12245, 1885. .

| 62 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | gives the conventional inaugural oration in Latin. On the next day the

. five professors now in possession of their chairs—Castillo, Cano, Rivas, Senoyo, Davila y Quifiones—appear at the prescribed hours before their students.** The University of San Carlos de Guatemala is at last in full _

legal operation. ;

85 Ibid. Testimonio de el Ynicio. 7 de enero de 1681. The same material is included

in AGG, A1. 3-18, 18113, 1958.

Vv Immemorial Peculation Overcome

IN 1681 the Junta Extraordinary of the University named an aggressive and extremely able person 1—Licentiate Don Francisco Sarassa y Arce, oidor—as judge-superintendent of the University to take the place of

Urquiola y Elorriaga, who had been ordered to Mexico. The Junta electing Sarassa loaded him with an accumulation of problems that Urquiola had not solved and with some that he had created. The new superintendent first of all was to begin work promptly on the proposed statutes for the University which the king had called for the preceding year.” The confusion of the University’s finances also fell into his lap. He was particularly urged to press the judge of the probate court (Juez de Bienes de Difuntos) for the accounts of the Crespo Suarez endowment and to collect the balances due from those who had mishandled the trust. These responsibilities he discharged with singular vigor and success.

In less than four weeks Sarassa y Arce signed his name to the com-

pleted statutes of the University, ordered the secretary to keep an authentic copy in his office, and wisely refused to publish his draft until the king approved it.* This rather bulky manuscript he submitted 1 At a meeting on March 28. 2 Real cédula a Ja audiencia de Guatemala. Madrid, 6 de junio de 1680. AGG, Al. 23, 10076, 1521, fols. 218-219v. 8 Constituciones de la Real Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1686), Tit. XXXIV, Constitucién cecxxxxvii. (Hereafter Constituciones. ) 63

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Title Page of the Constituciones of Sarassa y Arce ,

PECULATION OVERCOME 65 to the crown, along with an account of the University properties and income.*

Under the new statutes or “constitutions” (constituciones) put tentatively in operation, the University became officially the University of San Carlos. The patron saints were the “glorious” San Carlos Borromeo and Santa Teresa de Jestis—an excellent excuse for two more holidays and festive occasions, which the colonials took seriously and which undoubtedly did much to relieve the ennui of their lives. The kings of Spain were recognized as “patrons and founders,” and the University was, of course, under the royal patronage.®

Endowment Consolidated “with All Judicial Compulsion and Vigor” The six years of dreary waiting between the approval of the statutes by the king of Spain and their confirmation by the Pope were not wasted by such a man as Sarassa y Arce. The Spanish government had directed the captain general of Guatemala ° to appoint two oidores unconnected with the University to check the University accounts and money—in a chaotic condition after so many years of handling by agents of varying degrees of industry and integrity. Before this instruction reached Guate-

mala,” Licentiate Sarassa had already reported several times to the University Junta Extraordinary on the financial state of the institution. The captain general, disclaiming any intention of disobeying the king’s orders and calling attention to the fact that the other two oidores were also connected with the University and therefore not disinterested, appointed Sarassa y Arce, the recognized expert,® instead of naming two oidores as instructed. Sarassa soon reported shortages amounting to 5,492 pesos and a half in the accounts of Juan de Cardenas, Juan de Arpide, and Francisco de Amésqueta, all of whom had been administrators of the property or treasurers of the University. These shortages he collected by severe and drastic, but not vindictive, methods. Cardenas was required to pay a part of his obligations within fifteen days and the balance within a year. By making use of such things as a mortgage on another man’s property, Cardenas satisfied the claims against him. 4 In a letter of May 17, 1681. 5 Constituciones, Tit. I, const. 1 and 2. 6 In a cédula of July 28, 1681. 7 The cédula was obeyed by the captain general on March 17, 1682. 8 Information on this point is also contained in AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 186. Carta

del Obispo de Guatemala y presidente de la audiencia a S.M. Guatemala, 2 de octubre de 1682.

66 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | ,

to satisfy the record. | a

Arpide was given fifteen days’ grace and Amésqueta twenty in which

Unfortunately, to the evils of embezzlement had been added other risks of banking. With banks altogether lacking and hard cash almost impossible to come by, the custodians of the University endowment __ were drawn into the small loan business in precisely the same way as the colonial church had been. Loans made upon: the Crespo Suarez funds while they were in probate court (Juzgado de Bienes de Difuntos ) fluctuated between fifty and three thousand pesos each, and the terms were 6 per cent for one to two years, never more. As soon as one petty debt was collected, some miserable borrower—occasionally the same

person—was waiting to apply fo: 2%. | |

Thus, the great tragedy to the University lay more in the casual, un_ systematic, and slipshod collection of debts than in actual embezzlement. For example, if the small capital bequeathed the University had

regularly drawn 6 per cent compounded annually, it would have amounted to the fantastic sum of 19,523,378 pesos when the University paid its first salary. The complications involved in converting the Crespo Suarez legacy into liquid assets vividly depict Sarassa’s difficulties from _ 1681 to 1686 in getting the University’s capital from the innumerable

petty and generally impecunious borrowers.® In all cases the debtor guaranteed his obligation with two sureties or bondsmen. In one instance, however, the probate court required the dean of the cathedral, ® From an extremely involved file of the probate court, “234 sheets” long, we get some idea of the handling of the Crespo Suarez property from his death until 1686. (AGI, Al. 36-2, 18367, 1969. Autos seguidos en el Juzgado de Bienes de Difuntos sobre el dinero que dejé el Correo Mayor Pedro Crespo Suarez para la dotacién de

una Universidad en el Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino. ) , _ The accounts of the Crespo Suarez funds were first seen by a person really connected with the University on September 7, 1676, when they were shown to the juez superintendente, Juan Bautista de Urquiola, who, instead of undertaking the collection himself, turned them “back” to the lawyer, Nicolas de Maeda—proof that Maeda was trying to put this fund as well as the Marroquin and other assets in order. The Junta of the University voted in 1677 to look into the Crespo Suarez accounts and on August 22, 1681, Maeda turned over the file to Sarassa y Arce, now juez

| superintendente and rector. _

Sarassa y Arce, who was most businesslike in his dealings, ruled that before he could accept these accounts as good, they would have to be sent to the contador de rentas, who would look them over and see if they were in good shape. In a few weeks the contador returned the file and said that he would have to have all the Crespo Suarez documents missing from it before he could check the accounts, Sarassa y Arce sent to the probate court for the missing papers, but they did not show up. Finally, in 1686 Sarassa y Arce turned over all the accounts to Nicolas de Maeda to straighten out and liquidate. Unfortunately, the file ends at this point. ,

PECULATION OVERCOME 67 Maestro Don Joseph Becerra del Corral, not only .o produce the guarantors but to mortgage a Negro slave for a loan of four hundred pesos. The conception of character in this case was certainly sound, for his deanship died leaving the debt unpaid. The court sold the Negro at auction for four hundred pesos and collected the interest by sequestering and selling the rest of the estate. The money invested in a sugar mill belonging to the Dominicans was hardest to collect, especially the regular interest. This seems contradictory since the Dominicans were wealthy and the most concerned of all religious orders in having a university established. In iwo instances the probate court, pressed by the undeviating Sarassa, gave debtors the opportunity to reflect in jail upon their inability to pay. If priests, friars, and strangers did not pay the administrators back, what could be expected of relatives, much less the potent, grave, and reverend, but moneyless sefiores around town? In the end even Sarassa despaired of complete success. He boldly reported that it would be hard to collect from some debtors because they were “powerful persons, maestros de campo, and other such persons

against whom no official would presume to take any step whatsoever... .” 1° These haughty ones paid no attention to meetings and proceedings looking .o the collection of loans and honest administration of terrazgos and seemed to rely upon the inefficient and corrupt administrators of the University fund for continued protection. The uncollected debts, fifteen in number, ranged from 150 to 3,000 pesos and came to a total of 15,497 pesos and 4 reales, which, with 4,120 pesos and 4 reales interest, made a grand total of 19,618 pesos. These debts, judging from the undated marginal entries, were eventually collected. One obligation of 300 pesos, for example, owed by the professor of Institutes, was deducted from the salary of his chair. As the most businesslike official in the early history of the University of San Carlos, Sarassa was surprised and shocked at the malfeasance of the “curators of the University Chest” during the 118 years after the death of Bishop Marroquin. He was particularly outraged that Urquiola Elorriaga, ex-superintendent and provisional rector, and Amésqueta, former treasurer (ftesorero sindico), had done little to collect the bad debts and had left their accounts in a confused and questionable con10 “Personas poderosas, regidores, maestros de campo y otros semejantes con quienes no hay ministro que se atreva a hacer diligencia alguna, como sucede hoy con los mandamientos de ejecucién que tengo despachados . . .” (AGG, Al. 8-1, 12246, 1885. Ano de 1682.) 11 Licentiate Antonio Davila Quifiones.

68 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA dition. Amésqueta had a deficit of twenty-five hundred pesos and would _ have continued his peculation had not Sarassa forced his dismissal. Nor

did Sarassa spare the Dominican deans and priors for their slipshod methods of managing the Marroquin money. He noted particularly that they even failed to check the accounts of their administrators. If, therefore, the bookkeeping was poor from 1563 to 1666, it could only be the fault of these friars, and it was impossible after the lapse of a hundred ©

years or more to straighten out such jumbled accounts. | | Despite everything, order soon appeared from the chaos of these ~ records and the endowment figures took a spurt upward. Sarassa arranged the instruments and papers; got the one hundred ducats of © income provided annually by Sancho de Baraona and Dojia Isabel de

, Loaisa from the mayorazgos they founded in Spain, where the bills were sent for collection; straightened out the matter of the three thousand pesos added by the administrators of the Crespo Suarez endow-

: ment to the original bequest for the purpose of establishing a chair of scholastic theology; and got definitive title to this additional money. The treasurer who succeeded Amésqueta, Antonio de Medina, worked under the eye of Sarassa and appeared a person of more diligence and honesty than any of his predecessors. His integrity was also fortified

by the addition of one hundred pesos to the salary of two hundred © which Amésqueta enjoyed. He joined resolutely in the efforts to collect what was due the University and to put it to good use. , As an indication of the limited possibilities for the “sound investment”

of University capital in 1682, Sarassa suggested that University lands _ be given, preferably to the Indians, as terrazgos. This method of in- _ vestment, he thought, had the double advantage of providing a dependable rent and of indemnifying the Indians for the land taken away from them by the Spaniards and the religious orders. The sincerity of his motives is attested a little later in his objection to the awarding of

| a terrazgo by public crier, a method which would have opened the bidding to a Spaniard and interfered with the policy of preferring Indians, As a further sign that he thought the religious orders. capable of taking advantage of a confused financial situation, Sarassa got the Convent of La Merced to return to the University some terrazgos that it was enjoying illegally. By this means he increased the capital of the University by a total of 24,380 pesos, yielding an income of 1,219 pesos, , all of which was put into terrazgos or other landholdings with the deeds

and titles in proper shape.

PECULATION OVERCOME 69 In contrast to the somewhat plaintive manner and careless methods of Urquiola, Sarassa took a statesmanlike part in the policy and manage-

ment as well as in the funds of the nascent University. He advised leaving a suitable site in the village of Jocotenango, one of the principal

properties to come to the University through the bequest of Bishop Marroquin, for a mill. His suggestion that some lots be left in the square upon which to build houses to rent looked realistically into the future.

He brought together the instruments, deeds, and papers of the University, had them inventoried, established the archives called for in the statutes for their safe keeping, and got a “chest with three keys” for the money. He asked the Junta of the University to name professors for the vacant chairs of canons, laws, and medicine. He called upon the

probate court to render an accounting of the Crespo Suarez money and pushed the matter through. To a generation accustomed to budgets of millions upon millions of dollars, the endowment he thus consolidated for San Carlos will be

unimpressive. Yet it represents ten times the funds available to the first trustees of Harvard. The disparity in purchasing power, in terms of services and construction costs, is even greater. Sarassa’s inventory *?

amply substantiates such a comparison and shows the University, despite many debts and bad accounts, in as good a financial condition as it was ever destined to enjoy. The assets of the University at the outset were:

In juros of the royal treasury ........ 10,300 pesos Mortgages on different property ..... 25,150 “

Private loans at interest ........... 18,814 “

Terrazgos ....................... 88,882 “ ,4reales Total ........................ 93,096 pesos, 4 reales

The lawyer Nicolas de Maeda, so much involved in the early affairs of

the University, had instructions from Sarassa to liquidate all debts still owed to the University as follows:

Unpaid income from juros ......... 888 pesos, 3 reales

Unpaid interest on mortgages ...... 2,204 “ ,4 “ Unpaid interest on money loaned... 4,960 “ ,4 “ Unpaid rent from terrazgos ........ 1,604 “ ,I1real 12 Of December 80, 1681.

70 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA

In money spent on building to be recouped by collecting fees for degrees ordinarily paid individuals of

the cloister .................... 11,700 pesos Grand Total .................. 114,404 pesos Aside from this sum of well over one hundred thousand pesos, Sarassa showed that, when the shortages of past administrators were made up,

the surplus well invested, and back interest paid up, the University would have more than enough to meet its budget. After the classes began to function in the University of San Carlos, the yearly expenses were 2,170 pesos and 5 reales and, with all classes and offices operating fully, the budget was to be 8,970 pesos, 5 reales. Since the University had an income of over 5,000 pesos a year and spent around 4,000, Sarassa

y Arce advised the establishment of a much needed colegio with the surplus income. The extensive work undertaken by Sarassa was duly appreciated by the captain general, who ordered his energetic agent

| to proceed, as the best qualified person, with all unfinished business. Scribes drafted an extra copy of Sarassa’s impressive report of 1682 especially for the king? His careful and vigorous work of collecting and investing went steadily on into the last year of his term as superintendent-rector,'* despite strong social influences operating against

him. , oe

The ugly financial picture, which Sarassa y Arce painted for the crown in this report of 1682, convinced the Council of the Indies that there was some sort of conspiracy by the debtors to defeat the vigorous collection

and sound investment which the crown advised. The response of the Peninsular government in such a situation was bound to be resolute. Sarassa got instructions in 1686 ** to require all former administrators of University capital, especially the three with serious shortages, to 18 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12246, 1885. Testimonio de la Real Cédula de 28 de julio de 1681, cometida a los sefiores Presidente y Obispo para que nombren dos oidores que tomasen las cuentas de la Universidad y del informe y autos que en su virtud se hicieron de que se did cuenta a su Majestad. 81 de marzo de 1682. 14 AGG, Al. 8-3, 12299, 1889. Testimonio en que constan las gestiones llevadas a término por el Licenciado Francisco de Sarassa y Arce, sobre la fundacién y ereccién de la Universidad de San Carlos. 80 de julio de 1683. See also in Boletin,

IX (1944), 231-233. a

15 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12286, 1882, No. 11, fols. 18-19. Real cédula a Francisco de »

: Sarassa y Arce. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686. ,

PECULATION OVERCOME 71 render accounts without delay and to proceed with the collections “with

all judicial compulsion and vigor” regardless of the titles, dignity, or objections of any important debtor.

Sarassa, at the same time, took over the investment of money and management of terrazgos. For these purposes the crown gave him what-

ever legal powers were necessary and forbade the audiencia to try to deprive him, as oidor superintendente, of complete jurisdiction in all litigation involved in collecting the University’s money. All other judges and officials were not only forbidden to interfere with Sarassa but were

expressly ordered to support him. The fiscal of the audiencia was informed that, in case any of these University suits were appealed to the audiencia, he, the crown attorney, was to withdraw from his official] position and join the legal staff supporting the University.’* On the same date 2” the crown, recognizing the fundamental duty of

investing University assets “in the most permanent way, gave orders not only to collect these, but with them to redeem the tributes and loans of individuals and communities already in the royal coffers and to put the University funds in their place. The purpose was to take the University out of the unsafe petty banking business and enable it to collect regularly from the royal exchequer—in short, to invest the University’s liquid capital in government annuities (juros). Indeed, the University already held ten thousand pesos of the Crespo Suarez endowment in these juros.

But before this plan could be realized, the Junta of the University, notwithstanding the exclusive jurisdiction Sarassa enjoyed in the litigation involving University money, jealously refused to recognize his judicial authority in collecting and investing, thereby forcing him to take

his suits to other tribunals and courts. Sarassa complained bitterly of this obstruction,’* and the crown again commanded the audiencia and all other judges and justices not to impede but to assist him in every way.*® Before the money could be collected and put in government bonds (juros), Sarassa was appointed judge of the criminal chamber 16 Tbhid., No. 8, fols. 5-6. Real cédula al rector y claustro de la Universidad de San Carlos. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686,

17 Ibid., Nos. 4 and 6, fols. 7-8, 12~13. Real cédula. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio

de 1686. 18 In a letter of October 21, 1686. 19 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 22, fol. 85~35v. Real cédula al rector de la Universidad. Madrid, 17 de septiembre de 1688.

72 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA (alcalde del crimen) of the audiencia of Mexico. When the University cast up its accounts in 1711 only 29,875 pesos of its holdings were juros.”° _ Proof that the financial problems of San Carlos remained vexatious after Sarassa’s departure appears in the decree of 1698 commanding the oidor then in charge of the University’s income to use the methods of Sarassa.?1

But, if solvency was hard to realize, so was a definitive academic structure. It was almost exactly ten years after the cédula of foundation that the organization of the University of Guatemala was fully achieved. This seems an unconscionable loss of time, but inasmuch as the statutes and regulations, when drawn up and finally accepted by

| the crown, remained in force for much more than a century with only inconsequential changes, the time was not really lost. The authorities realized that it was a delicate and difficult work to govern a hundred years into the future; the delay was also the result of slow processes then common and to some degree inevitable. The audiencia of Guate-

mala 2? urged His Catholic Majesty to hasten the approval of the statutes Sarassa had drawn up so promptly and dispatched to the , crown and, in view of the increase in assets due to Sarassa’s efforts, to send professors from Spain for the chairs of law, canons, and medicine.

- The bishop of Guatemala made a similar plea. a

Government by Junta or Government by Cloister | } The Council of the Indies had decided both to approve the steps taken by Sarassa y Arce and to confirm the constituciones recently framed. After a number of significant modifications, the final seal of approval was placed upon these statutes on June 9, 1686, the date put on all the work done for a long time past 2* by the Council of the Indies

, on the subject of the University of Guatemala. At the same time the _ king instructed his agent in Rome to seek a bull of confirmation. For once, at least, the work of a good servant was promptly appreciated and rewarded. Sarassa y Arce received a royal award of one thousand |

pesos—from the funds of the University.” | The year 1686 was significant not only because an extraordinarily

22 On July 19, 1683. , Se

tuciones. : ,

20 See Chapter XIII, p. 269. 21 AGG, Al. 23-2, 1556, 27,

28 See the Real cédula de aprobacién y confirmacién, “Decisién y final,” Consti-

24 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 3, fols. 5-6. Real cédula al rector y claustro

de la Universidad de San Carlos. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686. a |

PECULATION OVERCOME 78 large number of decisions were made in Spain, but because the reorganization occasioned by these decrees was virtually accomplished by the end of the year. The action of the Junta Extraordinary, which had selected Fray Rafael del Castillo for the professorship of prima of theology, was sharply reversed. In spite of Fray Rafael’s friends in the secular cabildo, Dr. Don José de Bajios y Sotomayor, “dean of the cathedral and preacher of His Majesty, doctor of the University of Osuna,” and the candidate of the bishop’s faction for this post, not only got this chair, but the office of rector for the formative period of the University, “in attention to his learning, virtue, letters, and degrees.” Bafios had been fortunate enough to have a brother-in-law, Dr. Don Diego de Velverde Orozco, in Madrid as fiscal of the Council of the Indies. From that strategic position, Velverde Orozco espoused Bafios’ cause. Bishop Juan Ortega y Montafiez naturally submitted an informe to the court in the same tenor. So did the ecclesiastical cabildo of Guate-

mala. With an ambitious rector who always painstakingly recorded after his name, among myriads of other things, the dubious “first rector, a formative period could and did prove long-drawn-out. Although scarcely anything had so upset the equilibrium of the corporate bodies of Guatemala as this arbitrary appointment, Bafios, especially

favored by the new captain general, Enrique Enriquez de Guzman, was installed in both academic posts with magnificent solemnity.”®

This development necessitated a transfer from temporary government by Junta to permanent government by cloister. The Junta had been vexed by difficulties from the first anyway. Rector Bafios then naturally asked the audiencia®* for permission to form a “cloister” (claustro, a corporation or university electorate, composed of the officers of the university, professors, and other holders of higher degrees in the

city). Since the new statutes provided for eight councilors and five curators (diputados) of the University Chest, the Junta instructed | Rector Bafios to prepare a list of all possible members of the cloister, a

roster of sixteen men eligible for the posts of councilors, and one of ten for the positions of curators of the University Chest.2” The im25 [bid., 12237, 1883, fols. 72-78, Real cédula al Dr. José de Bafios y Sotomayor. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686. Ibid., fol. 73-738v. See also Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacién florida, III, 246-247, and Antigua Guatemala: Memorias de F ray Antonio de Molina (Guatemala, 1943), p. 148. 26 On November 7, 1686.

27 See the passage dealing with councilors on pp. 103-104 and that treating curators of the University Chest on pp. 113~114.

74 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA possibility of complying rigorously with the statutes in Guatemala and

the lack of a bull of confirmation handicapped the organization. No university was possible without, first of all, a complete list of suitable members of the cloister in the city, who, according to the statutes, had to have academic degrees. In a community where there had been no public university there were simply not enough such men. Of the thirty-one names Bajios presented to constitute the cloister, six were persons holding major degrees from the Jesuit university, eight—all Dominican and Mercedarian friars—had no degrees at all, and the majority were of the regular and secular clergy. The maestrescuela, Bachelor Don Lorenzo Pérez Dardén, was on the list because he was the one who would have to confer degrees in the University. The embarrassment of having a man who himself was only a bachelor confer the higher degrees was avoided by conferring the superior degrees upon him after the arrival of the bull of confirmation. All other persons in the cloister without degrees were to be graduated (given “extraordinary incorporation”) as soon as the bull arrived, “without pomp and in secret” in recognition of their “notorious sufficiency.” ?* Only the

clutch of circumstance made tolerable the temporary but, strictly speaking, illegal inclusion of men without degrees. In preparing his lists, Baiios followed the statutes when he could but recognized the impossibility of following them with absolute fidelity. Such respect for

| a fact rather than a law seems more like the English than the Spanish colonies.

Among the proposed members of the cloister and in the list of candidates for councilors, there appeared the name of Bachelor Juan de Cardenas, apparently the same man whose accounts as administrator of the University properties had not balanced and who had been forced | to pay by Sarassa y Arce. His name did not appear, however, among the candidates for the posts of curators of the University Chest. He was not elected, but even so, the clear proof that he was not disgraced goes far to explain why colonia] capital in trust did not increase. These first committees of the new University government took office in typical and beloved rounds of medieval pomp. Notified of their election 28 For the original rosters see AGG, Al. 8-8, 12300, 1889. Autos sobre la formacién del claustro y nombramiento de primeros consiliarios y Diputados de la Uni-

versidad de San Carlos y sobre incorporaciones de los graduados en otros universidades en juntas de 9 y 20 de noviembre de 1686 y de diciembre de 1686,

PECULATION OVERCOME 75 by the Junta, some councilors ** and curators of the University Chest *°

demurred like a coy maiden pretending not to understand a proposal and others declaimed their unworthiness like a romantic bridegroom. The secretary set down their disclaimers of the honor done them and their effusive resolutions to do everything in their power to promote the interests of the University as if they were taking over the affairs of the most venerable university in the world instead of an embryonic one in the mountains of the American tropics. Assembled in the main hall, all of them swore allegiance to the king and loyalty to the rector as prescribed in the statutes. The rector, with hand over head, took the clerical oath in verbo sacerdotis, while the protomédico “swore to God and on across.” *! The University was now—January 10, 1687—formally

but not fully organized. :

Professors from Abroad More significant than the shift from Junta to cloister was the irregular

selection of the professors of canons, laws, and medicine. Instead of filling these chairs by staging “oppositions” in Guatemala and Mexico, the Council of the Indies decided, apparently on the basis of the advice of the audiencia of Guatemala, to select these three professors from the universities of Salamanca, Valladolid, and Alcala.*? To this end edicts were posted in these cities inviting those who wished to compete to make the journey to the Council of the Indies in Madrid. Various aspirants appeared and were subjected to the competitive trial-lecture

conventional in Spanish universities. At Cadiz the authorities provided each professor selected with one thousand pesos for traveling expenses and, in addition to the annual salaries of five hundred pesos each, rewarded all except the professor of medicine with a promise of posts in the audiencia of Guatemala or one of those of Mexico after five years 29 Dr. Don Antonio Salazar, Master Fray Crisédstomo Guerra, Master Don Bernardino de Obando, Fray Rodrigo de Valenzuela, Master Don Ignacio de Armas Palomino, Dr. Nicolas Roldan de Toledo, Bachelor Pedro Lépez Ramales, and Bachelor Don Joseph Fernandez Parejo (protomédico). 80 Fray Diego de Rivas, Licentiate Don Antonio Davila Quifiones, Licentiate Don Lorenzo de Ja Madrid Soriano Paniagua, Licentiate Baltasar de Agiiero, and Bachelor Presbyter Lorenzo Gonzalez de Maeda.

81 After them came the new secretary, Bachelor Ignacio del Marmol, and the two bedels, Juan Vasquez de Molina and Luis de Arias Maldonado. 82 Real cédula de confirmacién.

76 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | | in the chair.** The persons chosen were Licentiate Pedro de Ozaeta, prima of canons, Dr. Bartolomé de Amésqueta y Laurgain, prima of laws, and Dr. Miguel Fernandez, formerly physician for the “theologians” of Madre de Dios de Alcala, prima of medicine. To attract

| Fernandez, the government committed itself to give him the protomedicato of Central America, once he had finished five years as professor of medicine, so that he might supplement his University salary with what he would draw from the city, convents, and communities in _ his official capacity. By virtue of the new additions to the faculty and in order to put the University upon the same footing as the universities

of Mexico and Lima, the home government gave the University of | Guatemala the right to confer major degrees in theology and canons

| and placed the rector and chancellor (maestrescuela) on an equal foot-

| ing with those officers in Mexico and Lima.* | So unprecedented a step as this holding of professorial competitions abroad raised several unique problems and delayed the proper filling of the chairs involved. Persons holding these posts in Guatemala on an

interim basis had to surrender them to the winners from Spain. | All three of the Spanish professors were disturbed by the possibility

_ of economic loss in the transfer. They petitioned the king to sanction the incorporation of their degrees without payment of fees and to specify that each one would enjoy seniority (decanato) in his faculty.

The crown consented to every one of these requests.*® The crown duly dispatched the title of Miguel Fernandez to the chair of medicine in San Carlos at four hundred pesos per annum * and, without waiting the stipulated five years, conferred upon him the _ office of protomédico of Guatemala at a hundred thousand maravedis a year in court fines and with the same privileges as the protomédicos _ of Mexico and Lima.*” Yet Fernandez complained that on account of his

“much increased family” he could not make the trip to Guatemala on one thousand pesos and did not possess the necessary supplementary

| funds. Since he did not have the promise of such an honorable and __ lucrative reward as did the other two professors sent from Spain—posts 83 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12287, 1888, fols. 80-81. Real cédula al Dr. Bartolomé de

Amésqueta. Madrid, 3 de septiembre de 1686. | 84 Tbid., 12236, 1882, No. 5, fols. 9-11. Real cédula a la audiencia de Guate-

, mala. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686.

85 Ibid., 12287, 1883, fol. 81-8lv. Madrid, 16 de abril de 1687. ,

87 Ibid., fol. 87-87v. , 86 Aranjuez, 29 de abril de 1687. (Ibid., fol. 86—86v. )

PECULATION OVERCOME 77 in the audiencia of Guatemala or New Spain after five years—he felt his entire traveling expenses should be borne by the University. This the king granted in “proportion.” ** Fernandez finally presented his documents and took the oath before the cloister of the University of Guatemala on March 15, 1688.*° The installation of the professors of law and canons was not so simple

as this, for rivalry over seniority between them added a revealing complication. Bartolomé de Amésqueta, professor of law, was ready to sail

in July on the “mercury fleet” for New Spain but, since he had not received the travel expense offered him, was not able to embark. Later arrangements were made for him to sail on the Honduras ships, which

he thought would weigh anchor in September (1686). However, he felt he should be paid from July 11, when he stood ready to sail. The crown had granted his petition, but included Ozaeta, the professor of “sacred canons,” in the benefits. Thus both titles bore the same date *° and both salaries began on the same day. However, Amésqueta actually took possession of his chair nearly three weeks before Ozaeta.*1 He accordingly demanded official recognition of his seniority. The point was extremely important, for the senior man would get the first judgeship (oidoria) to fall vacant in Guatemala or Mexico after five years. The matter—too basic and too delicate for local resolution—was passed on to the crown, but the Council of the Indies refused to act since the

date Amésqueta had taken his chair had not been judicially established.*# When the secretary of the University had formally certified © the date, Amésqueta triumphed. Even if preferment in the appointment

to the audiencia had not been involved in this matter, it would have been treated in all seriousness by the Council of the Indies. Eager to have a strangle hold on every detail of American affairs and itself as respectful of dignity and place as the verger of Seville, the Council would never think of rebuking a colonial administrator for taking a matter of precedence—even in seating order or position in a parade—

to the government in Spain. | 88 [bid., fol. 88-88v. Aranjuez, 29 de abril de 1687.

89 Tbid., fol. 89-89v. 40 September 8, 1686. 41 Amésqueta presented his cédulas and titles to the cloister of the University of San Carlos on February 24, 1688, and took the oath as professor of civil law. Since Ozaeta was not given his chair until March 15, 1688, Amésqueta had twenty days’ seniority over him. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12287, 1883, fols. 80-81, 82-83. ) 42 Tbid., 12236, 1882, No. 21. Real cédula a la Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 12 de julio de 1690,

78 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | The financing of the trip of the three Peninsular professors throws

, light upon colonial business and travel. As soon as they were chosen, the Secretary of the Council of the Indies wrote the Madrid agent of the University of San Carlos, Diego Ignacio de Cérdoba, to learn whether the three thousand pesos were ready which the University was. to provide for transportation. Cérdoba, who had sent word by the “mercury fleet” as soon as the professors were selected, could only say that the money had not been sent to him. Unfortunately, he was not instructed

| even to look for it. The Secretary of the Council of the Indies, however, was insistent. He approached Cordoba again as the person legally authorized to handle this matter on behalf of the University. Poor Cérdoba tried to beg off on the grounds of his age, chronic illness, and the need of time to prepare his soul for eternity. Upon the continued insistence of the Council, he felt unable to resist further. He then discovered that he could borrow the three thousand pesos, under the conditions of risk involved, at an interest rate of 50 per cent. Cérdoba followed through on this shabby business, borrowing the three thousand pesos in Madrid at 50 per cent, thus creating a debt of forty-five hundred pesos. And he was not even sure that the University would pay it. Still, he had energy enough to inquire vigorously into this matter despite the condition of his “frame” and his soul. While Cdérdoba reluctantly accepted risks for the University, his predecessor, Felipe de Escobar, con-

tinued to berate him in letters to Guatemala and to wonder why the University had rejected his efficient services. Some of this correspondence has survived in duplicate in letters sent in other fleets to make delivery more secure.** Apparently, the authorities of the Guate-

malan treasury ** paid the sum to Cérdoba. The University was then directed to restore the money to the royal treasury.** Cérdoba even _

at a critical time. |

lived to accept the thanks of the University for expediting its business

Solemn Inauguration The agents of the University of Guatemala resident in Spain, as well as the University itself, were victims of the inertia of colonial administration. Sarassa y Arce, in his capacity as judge-superintendent of the 43 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. Ss 44 Instructed by a cédula of May 7, 1687. #5 AGG, Al. 23, 10077, 1522. Cedulario de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala, IX, fol. 269. Real cédula a la audiencia de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, May 31, 1689.

PECULATION OVERCOME 79 University, in 1683 instructed ** Felipe de Escobar and another agent *

resident in Madrid to offer the king the patronage of the University of San Carlos and to petition him to ask the Pope to confirm the statutes

and to confer upon the University the privileges and exemptions enjoyed by the universities of Salamanca, Mexico, and Lima.** But his most fundamental charge was to get the papal bull issued so the University could be inaugurated. For these purposes, Escobar was sent five hundred pesos, two hundred for his fees and the rest as expenses. When years passed and nothing was achieved, Don Diego Ignacio de Cérdoba, the same sick, otherworldly old man who had borrowed the money to send over the professors, received two thousand pesos and instructions to press matters, especially the bull of confirmation, to their conclusion.

Thereupon Escobar sprang to unwonted life. He showered the University Junta with missives of his indignation. He reminded the University of all that he had done to get the Crespo Suarez money, which had been tied up in a lawsuit, and of his steps and overtures to get the three Spanish professors on their way. Finally, he added, with more than the customary acerbity, that Cordoba was lazy and inept.

Cérdoba, for his part, dispatched the statutes, which he had had

printed, to Captain General Enriquez de Guzman to distribute as he , saw fit.*? But he could not report, sad to relate, that His Holiness had chosen to issue the bull of erection and confirmation asked by the king. The delay in Rome was apparently owing to the feeling of the papacy that the Council of the Indies did not have jurisdiction in a “sacred” matter and that the king had no business to thrust himself in and make statutes in such things.®° The papacy then asked for the statutes of the universities of Mexico and Lima, thus throwing the whole matter into grave doubt.** The Council of the Indies countered by instructing the

46 On July 17. 47 Francisco de Baeza. 48 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 97. Escobar became agent of the new University as a substitute for Fray Luis de Mesa, who was the agent of the Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino engaged in collecting some debts owed by residents in Spain, especially the one hundred ducats of income left by Sancho Baraona. #9 See AGG, Al. 3-1, 12297, 1887, for a copy of the statutes printed in Madrid in 1686. 50 See the letter of Felipe de Escobar to the Junta of the University of Guate-

mala, Madrid, January 20, 1687. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882.) , 1 As early as 1684 the fiscal and Council of the Indies had agreed that the agent in Rome should be informed that, in the matter of the constitutions of the

80 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | agent in Rome to tell the Pope that a bull of confirmation for a college had been issued to a religious of the Philippines without “papers” and other prerequisites being presented. Rome could very well have been piqued by the regal attitude that caused the statutes to be printed before the papal approval was forthcoming. Nevertheless, the long-sought bull was at last issued in 1687 ™ and given the royal exequatur for Guatemala.®* Cérdoba even dispatched a duplicate of the bull by another

sailing to make doubly sure of its arrival.*# |

The document was so important that Dr. Bafios and his associates decided to have it translated from Latin to Castilian for promulgation. With great weightiness they fixed upon Bachelor Don José de Lara, cura rector of the parish of Our Lady of Remedies, because of his superior endowments.** Lara’s instructions were minute and formal enough. His translation must be one of “fidelity, truth, legality, and conformity” without any alterations, innovations, deletions, or ad- — ditions whatsoever. And on abstruse points and clauses he might call

upon specialists for advice. |

To the papacy, if we are to read much into the formality of this document, the University was to serve for the propagation and conservation of the Catholic faith, for the private and public use of the “faithful in Christ,” and for the special benefit of the inhabitants of the province. The bull sanctioned the University as it was organized, and authorized

the conferring of all four degrees in canons, theology, and “other | faculties’—all with the same conditions and exemptions as those of the universities of Lima and Mexico. The Vatican made the concessions, however, in accordance with the decrees and resolutions of the Councils

of Trent and Vienna not expressly abrogated. Oe Once the translation was in hand, Dr. Bafios prepared for an impressive occasion—more impressive than that which greeted the arrival _ of the cédula of foundation. An imposing audience assembled in the “great hall” of the University on February 15, 1688. Present were captain University of Guatemala, it was understood “que tiene grave inconveniente el

, que S. S. intervenga en ellas.” Respuesta Fiscal a una Consulta sobre los Estatutos y Constituciones de la Universidad de Guatemala, 6 de octubre de 1684. (AGI,

Guatemala, Legajo 136.)

52 On June 18. (AGG, Al. 8-1, 12288, 1884.) |

3-1, 12287, 1883.) ,

58 In the royal cédula of August 2, 1687. (AGG, Al. 23-2, 1556, 27, and Al. 54 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12286, 1882. 55“, . . loables prendas de legalidad, fidelidad, y suficiencia.”

PECULATION OVERCOME §1 general and president, Don Jacinto de Barrios Leal, the rector, members of the cloister and religious orders, officials, and a “great concourse

of gentlemen and students’—all in compliance with the command of the rector. Then the secretary of the University °* ascended the chair and read the bull in the Latin language—from which it had just been so painstakingly translated in order to make it fully intelligible. When it was “made notorious,’ Master Fray Diego de Rivas of the Mercedarian Order ascended the chair and crowned the glorious day with a panegyrical oration, likewise in Latin, which lasted for an hour more or less.

This was “an act of thanks to His Majesty and His Holiness.” 5” San Carlos was now a royal and pontifical university.

The New University a FarceP | The period of organization in the 1680's was marked by difficulties indicating a disposition in some quarters to regard the new University as a farce. Fray Agustin Cano, provincial of the Dominican Province of San Vicente de Chiapa and Guatemala, won the chair of philosophy in the oposiciones in Guatemala. But as provincial he found it diffi-

cult to attend an hour in the morning and another in the afternoon as was necessary in the case of the chair of philosophy.®* The students, as might be expected, took advantage of such situations. The professor of Institutes °° reported in 1681 that they did not come to classes punc-

tually as required by the terms of their matriculation, that they freely absented themselves, and that they then gave unacceptable excuses. Even in theology, a most important faculty with a heavy enrollment, the professors had to meet classes every day with a very small number of students. In addition to the absences customary in classes of theology,

students of philosophy did not conduct themselves with the “style, seriousness, and modesty” befitting royal universities. Mornings or after56 Ignacio del Marmol. 57 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12238, 1884. See also Al. 8-1, 12287, 1883, and Al. 3-1, 12249,

1885: Autos sobre la Bula de Inocencio XI en que confirma y aprueba la ereccién de la Universidad de San Carlos fundada por el Rey de Espafia Don Carlos II en la Ciudad de Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala publicada el 15 de febrero de 1688 con oracién panegirica del Rev. Mtro. Diego de Rivas y dada en Roma el

18 de junio de 1687. :

58 Carmelo Saenz de Santa Maria, La cdtedra de filosofia en la Universidad de

San Carlos de Guatemala (Guatemala, 1942), p. 6. (Hereafter Séenz de Santa Maria, Cdtedra. )

59 Licentiate Antonio Davila y Quifiones, supernumerary (regente) of prima of

. laws in the University.

82 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | noons when they did not wish to attend classes, they simply said it was not the custom. This cavalier cutting of classes, aside from the supposed damage to students, undoubtedly injured the authority and prestige of the professors. The latter felt it was high time that the rector replaced

| the methods of sweet reasonableness with stern measures. They requested that to make the requirements known, the statutes be “published” as soon as possible in the auditorium or in some other ap-

propriate place. | | ,

The slight prestige enjoyed by the University at the outset among

the bachelors of San Carlos soon became even more tenuous. Some of them not only made fun of the University, but one of them, Bachelor Pedro de Alvarez, went so far as to attempt to put on a satirical play in the public plaza of the Candelaria quarter and, of all things, “among persons who were not students.” Half a dozen bachelors of San Carlos

| who wished to maintain their dignity—a most sombre and oppressive _ thing among the well to do in the Spanish colonies—called upon the authorities to suppress the play ®' and to order that no actual “coursing bachelor” (i.e., one enrolled in classes) be permitted to take part

in such acts. Licentiate Sarassa, who was then provisional rector and a man never loath to act, immediately agreed and threatened guilty students with a fifty-peso fine and loss of matriculation, degrees, and other “acts” of the University they might have to their

i credit.®?

Student disdain for the University was uncomplicated in comparison with the haughty attitude of Don Bartolomé de Amésqueta, prima professor of laws and proud son of an old Spanish university. Even now

one can almost feel his contempt for his surroundings. Naturally in the first years of the new institution there were many imperfections and unstabilized practices, and these Amésqueta assailed as implacably as

if he were at Salamanca. The record of his complaints and lawsuits with the University and members of its cloister fills volumes. He was the self-appointed guardian of the University statutes. He almost

, writhed with hatred for Dr. Bafios, rector and member of the creolechurch faction finding itself in opposition to the Peninsular-law-_ 60 AGG, Al. 3-8, 12445, 1899. Informe dado por el Licenciado Antonio Davila Quiiiénez sdbre que no hay cursantes en la clase de teologia. Afio de 1681. _ 81 Planned for Wednesday of the week of January 31, 1684. _ 62 AGG, Al. 3-25, 13214, 1961. Auto prohibiendo que los estudiantes salgan en comedias publicas en el barrio de Candelaria 0 en cualquier otro. Afio de 1684.

PECULATION OVERCOME 83 audiencia combination. He had not held his chair a year when he accused Dr. Bajios of letting his godson ° “select his own points” (choose

his own texts or questions) in contesting for the chair of Institutes, which he naturally won. At the same time he opposed the selection of one man as secretary of the University on the social ground that the candidate had been bedel of the University.** If not the general disregard of the statutes, Dr. Amésqueta’s great obsession was the removal __ of Bafios from the rectorship. He based his hope for success upon seven

different grounds. ,

Thus it was that the cloister met on February 1, 1689, in the most serious circumstances, and all the titles and positions of the attending

members were put down with an expansive attention to detail indicating

that important things were brewing. The occasion was to hear the “doubt” of Dr. Amésqueta about whether the king’s appointment of Dr. Bafios as rector ought to go on indefinitely. Amésqueta evidently felt freer than any Guatemalan to call for a showdown against the Bajfios coterie. As a professor of law and soon-to-be judge of the audiencia, he was much more likely to side with the president than with the bishop, whose candidate was Bafios. Some members of the cloister suggested

that the dispute probably should be turned over to the vice patron. It appeared that many felt the machinery for electing a rector should have been put into operation sooner. Others opined that Statute 90, requiring a preliminary vote to resolve doubtful matters of procedure,

should be followed. The trouble was, of course, that there were no electors (consiliarios) who could qualify for their offices under a strict interpretation of the statute. Moreover, the rector was appointed until such time as the University was duly organized. The royal audiencia finally told the University that, as a body dedicated to letters, it should

submit the information to the audiencia and avoid controversy. Despite everything, Amésqueta continued his importunities against the 63 Don Baltasar de Agiiero.

64 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 873. Carta de D. Bartolomé de Amésqueta, catedra-

tico de Prima de Leyes de la Universidad de Guatemala, dando cuenta a S.M. del estado de dicha Universidad. . . . Guatemala, 8 de mayo de 1690. Testimonio No. 1, Guatemala, 26 de octubre de 1688. (Fifteen testimonios were presented to substantiate the charges of the letter. ) 65 Ibid., Testimonio No. 5, Guatemala, 26 de octubre de 1688. 66 Ibid., Testimonio No. 10, Guatemala, 30 de julio de 1689.

67 AGG, Al. 8-4, 12328 and 12325, 1890. Actas de los claustros celebrados el primero de febrero de 1689 y de 21 de marzo de 1689,

§4 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA : , indefinite extension of Bafios’ term.®* In 1691 the cloister itself, most of

| whose members disliked Amésqueta, set before the president of the audiencia the urgency of electing a rector.*® Nevertheless, Bafios con-

tinued in the exercise of both his professorship of theology and the

rectorship of the University until his death in 1696.”° , Although Dr. Amésqueta gave up his efforts to arrest the violations

of “the statutes, of the law, and of justice” after a while, he got into the greatest variety of trouble during the first two years of his appoint-

ment. He contradicted the University’s claim that it did not celebrate , the fiesta of San Carlos because of the expense and sought to have the rectors godson submit the propositions he defended in his examination.

for the licentiate to the dean of the faculty (that is, to Professor Amésqueta ) as stipulated in Statute 229.71 Amésqueta insisted that the rector should convene the cloister on the last Saturday of every month (Statute 81),”? that he should not hold the meeting privately in his own _

house, and that he should designate the textbooks every year.” Amésqueta sought to sustain Bachelor Ignacio Marmol, secretary of the

University, when he was removed by the cloister. The restoration of _ Marmol by the audiencia undoubtedly gave him delight, but it led the _ cloister to deny the appellate jurisdiction of the audiencia in the law-

suits of the University and to call into doubt the jurisdiction of the __ Royal Council and the king himself.”4 So sensitive was Amésqueta that he memorialized the king against Dr. Bafios’ referring to him as “party _

of this part” without “decorously putting down his name and titles. . . .” 5 It will not come as a surprise that two of his colleagues sought to exclude Amésqueta from the cloister on the grounds that he had not “exhibited” his diploma and that, in any event, a graduate of the University of Ofiate was not eligible for incorporation.”* The

1689. |

68 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378, Testimonio No. 2, Guatemala, 9 noviembre de

69 November 4. (Pardo, Efemérides, p. 111.) , , 70 Fuentes y Guzman, Recordacion florida, III, 247.

tet joe. Guatemala, Legajo 373, Testimonio No. 3, Guatemala, 2 de septiembre 72 Ibid., Testimonio No. 6, Guatemala, 29 de enero de 1689. 73 I[bid., Testimonio No. 7, Guatemala, 12 de febrero de 1690.

74 Ibid., Testimonio No. 9, Guatemala, 26 de abril de 1690. | 75 [bid., Testimonio No. 14, Guatemala, 8 de mayo de 1690. —s—™ ,

76 Ibid., Testimonio No. 11, Guatemala, 8 de mayo de 1690. |

PECULATION OVERCOME 85 rector expunged from the records the title of “dean of the University” which Amésqueta thought his due.”

Though it is evident that few outside the audiencia sympathized with Amésqueta, his exasperation and litigation pointed up, if that had been necessary, the precarious existence that the University enjoyed in the first two decades after the cédula of foundation. The audiencia was in a mood to belittle the University and to intervene lightly—against traditions going back to Alfonso the Learned—in its affairs. And there is evidence that the embittered Jesuits took comfort from the low state of the University and rejoiced when the cloister had to admit in 1697, the year after the death of Dr. Bafios, that for want of students the University was on the verge of lapsing into complete

inactivity. | 77 [bid., Testimonio No. 18, Guatemala, 8 de mayo de 1690.

VI

Jesuit University versus

Public University ENGRAINED in the Jesuits were a grim self-reliance and an unflinching purpose that gave them all the advantages of a determined and immortal individual pitted against an irresolute and very temporal committee. Everywhere they sought to capture the University monopoly; they advanced along a straight path, never deploying to right or left. The insurmountable splendor and authority of a viceregal court

| alone could deter them. They met their rare defeats with a lofty silence, never with plain acceptance of fact. Upon occasion, in their unceasing struggle to outdo the Dominicans and supplant the University, they, or an agent of theirs, resorted to rank falsification—as in Guatemala and Quito—to win a critical point with the crown. In these cases

(and they were not common) they did not debase themselves and multiply the offense of deception by petty denials. No informed observer would assert that Jesuit ascendancy in educa-

tion in Guatemala was due to trickery. It was the tacit verdict of the “heads of families” that the Jesuit school offered a more complete and dependable education than did the other religious orders or even the University. A wise father, in a dueling epoch, selects a fencing master for his science and his ability to impart it rather than for the sweetness of his personality. The moribund state of the University from 1692 to 1720, as its friends were the first to admit, reflected this odious compari-

son in the public mind. | 86

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 87 Without Jesuit competition, however, the new University would _ have been more prosperous if it had not actually been more efficient. Almost intuitively foreseeing that the Jesuit fame would obstruct its ‘progress and pale its luster, San Carlos, the moment a royal license to establish this public University ‘ arrived from Spain, plunged hopefully and vigorously into the task of eliminating the rival “university” in the College of San Francisco de Borja. The first step was to get the names of all those who had received degrees from this institution. In 1677 Superintendent Juan Bautista de Urquiola Elorriaga demanded and got all such records from the secretary * of San Francisco de Borja by the “legal method of inventory and receipt.” * These documents prove, as the advocates of a local public university claimed, that in forty-two years the Jesuits had awarded only fifty-three degrees of all types to fewer than thirty-five individuals. In civil law, canons, and medicine, the other faculties of a full-blown Spanish university, they did not have permission to award degrees. The momentary dejection of the Jesuits

indicates that they knew they had lost the round and their fighting prestige was threatened, but the demand for a receipt is the act of a man thinking confidently of the day of his return bout. The obvious intention of the University was that the Jesuits should cease to give degrees, But what would happen to the students prepared or preparing for degrees in philosophy and theology under the Jesuits? The new statutes of the University * anticipated this question by providing that students already enrolled in San Francisco de Borja could

transfer their credits to the University and graduate there as bachelors.’ The ever-alert Sarassa y Arce issued a decree that only students actually enrolled at the college on a certain day *® could qualify for

1 The cédula of January 31, 1676. 2 Juan Saenz de Osel. | 8’ The four MS volumes submitted included one containing registrations and certificates of bachelors’ degrees after December 10, 1667, and another containing all categories of arts and theology from 1670, as well as files on degrees conferred early in 1640. (AGG, Al. 3-36, 13332, 1964. Ynventarios de los libros y papeles que paraban en poder del Br. Dn. Juan Saenz de Osel como Secretario que fué de la Universidad que estuvo fundada en el Colegio de la Compafiia de Jesus de esta Ciudad de Goathemala. Afio de 1677.) * Drawn up by Sarassa y Arce, deposited with the secretary of the University,

and put tentatively in force in April, 1681.

> Constituciones, Tit. XVI, const. cxeviii. 6 October 18, 1681. (AGG, Al. 3-8, 12446, 1899. Auto acerca de que los estudiantes de la clase de Teologia, en el Colegio de Borja [Compafiia de Jesus] pueden ser incorporados con el grado de Bachiller en la Universidad. Afio de 1681.)

88 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | graduation in the University. Thereafter all candidates would have to study as well as graduate at San Carlos. Sarassa was specific to “dispel doubts that might arise” and generous in order “to increase the sub-

jects” of the University, The Jesuit authorities, if they had decided in the first place to give up their degree-conferring privileges to the University, evidently cal- _ culated upon second thought that they were far from beaten. After five years Dr. Joseph de Bajios y Sotomayor, the “first rector” of the University, was still writing the Council of the Indies’ asking that the Company of Jesus cease to give degrees “since there was a public university with general studies in the city.” Cédulas were unhesitatingly dispatched to the rector of the University, the president and audiencia, and the provincial of the Society, ordering a cessation of Jesuit de-

grees.° | | |

There was certainly room for doubt that it was the intention of the king to require the Jesuits to close down their classes in the major faculties—all except arts—even if they and their students were willing to do the work without the hope of degrees. Nevertheless, before the end of a decade, the cloister of the tottering University ° asked the rector of the “College of the Company” to discontinue these classes as they were “in grave prejudice of the University and against the privileges

_ which his Majesty has conceded it.” — | The records are scant and uninformative for the next ten years, but one can easily deduce that the Jesuits had now decided to ignore the crown monopoly of the University and to see whether the latter could survive their tacit refusal to co-operate. Before the end of the century

(August 11, 1697) the rector and maestrescuela, Dr. Juan de Cardenas, were in desperation at the apathy of the students and lack of attendance in classes, They blamed the Jesuits and appealed to the | bishop. The rector’s plan had it that students taking holy orders should show proof of courses taken in the University and that the Jesuit “fathers

| and masters’ should accept transfer of students both ways between the

7 As late as October 21, 1686. 8 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882. Reales cédulas, Nos. 14, 16, 17. Madrid, 12 de

agosto de 1687. See also Al. 3-1, 12237, 1888. 7

® Instructions to the secretary of the University, March 21, 1689. a , 10 AGG, Al. 3-4, 12822, 1890. Acuerda el claustro de la Universidad solicitar al rector del colegio de la Compajfifa de Jestis suspenda las clases de facultades

mayores. Afio de 1689. Ibid., Al. 3-4, 12325, 1890. ,

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 89 University and the college without loss of credit,!1 as was the case between the Colegio Maximo and the University of Mexico. The next day the bishop issued an edict conforming to the rector’s wishes.’? Word of the lack of respect for the work of the University reached the king, and he commanded the rector and bishop to “join hands” to remedy the evil.13 The Jesuits made a long reply and said pointedly that, whether students taking holy orders had courses in the University or whether only students of the University should later enjoy benefices was none of the rector’s business and the decree so requiring had never been in effect. Was not the ruin of their school the rector’s aim? The bishop, harried for three years by this controversy, decided in the summer of 1700 to submit the whole wrangle to the king for resolution. Captain General Gabriel Sanchez de Barrospe plainly informed the king that the existence of the College of San Francisco de Borja was the cause

of the slight attendance at the University.* Rector Cardenas in the spring of 1701 ** explained to the king the exertions he had made to carry out the royal instructions. Meanwhile the bishop had died, and in 1704 the fiscal advised the reissuance of the writs of mandamus (ruego y encargo) forcing the Jesuits to submit to the University. Just as the Jesuits could injure the University by boycotting it, the

University also had power to injure the prestige of the Jesuits. For example, Dr. Nicolas Roldan humbly besought the king not to let the University deprive him of the seniority which he enjoyed as senior doctor among the Jesuits, He felt that he should rank next to Dr. Bafios, the rector himself. The king merely ordered the University not to admit this degree without reporting on it."* The University agreed to partici-

pate in the “acts and conclusions” of the Society under the rules applicable to all religious orders; it would take no part in those in the “new college” of San Francisco de Borja until that institution was set 11“, , . comunicables sus estudios con los de la real Universidad.” 12 AGG, Al. 8-11, 12697, 1907. Providencia acerca de la asistencia de los alumnos matriculados. Afio de 1697. 13 Ibid. See also AGG, A1. 8-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula al rector de la Universidad. Madrid, 4 de mayo de 1699. 14 Pardo, Efemérides, pp. 125-126. 15 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 378. Carta del Dr. D. Juan de Cardenas, Rector de la Universidad de S. Carlos de Guatemala, a S.M. Guatemala, 18 de abril de 1701.

16 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 20. Real cédula al rector y claustro de la Universidad de San Carlos. Madrid, 5 de junio de 1687. 17 Statutes 131, 191, 217, 347.

90 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA up with the “requisite formalities” and until a definite decision had been

made by the king to the rector’s overture on the subject.**® }

Concordia |

The University, once it had secured guarantees that the Jesuit college

would cease to confer degrees, was quick to notice that the Jesuits blandly ignored the University and kept their students to themselves.

| They did this knowing full well that Jesuit-trained men could not compete for ecclesiastic or academic posts requiring degrees. With their students under their celebrated discipline, their classes were less languid

although no less stereotyped than those of the University. Notwith- _ standing its pomp and circumstance, the University realized it could never become to Guatemala what the University of Mexico was to Mexico or San Marcos was to Lima until the studies of the College of San Francisco de Borja were “incorporated.” To achieve this “greatest

splendor,” the University in 1711, at the very nadir of its fortunes, formally petitioned Captain General Don Toribio Cosio to “promote such a glorious enterprise.” *® The captain general naturally asked the rector of the Jesuit college for a statement of the Society's position on

this proposition. So, two months to the day after the University had submitted its ideas on collaboration with the college, the Jesuits replied that the University authorities should specifically state what new arrangements they wished to make with the Society since “the rest of the

mutual attendance and literary correspondence with the University” was so well known as to “make it idle to express it in this writing.” _ The University responded promptly that it wished to make it possible

for youth to take degrees in the University, occupy its posts, win its professorships, and compete for prebends *° in the cathedral—none of

which those enrolled in the Jesuit college could do without taking courses in the University. They therefore simply asked that the college arrange its classes for the afternoon so that students could attend both

institutions.2* Without much difficulty a concordia was reached on September 30, 1711, which established a schedule for both institutions 18 AGG, Al. 3-4, 12322, 1890.

, 19 On June 26. (AGG, Al. 3, 1141, 45. Autos que sigue la Real Universidad de San Carlos de esta corte pretendiendo se incorporen los estudios del Colegio de la

_ Sagrada Compaiiia de Jesus. Afio de 1711.)

20 “Prebendas de oposicién.” |

21 The University contended that Constitucién 181 required that no institution should have a conflict with the University. The Jesuits ignored this contention.

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 91 to avoid conflicts.22 Two years later the king approved the arrangement

on an ad interim basis, demanding that the concord be submitted for royal approval and calling for reports from both factions.”* The crown was also eager to know what had become of its request of June, 1708, calling for the formation of a junta to consider the advisability of reforming the statutes of the University. Such were the conditions of administration and transportation that it was 1716 before the University and the college officially received this command. By this time all tacitly accepted the failure of the concordia. The Jesuits, although they claimed to have tried to interest their students in going to the University, had no desire to aggrandize that institution by co-operating as the College of San Pedro and San Pablo had done in Mexico City. According to Pedro Ocampo, rector of the Jesuit college, the few students in philosophy who ventured over to the Uni-

versity “tired” in a few days. It seems likely that in theology nobody went in the first place. Ocampo felt that “since they had no intention of graduating,” they did not want to take the trouble of going to the University. The Jesuit authorities declared there was no way of compelling attendance and by this profession of weakness revealed that they never meant to make their solemn agreement with San Carlos work. The University had recognized the failure of the scheme three years

earlier (in April, 1713) and so had set up two chairs of philosophy, one of the Thomist school and another of the Scotist, which conflicted , with the hours arranged in the concordia. Ocampo was irritated that the college was not consulted on this but was forced to acknowledge that the University was right in assuming the concordia dead. The University gravely repeated that the accord was designed principally to benefit the Jesuit students, who, without academic degrees, were ineligible for prebends, canonries, and academic posts. The two chairs of philosophy established in the University, far from violating the spirit of the arrangement, actually facilitated its purposes by making it possible for students to begin the arts course every two years instead of wait22 This schedule was as follows: Colegio de San Francisco de Borja—scholastic theology, 9:30-10:30; moral theology, 4:00-5:00. University of San Carlos—philos-

ophy, 7:00-8:00; prima of theology, 7:00-8:00; theology of Scotus, 8:00-9:00; vespers of moral theology, 2:30-3:30. President Toribio de Cosio confirmed this agreement on October 14, 1711. (AGG, Al. 3, 1141, 45. Auto de aprobacién de la Concordia. Afio de 1711.) 28 AGG, Al. 3, 1141, 45, and Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula al presidente Don

Toribio Cosio. Madrid, 13 de noviembre de 1713. .

92 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA , ing a whole triennium—as was sometimes necessary.%* But the Jesuit view that the “concord” was dead prevailed. The first vigorous effort of the University to come to terms with its ancient enemies had failed. One must not assume, however, that the University was altogether

, disinterested. Every licentiate, master, or doctor who graduated meant _ fees for the coffer and gratuities for the individual members of the cloister. It was only natural, then, that, if the University could not force the students of San Francisco de Borja to take qualifying courses in the University, it might easily consent to confer degrees upon students who ~ had taken their courses in an outside institution—bitter pill though that was in the case of the obstructive Society. Thus in 1719 the king con- — ceded to the College of San Francisco de Borja the right to have major -

| and minor degrees conferred upon students by the University for a

period of four years.”° - a

During these four years the Society found that having degrees conferred upon its students was the next best thing to conferring them itself.

_ The privilege, which lapsed in 1723, was not renewed in perpetuity until 1752. In the meantime the temptation was very great for the Jes- __ uits, whose prestige was high, to wangle concessions and. breach the statutes of the University when they had a likely candidate and the

| authorities were obliging. Thus Don Joaquin de Lacunza in 1741 was exempted from the required time of residence or apprenticeship for the master’s in philosophy and actually received the degree in the spring of the following year. The even more celebrated Jesuit, the poet _

Don Rafael de Landivar, who wrote the famous descriptive poem ss Rusticatio mexicana, was accorded the same exemption. Some bachelors’ _ degrees were also conferred “without the necessary formalities.",.Don _ Miguel de Montufar, who, as rector of the University, was concerned about the disdainful neglect of the statutes of the University, took the _

abuse directly to the king for correction. | a

The crown promptly ruled that there was no law whereby the “governor and captain general of this province” could grant exemption © from courses for degrees or shorten the time preceding the licentiate, On

the contrary, Statute 226 specifically forbade any authority to do so | and the highest officials in the Indies were forbidden ?* to shorten the |

- 24 AGG, Al. 3, 1141, 45. | |

25 Real cédula al rector y claustro de Ja Universidad. Madrid, 18 de marzo de

1719. (AGG, Al. 3-1, 12286, 1882, No. 86, fol. 77-77v.) , 26 Recopilacién . . . de Indias . . . , Tit. 22, lib. 1, ley 80. |

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 983 time for major degrees. Therefore, the king's will was that no governor or captain general should suspend the statute of the University which

required that three years (de pasantia) should lapse between the bachelorship and the licentiate. The crown did not, however, invalidate the degrees conferred con-

trary to the statutes but stipulated that all time remitted should be subtracted from the seniority of such graduates and the fact be entered plainly upon the diploma so that the penalty would be clearly visible when promotions and advancements were under consideration. And

to make doubly sure that these evils did not continue, the king, by special communication, desired the professors of the University not to issue certificates giving students credit for time in their courses unless they had actually been there—*without dissembling anything.” When the authorities of Guatemala received this document in July, 1748, they treated it with extraordinary solemnity.”” However, after the _ king had thus acted on the petition of Rector Montufar, the procurator general of the Society in Spain, acting on a brief received from the rector

of the College of San Francisco de Borja, made other representations which perpetuated the strife and complications. The procurator first represented that the college was at a “notable distance” from the University (seven blocks or half a mile) ?* and hence requiring the Jesuit students to go there did more harm than good. He recalled the success of the experiment of 1719-1723 when San Carlos was allowed to confer

degrees upon the students of San Francisco de Borja without their attending the University and petitioned the king to extend the privilege in perpetuity as was done for the Tridentine Seminary *° in the beginning. The crown rejected the Jesuit plea but wanted to know from the University whether or not it looked with favor upon the proposal.*° Not

only the University but the royal audiencia was invited to send in a formal and secret report on whether or not this scheme would be injurious to the University.** 27 AGG, Al. 8, 1152, 45. Real cédula a la Real Audiencia de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 27 de agosto de 1745. Ibid., Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. 28 AGG, Al. 2-5, 25254, 2833. Informe del Ayuntamiento de Guatemala, 31 de mayo de 1755. 29 The episcopal seminary, sometimes called Colegio Tridentino. , 380 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula al rector de la Universidad. Buen Retiro, 21 de agosto de 1748. Obeyed May 29, 1749. 81 AGG, Al. 8, 1152, 45. Real cédula a la real audiencia de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 28 de julio de 1750. Obeyed, 29 de junio de 1751. See also Al. 23, 10082,

94 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | Father Pedro Ignacio Altamirano, the procurator general for the Jesuit Society in the Indies, was constantly active in keeping the

| aspirations of San Francisco de Borja before the Council of the Indies. He pressed home the point that both the rector of the University and the captain general had made favorable reports to Spain in 1740. So, impatient with the delay that would be inevitable while the Council of the Indies waited for new reports, the crown decided on the last of October, 1750, to place the students of San Francisco de Borja on the same footing as those of the seminary and permit them to take degrees _ in the University without having courses there.** On May 29, 1752, Miguel Gutiérrez, rector of the College of San Francisco de Borja pre-

sented the cédula to this effect with an urgent request for compliance.®* It was “obeyed” within twenty-four hours both by the University

and the Superior Government.** , ;

This must have been, however, a case of pigeonhole veto (obedezco pero no cumplo ), for on February 19, 1754,** we find the king reporting

that, notwithstanding having seen some informes on the question of the University’s awarding degrees, he was still lacking the critical statement from the University requested on July 28, 1750.** By coincidence the cloister of the University of San Carlos issued a decree on February 19, 1754, requiring students of the College of San Francisco de Borja

to attend classes daily in the University.*” Evidently the University had 1527, fol. 181. AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula a la Universidad. Buen Retiro, 28 de julio de 1750. The crown took advantage of this correspondence to ask for a simultaneous report on the finances, chairs, etc., of the University. 82 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 46. Real cédula para que se graduen los colegiales de San Francisco de Borja de la Compafiia de Jesus de Guatemala, solo con los estudios hechos en el mismo colegio, sin acudir a los de la Universidad.

San Lorenzo, 31 de octubre de 1750. | ,

| 88 AGG, Al. 3-25, 18237, 1962. El Rector del Colegio de San Francisco de Borja, pide el cumplimiento de la cédula que otorga licencia a los colegiales de

dicho centro, puedan ser examinados en la universidad. Afio de 1752. : 84 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. See also Pardo, Efemérides, p. 207. 85 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 49. Real cédula al rector y claustro de la —

_ Universidad de San Carlos. Buen Retiro, 19 de febrero de 1754.

86 For an additional copy of this cédula, see AGG, Al. 23, 10082, 1527, fol. 181.

87 The ayuntamiento, on May 381, 1755, informed the crown that acceding to , the Jesuit request would ruin the University, without which encouragement of letters and enthusiasm for learning would be lacking. Diversity “produced competencies” and “fertilized science.” Besides, the “notable distance from the University,” which the Jesuits alleged, was only seven blocks and the seminarians, notwithstanding that they were not compelled to do so, took courses in the University.

(AGG, Al. 2-5, 25254, 2833.) | |

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 95 never intended to permit the Jesuit students to get degrees without coming to University classes.

Eventually the cloister must have furnished the king with the report desired since 1750, for in 1757, after the Council of the Indies had duly examined the whole history of the controversy and “seen” the various secret reports, the king revoked the concession of October, 1750, and ruled that, in order to obtain bachelor’s degrees, students from San Francisco de Borja must attend the classes of the University and that in

the future the statutes of the University would have to be kept “inviolably.” The summary command of compliance “without reply” (sin réplica) is certain proof that the long-suffering Spanish officials were at last exasperated.** No better evidence than this touchiness could be found that the crown considered itself hoodwinked by the rector of San Francisco de Borja and the Jesuit agent for the Indies in Spain.

Higher Education and the Expulsion of the Jesuits The blow expelling the Society of Jesus from the Spanish dominions fell with exceeding swiftness. It did not come in Guatemala, however,

with the brutal suddenness and dispatch it did in other places. The fathers of the Company there were notified on June 26, 1767, of the cédula of the previous March 27 expelling the Society from the king’s dominions. And at five o'clock on the morning of July 1, eleven Jesuits

and one lay brother *® departed for the Gulf to take passage on the frigate Tetis, some of them, the historian likes to imagine, clutching their manuscripts in their hands. From this point the authorities moved to “extirpate” all vestiges of Jesuit doctrine and power from the Indies. A royal pragmatic suppressed

the college of the Society in Guatemala.*? Another “rooted out” all 88 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882, No. 52. Real cédula al maestrescuela, rector, y claustro de la Universidad de San Carlos. Aranjuez, 81 de mayo de 1757. Promulgated de ruego y encargo by Captain General Don Alonzo de Arcos y Moreno, February 17 and 21, 1758. See also AGG, Al. 3-4, 12338, 1890, Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fol. 7. (Archival call numbers for the cloister records will be dropped after each book has been cited.) Enforcement was enjoined upon the rector, the bishop, the captain general, and anybody else concerned. The cédula was to be-

come effective from the date of receipt, February 9, 1758. : 89 The Jesuits were Manuel Alba, José Antonio Zepeda, José Vallejo, Manuel Mujfioz, Juan Sacramefia, José de Acosta, Francisco Javier Martinez, José Antonio

Aguirre, Luis Sontoyo, Rafael Landivar, and Manuel Cantabrana, and the lay

brother was Antonio Pons. 40 Announced by ban on July 80, 1767.

96 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | Jesuit chairs and authors. The “extinction” soon reached “all the universities” by circular.** With this act the Jesuit Society, for our purposes,

passes from the scene. Yet there were a few final gasps. The Pope, on July 21, 1778, at long last gave in and issued a bull suppressing the Society. In April, 1774, the captain general of Guatemala issued a royal provision including this brief and the cédula commanding its publica-

tion. The University was thus informed, and the church hierarchy,

bidden.* | a | 7

among other corporations and officials, was liberally supplied with copies, although, strangely enough, reprinting the document was for- __

The numerous explanations for the suppression of the Society of | _ Jesus can neither be synthesized nor reconciled, but the fear and resentment of “Voltairian” and “regalist” advisers at three courts, the jealousy of rival orders, envy of the wealth of the Society, both real and imagi-

nary—all must have had their place in the drastic and unprecedented | steps taken against the Jesuits in the 1750’s and 1760’s when Pombal expelled them from Portugal (1759), Choiseul drove them from France (1762), and Aranda and Charles III followed: suit for Spain and the

Indies five years later. Anyone who studies the documents dealing with the remorseless struggle of the Jesuits to monopolize higher education cannot escape the feeling that they spurned and turned every hand against them until they themselves succumbed at last under the hand of the state. It was

| their strength and their weakness that they brooked no dependence, found even tentative co-operation tedious, and could best work with | elements fitting obediently into their scheme of things. It is logical that with seminarians and natives their success was not far from perfect. In their great crisis they controlled three quarters of a million Indians who, when it was too late, could riot and throw stones, To stand up for them they lacked articulate friends (had they been permitted to articulate!) among white laymen, priests, friars, lawyers, and men of education and parts whom they had often helped to educate. Instead, these | elements maintained a polite, almost disinterested, silence over the fate

of the Society. , | | 41 AGG, Al. 23, 10095, 1540. Reales cédulas, Audiencia de Guatemala, 17001778, fols, 193-194. (The document bore various dates, depending upon the one

in42 AGG, theAl.blank left for that purpose. ) a , 3-1, 12259, 1885. Real provisién suscrita por don Martin de Mayorga, dirigida al Rector y Claustro de la Universidad, transcribiéndoles el Brebe de

SS. extinguiendo la Compaifiia de Jesus. Afio de 1774.

JESUIT VS. PUBLIC UNIVERSITY 97 Over the fate of the Society’s property, however, they raised their voices in raucous conviction. The spectacular elimination of the famous

“Company was everywhere the signal for a long-drawn-out struggle

for Jesuit real estate and personalty. The president and audiencia of Guatemala were quick to remind the king that the chief Jesuit building would be superb for the administration of the tobacco monopoly. The chief beneficiaries in the Indies, however, were the episcopal hierarchy, the Franciscans, and the universities. In Guatemala, as shown later in Chapter XIV, San Carlos got the bulk of its books and its library problem from the “extinguished” Society.

There was so much scrambling for the wealth left behind that the historian, rather than the creole of 1767, has been the man to appreciate fully the fantastic gap the expulsion created in the Indies, The many Jesuit schools, colleges, and minor universities—eight of these—were never effectively replaced under the empire. In Guatemala the loss was peculiarly cutting, for the great earthquake of 1773, forcing the removal of the city, reduced the number of elementary schools available from

seventeen in Antigua Guatemala to one in the new city. Since the Franciscans had not established a university, only the Tridentine Seminary and the University of San Carlos remained in the field of higher education. Despite the constant opposition of the Society to the University and its refusal to accept the reality of San Carlos, the academic community seems not to have retained for long any bitterness it might have had. In

1786 the cloister gratefully voted to allow the Abbé Don Andrés de Barozabal, ex-Jesuit, to print and dedicate to the University an “arts course” he had written and to permit its members to subscribe to the publication.“ It may be urged that this selfsame cloister left the universally respected Dr. Antonio Larrazabal * languishing in a Spanish prison after the restoration of Ferdinand VII without a word of protest, and hence that the silence about the Jesuits only indicates discretion. But when the thralldom was over, Dr. Larrazabal was eulogized and honored, while the silence on the Jesuits remained unbroken. 48 Pardo, Efemérides, pp. 285-236. #4 AGG, Al, 3-4, 12339, 1891, Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 9 de diciembre de 1796. 45 Delegate to the Cortes of Cadiz and fellow member of the cloister.

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Part Two

ACADEMIC ORGANIZATION

AND LIFE Po

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University Government:

The Salamancan Tradition

THE affairs of Spanish universities were conducted by rigid statutes which, while reducing administration to a minimum, also reduced change and flexibility to something less than a minimum. They did not even take for granted the normal pattern of parliamentary procedure, such as reading the minutes. The officers of a Spanish colonial university

were impotent without a copy of these constituciones in their hands. After the first edition of these sacred rules of San Carlos appeared in 1686, a second was published in 1783, and a third projected in 1795. The second edition was a literal reproduction and the proposed 1795 edition was to have been a “reprinting.” * This rigidity is symbolic.

Cloister

The king was the patron of the royal and pontifical universities such | as that of Guatemala. The captain general was the vice patron, After them came the academic electorate, like the “Convocation” or “Great Congregation” of Oxford, called the “cloister” (claustro).? It was composed of all licentiates, masters of arts, and doctors graduated from the university or incorporated in it, and from this fountainhead sprang 1 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 54v.-55, claustro de 23 de noviembre de 1795.

2 The Spaniards used the word claustro for the university building and for the governing corporation of licentiates, masters, and doctors. 101

102 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA all academic authority. A cloister meeting was a solemn occasion. One of the duties of the two bedels, on pain of a three-peso fine for every

fault, was to summon this august body and to certify the summons before the secretary at the beginning of each meeting.* The very dress and appearance of all concerned with the cloister was deemed a proper

subject for royal laws. The gowns (gramallas) of the bedels, which because of their poverty they wore until the garments were ready to drop off, were cut to a pattern running back to Salamancan traditions. _ No clerical doctor could be admitted to the cloister without his bonnet and no secular one without his cap on pain of a four-peso fine for the University Chest.* So significant was this gathering that a secret salon was set apart in the University where the cloister alone might hold its meetings. If the rector summoned a cloister member to another place, the doctors were not obliged to obey and the rector incurred a penalty

of twenty pesos. The secretary, the one important element of continuity in Spanish university administration, was entrusted with the all-

important key to this impressive room. And the secretary alone of people who did not have a vote was allowed to sit in the cloister sessions. -

To enforce this rule and to lend solemnity to the entry of the doctors, that cross between policeman, footman, and janitor, the bedel, was stationed outside like a sentry to open the door. Once the meeting was

declared in session, another man of distinction could get by these austere portals only if summoned and if the rector signaled his assent by ringing his bell, the gavel of that day and place.®

, To become a member of this body with participation in its deliberations, every man swore to keep secret the matters treated in it. All doctors ® could vote and be voted upon (active and passive vote!) provided they had passed their twentieth birthday. Other distinctions that went along with the higher degrees, such as having place in public acts, examinations, and parades, were readily accorded the more youthful doctors. They were also eligible for the fees occasionally distributed.” Decisions in ordinary matters (de justicia, based upon the law)

required only a majority vote, whereas in cases de gracia (based on voluntary concession of the government ) the vote had to be unanimous.*

3 Constituciones, Tit. XXVII, const. cccxxii. ; ,

4 Tbid., Tit. VIII, const. Ixxv. 5 Ibid., Tit. IX, const. Ixxx.

6 The master of arts was the supreme degree in philosophy. There was no such title as “doctor of philosophy.”

| 7 Constituciones, Tit. VIII, const. Ixiii. 7 8 [bid., Tit. IX, const. lxxxix. See also const. xc. .

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT 1083 There was also a rigid order of voting, commencing with the senior doctors and descending in proper sequence. The rector, who presented the material for discussion, was forbidden on pain of a fifty-peso fine

to obstruct a voter. Any voter dissenting from a decision thus taken could have his objection written into the minutes of the cloister.’ No interested party could vote, and a man was obliged to leave the room while his eligibility on this score was determined. Only a person absent with special permission could submit his written vote.*° A man coming into a cloister too late to understand the matter under discussion was not expected to vote. To facilitate voting in matters de gracia, or

even in those de justicia where the rector or maestrescuela was involved, two urns were set up with black and white balls (granos). Voting in any other manner laid the presiding officer liable to a fine of two hundred pesos for the University Chest. A man could change his vote while he was still in the room but never after he left it.‘ A three-

fourths majority was required to revoke an enactment of a previous cloister and then only after intention to reconsider had been duly circulated in advance.??

The cloister fell into several divisions. At the very top was the full cloister (claustro pleno), which required twenty members less the rector and maestrescuela, except in the early days when there were not enough persons sufficiently qualified. This full cloister, however, could be convened only by the rector and maestrescuela and could treat only those matters for which it had been called. There were also ordinary cloisters. For an ordinary cloister (claustro ordinario), ten doctors in-

cluding the rector and maestrescuela constituted a quorum. Such a cloister dealt with routine matters of minor importance and alternated the first Saturday of every month, except holidays, with the cloister of curators of the University Chest (claustro de diputados de hacienda), which consisted of five members aside from the rector and took responsi-

bility for handling the money of the University.** A board of electors called “the cloister of councilors” (consiliarios, conciliarri) and com-

posed of eight members was created and given authority to elect a rector, declare chairs vacant, and do everything necessary for filling them except judge the qualifications of the candidates. Four were doctors or masters: a theologian, a doctor in civil law, a doctor in canon

9 Ibid., const. Ixxxviii. 10 [bid., consts. xciv, xcv. 11 [bid., consts. xc, xci. 12 [bid., const. Ixxxvii. 13 [bid., consts. lxxxi, Ixxxiv.

104 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA oo law, and a doctor of medicine. The other four were a master of arts —_ and three bachelors in the major faculties.‘* The councilors “had place” within a faculty by order of the seniority of their degrees, could leave

town only under oath that they would return, and were liable to challenge if they did not comply with the statutes. Five of the eight con _ stituted a quorum, and a substitute could not be named unless fewer _ than five were present after a meeting had already been convened. No cloister was too small to be run by such minute regulations, The rector or maestrescuela was supposed to preside at all cloister meetings, but, in the absence of both, the senior doctor took the bell of authority

except in the cloister of councilors, in which only the rector or vice rector could preside.*® Every doctor or master, as soon as he graduated or entered into any office of the University, swore to attend the cloister meetings when called by the rector unless excused on good cause. For one unexcused absence, a professor was fined two pesos and any other

member of the cloister one.?” The minutes of the full cloister and of the subordinate and minor ones, including attendance, were duly kept

| | Rector ne in the cloister books.*® = | |

The supreme administrative officer of the University was the rector. Normally, the councilors (board of electors) on the summons of the

| rector met in the chapel of the University on November 5 and cast the first ballot for rector. They returned on the eighth to see if any more fitting persons had offered themselves. Two days later, on the eve of St. Martin, they met and swore to vote without regard to “person, esteem,

fear, hate, interest, gratification.” The person receiving the plurality of votes served as rector until the following November 10.° Within 14 The original cédulas provided for the selection of these councilors by vote | of the full cloister, but the cédula of confirmation stipulated the election of councilors by the bishop, senior oidor, rector, dean of the cathedral, and professors of theology. (Ibid., Tit. II, const. iv; Tit. IV, consts. xxxix, xxxx.) The statutes appear to have been ignored, for in 1799 the councilors were discussing whether these men should be elected in the traditional way or “in the way provided by the statutes.” The matter was of such gravity that only the full cloister could settle it. (Libro de

claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 102v.~103. ) 7 | : 15 Constituciones, Tit. IV, consts. xxxxi, xxxxiv; Tit. IX, consts. xcvii, xcviii. 16 Jbid., Tit. IV, const. xxxix; Tit. IX, const. ic. —

17 [bid., Tit. VIII, const. Ixvii; Tit. IX, const. c. , |

18 All these except the first volume, which has long been lost, remain in the University archive housed in the Archivo General del Gobierno in Guatemala City.

19 Constituciones, Tit. II, const. iii.

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT 105 three days after the election, the doctors and masters swore obedience to the new rector.

The rectorship was a rather democratic office on account of the

annual change, but the great power and considerable prestige it carried compensated for the lack of a salary. The rector had the power to do everything, short of contravening the statutes, for the good and improvement of the students, He had a strong hold over all elements in the University communities. He could punish the doctors, professors, and officers for any excesses in public acts by fines up to twenty pesos and by two months’ suspension. Beyond these limits, he needed the sanction of the cloister. Professors assessed in this way could have their salaries attached or their fees confiscated.*° The rector, in the original statutes of Sarassa y Arce, was given jurisdiction over doctors, administrative officers, and students for criminal offenses within and without the University,” but the cédula of confirmation *? restricted this jurisdiction to conform to a decree of Viceroy Francisco de Toledo concerning rectoral jurisdiction in Lima. This provision, adopted by the Spanish government and applied to the University of Mexico in 1597, gave the rector jurisdiction over doctors, administrative officers,

and students in criminal cases within the University not involving penalties of “mutilation of member, drawing of blood, or effective corporal punishment.” Outside the University, however, the jurisdiction

of the rector over these men extended only to causes involving the University.?* The rector of San Carlos in 1715 attempted, on the basis of the authority extended to Sarassa y Arce in 1688, to exercise whatever jurisdiction was necessary to organize the University’s funds ** and to

establish jurisdiction over degree-holding laymen outside the University. Despite his claim that such jurisdiction had been exercised for

a quarter of a century, the fiscal of the Council of the Indies ruled against him.” The duties of this unpaid office could be onerous enough. For each failure to convene the ordinary cloister the rector was liable to a fine

- 20 Tbid., Tit. III, const. xviii. 21 Tbid., const. xix. 22 Tbid., cédula de confirmacién. Buen Retiro, 9 de junio de 1686. 23 Real cédula al presidente y oidores de la audiencia de México. E] Campo, 24

de mayo de 1597. In John Tate Lanning, ed., Las reales cédulas de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de México (Mexico, 1946), pp. 299-308 (hereafter Lanning, Reales cédulas . . . México), and AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373. 24 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882, fol. 35-85v. 25 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 373.

106 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA of four pesos. He could convoke extraordinary cloisters and levy the proper fines against professors and other members of the cloister not attending. He was obliged to attend not only the cloister meetings, but all other public and secret acts; not only the ceremonies of the bachelors’

degrees but also the exercises that the professors were required by the statutes to stage. Without him these acts could not go forward. The statutes made provision for a substitute presiding officer in case there were two acts at the same time.”* A regular duty was to inspect the chairs or classes every two months. The secretary duly authorized the

inspections.?* ,

Under this watchdog theory of public service, the rector was liable to challenge for such things as circumvention of elections or malfeasance in office. These challenges were submitted to the maestrescuela,

who consulted with the captain general in order to name a doctor to

investigate the charge. If the reasons given were not sufficient, the | challenger was obliged to-pay a fine of fifty pesos to the University; and,

if the charges had no basis in fact, the accuser had to pay fifty pesos to the University and fifty more to the accused.?* Many such “constitutional” provisions, however, seem to have been more restraining than actually operative.

In the history of the University of Guatemala there are many sur| prising instances of doctors seeking to escape the honor of the rector_ ship. After the resignation of Dr. and Master Juan José Batres in 1762, Dr. Tomas de Alvarado y Guzman was elected but did not accept. Then

Dr. Ignacio Falla declined the position, upon which the cloister declared the election of Dr. Falla null and void and accepted the excuse of Dr. Alvarado y Guzman that he was old and overworked as confessor of the Capuchin fathers. There was nothing to do but turn to the captain general.?® Occasionally that official intervened in these matters, but apparently the cloister was generally eager to keep things

normal so as to prevent state interference.*° ,

Considerable constitutional restraint was imposed to prevent evasion or neglect of the rector’s responsibility. If he was absent from the city for more than two months, his office was declared vacant and a new 26 Constituciones, Tit. III, consts. xxiii, xxiv, xxvi; Tit. VI, const. lvi. 27 AGG, Al. 3-8, 12578, 12582, 1904. Autos sobre visita de catedras, 1802-1803.

Dr. Simedén Cajfias, rector. , 28 Constituciones, Tit. III, const. xxxviii. 29 Libro de claustros, 1756~1790. 30 AGG, Al. 3-4, 12340, 1892, Libro de claustros, 1808-1831, claustros de 23

de abril y 8 de junio de 1818.

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT 107 rector elected by the maestrescuela and councilors unless the full cloister

granted an extension. In cases of absences the rector named a vice rector, ecclesiastical or secular—depending upon the state of the incumbent rector.*?

Not all doctors were eligible for the office of rector. Members of religious orders, a professor actively holding a chair, a contestant for a chair, a doctor of medicine, or a person who was merely a master in arts could not be legally elected. No doctor under thirty could serve, and a former rector had to be out of office for two years before he was eligible for re-election. Any person serving as substitute rector for any

period of time during the year before an election could not hold the office. The rectorship had to alternate between ecclesiastical doctors and laymen who were neither married nor medical men.*® Members of

the audiencia were excluded from the rectorship as a gesture of protection of the medieval autonomy of the University, but the scarcity of good candidates in the early years in Guatemala and the greater

prestige of the Spaniards led to the election of Dr. Bartolomé de Amésqueta in 1708 ** and Dr. Pedro de Ozaeta ** the next year despite

the fact that both were oidores in the royal audiencia. The Spanish government approved the election of Amésqueta and his acceptance, but not as a precedent.®*» There were occasions when the ineligibility of professors rankled in their breasts. Yet in 1817 a cloister was still debating their exclusion under the statutes.*° In 1691 they were disputing the eligibility of the maestrescuela for the rectorship,*’ but it appears that the matter was decided in his favor. When Dr. Juan de Dios Juarros became maestrescuela in 1784, the councilors decided not to declare the rectorship vacant.** The same cloister, having a clear case, did declare the rectorship vacant on June 23, 1788, because the rector,

Dr. Juan de Santa Rosa Ramirez, had taken the “habit of a religious in the College of Christ Crucified.” *° In the first part of the next year,

the rectorship again became vacant because the rector, Dr. Manuel 81 Constituciones, Tit. VI, consts. liii, liv, lv. 82 Tbid., Tit. II, consts. ix, x. 83 AGG, Al. 8, 1140, 45.

84 AGG, Al. 8-18, 12965, 1945. Razén de los rectores que han sido de esta universidad que constan de los libros de claustros. 85 AGG, Al. 23, 10080, 1525. Real cédula al presidente y oidores de Guatemala. Madrid, 31 de julio de 1710. Reales cédulas, Audiencia, Tomo XII, 1708-1714, fols. 112-118. 86 Libro de claustros, 1808~1831, fols. 76-77. 87 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 111. 88 Libro de claustros, 1756~—1790, fols. 198-199. 89 [bid., fols. 249v.—250.

law.*° | 108 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA

Angel de Toledo, had entered the competition for the chair of canon

These situations explain in part, then, why it was feared that individuals might not accept election to office. Rectors and councilors were expressly forbidden by the statutes to beg off from such service unless their excuses seemed acceptable to the president. Otherwise a rector who refused to serve was subject to a fine of three hundred pesos

and was expelled from the cloister.** } Maestrescuela (Chancellor ) |

The office of maestrescuela closely paralleled that of the rector and as a University officer he had the same jurisdiction as his counterpart in the universities of Lima and Mexico. To assume his office in the

. University he had to produce a certificate of appointment from the king © and of incorporation by the cathedral chapter of which he was a mem-

ber. Since the chief duty of the maestrescuela was to supervise the

conferring of the higher degrees, it was not meet that he should be | without a higher degree himself. Therefore, if he had a doctor’s degree from a university other than San Carlos, he was entitled to be incorporated by paying the fees of licentiate and doctor, but on account of his “pre-eminence” he was “dispensed from” the costly public acts of

“pomp.” If he had no doctor’s degree at all, the licentiate and doctorate were conferred upon him by the vice chancellor on the same conditions. The crown, upon the advice of a committee for the reform of the University statutes appointed in Guatemala, agreed in 1719 to restrain the ecclesiastical cabildo from giving the office of maestrescuela

| to any person not having a doctor's degree from the University of

| Guatemala or who had not been incorporated as a doctor.*? In order to set a good example for the other doctors of the cloister, the maestrescuela and the rector of the University, “as its head,” cooperated closely. The maestrescuela accompanied the rector on the occasion of the fiestas of the University, such as those on the eve of the days of San Carlos and Santa Teresa de Jesus, and to burials and funeral |

honors for doctors and masters, while the rector reciprocated in the cases of “repetitions” and parades for higher degrees. If one of them

40 Thid., fol. 262-262v. 41 Constituciones, Tit. II, const. xii. 42 [bid., Tit. V, const. xxxxvi; AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula al cabildo >

eclesiastico de Guatemala. Madrid, March 18, 1719. So , ;

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT 109 failed to accompany the other, he was subject to a fine of fifty pesos, twenty-five for the abused party and twenty-five for the University Chest.**

The duties of the maestrescuela extended little beyond the ceremonial, to be discussed later, connected with higher degrees. He did not receive or disburse money in connection with these same degrees. Whenever the rectorship became vacant, he called a meeting of the councilors to

elect a man to fill out the unexpired term, but this was as near as he came to the assumption of the lay functions of the rector. When the office of maestrescuela became vacant, the rector and cloister drew up a panel of three ecclesiastics, and from this list the captain general selected a vice chancellor. Members of religious orders were excluded.**

The Secretary and the Records of the University The chief element of continuity in the colonial university was the secretary, whose functions were naturally intertwined with those of the organizations and officials already discussed. The secretary, usually an able bachelor of arts whose pretension to higher degrees was perhaps cut short by want of money “to fee” the cloister and to finance the entertainment attendant upon investiture, was elected by three-quarters vote of the full cloister to serve at its pleasure. And it apparently suited the

cloister to have continuity in this office, for it involved a myriad of details that could be handled satisfactorily only by an experienced officer. His was the task of drawing up all routine official papers and minutes of the University as well as any occasional documents that the rector might order him to make. In this role he attended cloister meetings, witnessed the assigning of “points” for academic acts and contests, and observed the secret or public examinations as well as the conferring of degrees. He was no less a witness to the competition for chairs and the act of taking possession of them. Such an officer had to be prominently “seated” in all types of meetings to fulfill his responsibilities. Although the secretary’s salary was only one hundred pesos, plus the fees

prescribed in the statutes, he had to remain constantly on hand and could absent himself with license for only two months at a time, when a royal notary did his work. In case of illness, the rector and full cloister

48 Constituciones, Tit. III, const. xxviii. | 44 Ibid., Tit. VI, consts. lvii, lix; Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 86v., 40v.— 41, 81-82, 1038-104; 1808-1881, fols. 92v.-93, 96v.

-110 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA named a temporary substitute. This restriction is another illustration of the crown’s fear of expansion and increased expense.*®

Two seals, incorporating the royal arms, the major and the minor, were kept by the rector and turned over to the secretary whenever it was

necessary to stamp an impression upon a document. The use of these seals affords an unexpected insight into academic values of the sixteenth century. The common seal served for ordinary letters and dispatches as well as the diplomas of bachelors in all faculties and licentiates in arts—another indication of the low esteem in which the arts course was held. The great seal-was used on all diplomas of licentiates in other faculties and upon all masters’ and doctors’ degrees. The minor

seal was used on edicts declaring temporary chairs vacant and the major seal in cases involving proprietary chairs.*® The typically Spanish function of the secretary that most endears him to the heart of the historian was his role as archivist. The archive was located in or close by the cloister room. It was designed to hold

all cédulas, privileges and exemptions, bulls, writings, books, and miscellaneous papers of the University as well as the matriculation records, degree books, and cloister minutes. To protect the integrity of the records, only the rector, the senior curator, and the secretary held the keys to this repository. For the same purpose the rector was required by the statutes to visit the archive twice a year to make sure that the papers were not being eaten by insects, jumbled, or lost, to make certain that the secretary recovered all papers taken out, and to inspect the index volume in which all documents were supposed to be listed. The minutes of the full cloister, of the meetings of councilors, and of the curators of the University Chest, were signed by the rector, senior doctor, and secretary. Neatly drawn up by the secretary, they constituted the only legal record of University action. Unfortunately, these records are usually too brief to include individual arguments or to do more than indicate the drift of thought on many problems upon which it would be

enlightening to have individual views. The secretary had a desk in some part of the archive room (opening only to the inside of the building) at which he was supposed to sit for some time each day in order

to draw up papers and to matriculate students. For each failure to present himself daily he was liable to a fine of one peso. In case of the death of the secretary, his personal papers were seized and put in the 45 Constituciones, Tit. XXIV, consts. cexcii, ccxcvi, ccxcviiii, cccy, cccvi. , 46 Tbid., consts. ccevii, ccceviii.

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT Il] archive, and in case these papers were essential to his work, they were turned over to the next secretary and not even the heirs of the deceased

could enter claims against them *’—an example that may need to be followed some day in the case of the papers of the President of the United States.

Bedels

The two bedels, who were a combination of janitor, mace-bearer, and handy man, should “at least know how to read and write.” This does not seem to be a very strange requirement for men who broadcast

announcements in Latin. Since they had to attend all academic acts, see that the rooms and halls of the University were swept twice a week,

check and report on both students and professors, summon cloisters, and be at the beck and call of the rector, they were assigned rooms in the University. Elected by the full cloister, they served for an annual salary of 150 pesos each plus fees. In 1811, after 130 years, the second bedel was still petitioning for an increase.**

Oaths of Officers Omnipresent though they were, oaths in the Spanish colonial university were in the main perfunctory, another part of the pageantry upon which people in that day depended for entertainment. Military officers, therefore, even when they assumed civil offices, were obliged to take

the oath while wearing the sword.*® The statutes of San Carlos drawn , up by Sarassa y Arce included a whole section of oaths. The rector of

the University, in impressive Latin, swore in all the administrative officers of the University, and the maestrescuela took the oaths of those

graduating as licentiates and doctors. The rector swore to uphold the Pope of the Holy Roman Catholic Church, to obey and support the king and his successors, and to discharge the duties of his office within the limits of the statutes. The other officers swore, when their oaths were cleansed of patriotic and theological verbiage and stripped down to essentials, to discharge faithfully the responsibilities of their offices. One feature of the oath, however, will seem strange to a member of 47 Ibid., Tit. III, const. xxxii; Tit. IX, consts. Ixxvii, lxxxv; Tit. XXIV, consts. eexciii, cexciiii, ccxcv, ccciiii; Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fol. 73-73v. 48 Constituciones, Tit. XXVII, consts. cccxix; cccxx; Libro de claustros, 1808— 1881, fol. 18-18v. 49 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12262, 1885. Real cédula circular. San Ildefonso, 1 de septiembre de 1780.

, | 112 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | a university community in the United States. Doctors and masters were

compelled to attend the first cloister meeting after the election of a , new rector and swear obedience to him. Those who failed to do so

| were liable to be deprived of the vote for three months and to forfeit the first fee. On these occasions the students filed-in and participated in the mass oath of obedience to the rector. Not only those receiving degrees, but also those who were incorporated (i.e., had their outside degrees validated in Guatemala) and those who won chairs were obliged

| to swear and make a profession of faith according to the Council of

Virgin Mary.°° |

Trent and to uphold the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the

Political complications connected with the expulsion of the Jesuits _ led the crown in 1768 to require the professors and masters of all universities to take an oath to defend Session 15 of the Council of Con| stance, against regicide and tyrannicide, and not to uphold the opposite even under the “pretext of probability.” 5+ Since probabilism condoned

| an action based upon “probable moral lawfulness where certainty was not attainable” and held that any view of a “recognized church father” was sufficient basis for the conduct of a layman, it would have left a good

deal to the judgment of a man who might want to aim his arrow at the heart of a king instead of the apple on top of his head. Spanish regalists of Charles III's day believed that the Jesuits taught this doctrine and supported themselves historically by pointing to the writings of the famous Spanish Jesuit, Juan de Mariana, on the disposition of tyrants. Whether or not Mariana was at the moment a recognized “Holy Father”

of the church and whether he actually counseled regicide are, in the _ circumstances, rather academic questions. The need of keeping secret what went on in the cloister occasioned still more oaths. The bedels, as soon as they were named, took the oath

| to keep the secrets of the cloister and obey the rector. The oath of | secrecy was also required of the members of the cloister. In 1798 the

cloister was still concerned that some doctors had not taken this oath |

and forced them to do so.°? | , |

| 50 Constituciones, Tit. III, const. xxxv; Tit. VIII, const. Ixviii; Tit, XXXII, consts. cccxxxxiii, cecxxxxiv, cccxxxxv; Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, 1790-1808, passim.

en Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula circular. El Pardo, 18 de marzo de 52 Constituciones, Tit. VIII, const. lxiv; Tit. XXVII, const. cccxxi; Libro de claus- | ,

tros, 1790-1808, fol. 9lv. a

SALAMANCAN GOVERNMENT 118 The Handling of Money: The University Chest In colonial days the handling of money was a physical thing, not a mere shuffling of slips of paper and bookkeeping. It was perfectly natural that the University should have a money chest, a strong box with three keys—one in the hands of the rector, and the other two in the hands of the two senior curators of the treasury. Into this University Chest, located in the archive room, went all money, ranging from quit rents to fees for degrees and fines for misconduct. No University

official could excuse any payment due, and the rector, within fifteen days of his election, in company with the proper financial officers, had to check the accounts and examine the records of fines in the money chest. If his financial responsibility was considerable, his power was not, for the rector could, on pain of making up the deficit from his own property, authorize the spending of only fifty pesos for his whole term in office except in consultation with the treasury curators.**

The five curators of the University Chest (diputados de hacienda) elected in the first cloister after the election of the rector, were all professors having proprietary (lifetime) chairs. Although, as in most administrative posts, no salary attached to the office, professors could not, on pain of a fifty-peso fine, turn down the election. For each absence of a curator from a meeting the fine was three pesos. Three constituted a quorum.

A treasurer (tesorero sindico), elected by secret vote of the full cloister, served under the direction of the rector and curators of the University Chest at a salary of two hundred pesos a year. And in keeping with the tradition of unrelenting watchfulness, he was required to

post bond, the size depending upon the money he handled. He kept a book recording everything received and everything spent and each year made an accounting to the curators. Aside from the inspection conducted by the rector, the treasurer submitted his funds and books to the examination of a professional University accountant, who served for fifty pesos a year. The treasurer could, however, in case he thought any charges against him unjust or incorrect, ask that two accountants

examine his affairs. In such a case, unanimous findings against him would be accepted, whereas if one accountant found with the treasurer, 58 Constituciones, Tit. III, consts. xxii, xxxi, xxxiii; Tit. IX, const. lxviii; Tit. XXV, const. cccxiiii; Tit. XXIX, const. cccxxxv.

114 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | this finding was executed. The purpose of this arrangement was to avoid

| the expense and delays of litigation. Another safeguard was the requirement that the treasurer should submit to the rector and curators within twenty-four hours the money supplied at four-month intervals by the royal treasury. These and other rents and fees were then deposited in _ the strong box. Three times a year the rector and curators met, opened

the money chest, and paid in thirds (tercios) the salaries of the professors and administrative officers. Likewise, the professors were on this _

occasion shown the cuts reported by the bedels and charged against

| their salaries. To stimulate the interest of the rector in this obligation, a sixth part of the fines deducted for cuts went to him and the nonteaching senior doctors. A record of outgoing and incoming funds was kept in a

strong box, which could be opened only in the presence of the other holders of keys, who witnessed all deposits and withdrawals. The secretary certified the accounts, and for that reason he was not housed _ with the treasurer.*+ This treasurer, who was so much hedged about, was no special object of distrust, for he was the legal agent or solicitor of the University. This vicious circle of suspicion surrounding University finances, made necessary by centuries of malfeasance and by troublesome litigation in an age when the king was trying to grasp and hold all purse strings, in no way reflected upon San Carlos; it was basic in the Spanish theory and practice of government, whether among the doctors of Salamanca or the collectors of the port of Vera Cruz.

| | Church and State |

Throughout the history of the cloister of the University of Guatemala

there are few signs of cleavage between the clerical and the lay elements. In 1767, perhaps because of the vigorous regalism of Charles II, the authorities of the University and the Superior Government of Guate-

: mala fell into a controversy over the placing of the papal arms alternately with the royal ones along the top of the walls of the new University building. The situation was aggravated, if not provoked, by the failure of the University to dedicate “an act of reception” to the captain general as it had to his predecessor—‘“a sign of submission and acknowledgment” due to His Majesty “that should not be forgotten.” ** The fiscal, 54 [bid., Tit. VII, consts. lx, lxii; Tit. XXV, consts. eccix, cccx, cccxi, eccxii, cccxiii,

ccexlili, cccxvi, cccxvii; Tit. XXVI, const. cccxviii; Tit. XXIX,-consts. cccxxxvi, CCCXXXV11, CCCXXXVII1, CCCXXXIX.

55 [bid., Tit. XII, const. cxxxxii; Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fols. 65v.—66.

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=. dll bile eh —— ——— = — | The professors started their classes on October 18 and went through to September 8, except for holidays listed above and St. Luke’s Day,

| when the cloister and students assembled to hear a “solemn mass” sung _ in the chapel. Professors who proclaimed a holiday on their own au- _

| thority were subject to a fine of their salary for that day. To avoid any — misunderstanding, the bedel of the week was required to go to the

| classes on the last day before a holiday and, in Latin, make an an| nouncement for the benefit of both professors and students.*® By the beginning of the eighteenth century, despite the strict specifications of the statutes, the number of holidays had been eased up to 180 a _ year. From the remaining days of the year Sundays must be deducted. Fifteen or twenty holidays, such as Ascension, were called “movable”

| holidays because they came regularly on a certain day of the month. Whenever a professor participated in an oposicidn, there was no class _

meeting, and the students who attended an academic act were con-_ sidered as having satisfied the attendance requirements for that day.‘ _ The situation became intolerable even to the authorities of the University. On March 17, 1803, the rector, Dr. Simeén Cafias, whose name

, is associated with so many progressive movements in his country, emphasized the fact that the holidays had reached 180 even though many

fell on Sundays. How the new table of festival days, instead of the legal one in Statute 280, had come into existence, no one seemed to

} know. Dr. Caiias proposed that all not sanctioned by the regulations be eliminated. To prevent a return to the hoary violations of the letter of the law, he called the matter to the attention of the captain general. The fiscal advised that enforcing the University laws did not require —

royal sanction but that eliminating holidays in the statutes did. He recommended hearing the rector and the cloister, which approved the

proposed reforms. The captain general then issued a real provision * | sanctioning the reform, pending royal approval. Cafias was not, how45 Ibid., Tit. XXVII, const. cccxxiii. . 46 Tbid., Tit. XI, const. Cxxxii. , 47 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12276,_1886. Real provisién en que se aprueba la reduccién de

| feriados a los prevenidos en la Constitucién 280. Guatemala, 11 de agosto de 18038.

THE STUDENT 191 ever, fully satisfied with his success. He wanted the vacation period from September 8 to October 18 to run from September 8 to October 8 only. He also requested that all academic acts be set on holidays so as to avoid suspending classes.**

Student Dress Student dress was prescribed. Suits and clothes were to be suitable and not improved upon by colored stockings, gold or embroidered passementerie, sideburns, or pompadours. One item of dress often made another necessary. Students who wore the manteo (long cloak) and sotana (cassock) could not attend the defense of theses, lectures, or the Saturday exercises (Sabatinas) of the University unless they also wore the bonete. The penalty for the violation of this regulation was loss of all credits. Only medical students not wearing manteos and sotanas could enter the University with the golilla (collar ).*° All others

wore students’ collars. One would be inclined to infer that, after a time, not much attention was paid to this requirement. However, in 1795, the University received a real provision asking the rector and

cloister by what right students in the University wore starched cuffs (bolillos) on their sleeves (bocas mangas). Such cuffs were worn on the sleeves of their long robes (vestidos talares) by councilors of state and inquisitors °° and also by prebendaries of the metropolitan church of New Spain and adjacent islands, to whom the right had been granted

by a royal cédula.® }

The search instituted by the secretary of the University to find any

document authorizing so spectacular a privilege yielded nothing. Yet , it had become the custom for the students, when they attended functions to which they wore the golilla, to don the starched cuffs. The main

answer of the University was drawn up by its fiscal, the professor of laws, Angel de Toledo.*? Toledo admitted that the innovation was authorized neither by the statutes nor by any other documents in the archives of the University. He pointed out, however, that by tradition the students of the Colegio Tridentino and the Colegio de San Fran- | 48 For the complete expediente on this matter see AGG, Al. 8, 1177, 46. El Rector de la Real Universidad sobre proscripcién de feriados. Afio de 18038. See also Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 138-139v., 142—148v. 49 Constituciones, Tit. XV, const. clxxxvi. 50 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustro pleno, 18 de octubre de 1795. 51 April 21, 1795.

52 Dr. Rosa's investigation was interrupted by the death of his mother.

| 192 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA , cisco de Borja of Old Guatemala, as well as Jesuit students in the | University, used them on the occasion of a public literary function. , - Toledo argued that, since the origin of the custom was so remote as to be unknown, it should be regarded as an “immemorial custom”

sufficient to sanction the practice, especially when there was no spe- — _ cific law against it. The question became quiescent in December, 1795 _ —apparently while the crown was being consulted—only to be brought

violently to life in 1798. The president and the audiencia had received

a royal cédula® reviewing the case and determining categorically _ that individuals of the University should not in the future wear starched cuffs even for literary functions. This command was trans-

mitted to the cloister in August, 1798.54 | ee , Matriculation, Race, and Society in the University | Matriculation was designed, not for the insignificant two reales

| charged, but to keep a check upon the students—to see that they swore obedience to the rector and that no fraud was perpetrated in the giving of credits. Students matriculated within forty days after

| the election of the rector and repeated the process every year. The secretary kept a special, alphabetically arranged matriculation book _

| in which the registration, including name, previous place of resi- __ _ dence, etc., for each student of each faculty was written in the secre-

tary’s own hand to prevent fraud. |

The requirements for admission to matriculation were curiously slight and vague. It was the original idea that the student should

| , have a course in rhetoric before he could enroll in the various faculties. Since there was no professor of this subject, the requirement lapsed. And, in lieu of a professor of rhetoric or Latin, the professor of arts

7 | examined the candidate for admission to a faculty, gave him a certifi| -eate of proficiency certified by the rector and duly entered in the record by the secretary. The fee of the professor for the examination was a half-peso, but poor students were exempt. The secretary was allowed to charge four reales each time he handled the documents

: proving a student had taken a given course.*® - Oo | , ‘The statutes of the University of Guatemala, as of the other Spanish 88 Madrid, 21 de diciembre de 1797. (AGG, Al. 28, 10090, 1535, fols. 217-218.) 54 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12267, 1886. Real provisién sobre que el claustro informe en | virtud de que privilegio usan bolillos los cursantes de esta Universidad. Afio de 1795. ,

Also Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fol. 82—82v. a

XXIV, consts. ccc, ceci. 55 Constituciones, Tit. III, consts. xx, xxi; Tit. XV, consts. clxxxiii, clxxxiv; Tit. |

THE STUDENT 198 colonial universities, were less tolerant than the actual practice. The regulations excluded from University registration for courses looking toward degrees all persons who had been sentenced by the Inquisition,

or whose father or grandfather had been sentenced, or any person having any “note” of “infamy” or dishonor. On the grounds of race and blood, Negroes, mulattoes, “chinos morenos,” and all slaves or former

slaves were likewise excluded. But, in order to be perfectly plain, Indians “as free vassals of His Majesty” were legally, if not economically and socially, eligible to take courses and receive degrees.°® Such a statute is impressive nowadays, but its effectiveness must be judged against the Spaniard’s views on the advancement of the Indian. For example, near the beginning of the eighteenth century Master Fray José de Obregén, who went to Spain as the procurator general of the

Dominican Province of San Juan Bautista in Peru, took as a companion Francisco Suarez, an Indian lay brother. Apparently “left without protection,” the red man attracted attention. Orders were then issued to confine Suarez to the Convent of Madre de Dios in Alcala de Henares until the galleons should sail, with Obregon paying for the maintenance, transportation to Cadiz, and return fare of the Indian. This could not be done for some reason, and the Indian was kept in Spain “causing grave inconveniences.” In 1706 the Council of the Indies accordingly forbade the bringing of Indian religious to Spain as companions or in any other capacity.*” In 1674, in the time of the “University of the College of the Com-

pany of Jesus,” nine students called to the attention of “Juan de Sancto Mathia Sdenz Majiozco y Murillo, bishop and chancellor of the University of the Society of Jesus,” that the tenth statute forbade Negroes, mulattoes, and chinos to take courses and receive degrees. This petition on the part of these busy young fellows was provoked

by the fact that “it had been called to their attention” that in the class of Father Juan Duran a student named Sebastian de Arroyo was about to graduate as bachelor in arts, and they offered to prove that he was a mulatto. The bishop and chancellor made them present under oath the evidence which they promised—tacit admission that the chancellor hoped the troublemakers would lose interest and drop this

complaint.** 56 Tbid., Tit. XVI, const. exevi.

57 AGG, Al. 23, 10079, 1524, fol. 240. Real cédula. Madrid, 30 de noviembre de 1706.

58 AGG, Al. 8-18, 13112, 1954. Que no se conceda grado de Br. a los mulatos. Afio de 1674.

194 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | In the routine operation of the University of San Carlos, some who | might have been excluded by a rigid enforcement of the letter of the | law were enrolled. Otherwise, it is difficult to explain why in 1803 the

- full cloister debated whether to require proofs of racial purity in order to admit a student to matriculation and finally to confer degrees upon

him. It was determined that they “should go on requiring them for the matriculation” and that the vice patron should be consulted about the hardships they caused.®® This resolution was not fully effective, for the cloister determined again late in 1805 that no student should be admitted to matriculation without submitting proof of his “quality”

, in the form established.*° These documents were undoubtedly to , prove purity of race and not legitimacy, because one candidate for matriculation, José Leandro Guerra, presented documentary proof

, that he was a foundling and was promptly enrolled. , _ At the beginning of the nineteenth century a. combination of cir, cumstances forced discrimination into the open. An increasing number of mixed bloods, illegitimates, and simple plebeians, especially _ when encouraged by the revolutions and the enactment of the Cortes , of CAdiz admitting Negroes to the universities, colleges, and religious _ orders,®? sought to enter the doors of the professions that were approached through the University. These “callings” suddenly became

| very exclusive. In Guatemala, for example, the legal clique tried to control its membership by establishing a guild to enforce its own rules

, for the practice of law.® On the other hand the new ferment led | others to raise the whole question for mere clarification. Such ap| parently was the case with José Valdés, rector of the University of — , _ Guatemala, who dropped the matter into the lap of the vice patron in 1816. It was “a very old custom,” he said simply, to admit illegitimates to matriculation for both major and minor degrees. Because he |

7 thought this practice contrary to Statute 196, which excluded all with

| any “note of infamy,” and to the municipal law,** which broadened | this phrase to mean those “not born of legal marriage,” he asked the | Superior Government whether the University should follow the letter

, - Guerra. , , , | a

_ 89 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fol. 138-138v. —- 8 Ibid.., fols. 164v.-168.

61 AGG, Al. 3-10, 12645, 1906. Informacién sobre el expdsito. José Leandro. 62 AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 674. “Los oriundos de Africa seran admitidos en las | Universidades, Colegios, y Ordenes religiosas.” Cadiz, 29 de enero de 1812. See also

| | AGG, Al, 3-1, 12293, 1886. The decree was obeyed in Guatemala on July 29, 1812. | 63 Salazar, Desenvolvimiento, p. 121. 64 That is, to Tit. VI, ley 2, partida 7.

THE STUDENT 195 of the law or the custom. The oidor fiscal passed the matter back to the

University by asking for a report, especially on whether or not all “classes of” or just pure-blooded bastards (“known in law as naturales” ) were admitted. This request for information produced much evidence of humanity in the operation of the University of San Carlos. The University consulted its own experts and legal advisers on the point. One of these, Dr.

Simeon Cafias, excused himself on the ground that he did not have time to consult the documents. Dr. José Bernardo Dighero thought that, in the “more than thirty years” in which he had observed the Uni-

versity, more effort had been made to exclude mixed bloods—even those born in holy wedlock—than to bar illegitimates, for which reason people preferred to be falsely known as bastards rather than as mulattoes. The faithful secretary of the University, Estevan José Pérez, reported that during his thirty-one years in office he had never known any evidence on legitimacy to be taken to matriculate a student or to graduate him with a minor degree. Even in the case of candidates for higher degrees only a “summary examination” was made to see whether

the conditions of the statutes, without being specific, were fulfilled. This must have been the immemorial practice, for the University archives did not contain a single one of these files. Thus it was until 1701,

when, during the rectorship of Manuel de Toledo, it was ordered that no one should be admitted to candidacy without submitting proofs of “quality” (informaciones de calidad). This requirement, however, did not apply to illegitimates, always admitted, and even after 1701 no document was required to matriculate for minor degrees. The fiscal of the University, Dr. José Maria Alvarez, crowned the argument by establishing two points—one of fact and the other of law —to the effect that (1) the custom in the University of not requiring proofs of legitimacy from candidates for degrees was so old that “the memory of man runneth not to the contrary”; and (2) that the practice was not against the law but in perfect keeping with the principles of equity. Dr. Alvarez in his written opinion and the cloister in its unanimous sanction felt that to force the imposition of the requirement would

result in “injury to the prosperity and well-being of the commonwealth.” Dr. Alvarez admitted that the royal law cited did include 65 The whole series of documents, Juicios de Limpieza de sangre (AGG, Al. 3-10,

12643-12956, 1906), instead of controversial material, contains nothing but a few , perfunctory documents involving only twenty-three proofs of “purity of blood.”

a 196 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA sts” illegitimates among those with a “note of infamy” but added that the law covered only admission to sacred orders, judgeships, and “other _

civil employments,” and not to the opportunity to prepare for a pro_ fession to which those of “special education and merit” were accorded admission as exceptional cases. Otherwise, an “infinity” of men would have “no aspiration to lift themselves.” °° The enlightenment shown in —

| this case does not appear to be mere verbiage. Pedro Molina, the . , médico and the “precursor” of Central American independence, as the | researches of Carlos Gandara Duran have so clearly shown, not only did not present proofs of legitimacy but appears to have had the connivance of the University authorities in concealing his background.”

a | The Conduct of the Class | a | In the scholastic university in America the conduct of the class could | not be left to the judgment of the professor. Classes come every day save holidays. The original statutes require the professor “to read one whole hour” by the clock or hourglass at each meeting. Half of this time he spends dictating to the students who write down what he says.

__The rest of the time is spent in elaboration and discussion. Except in

| the chairs of “anatomy and astrology,” all this is done in Latin, but in cases of extreme difficulty the professor makes an explanation in the vernacular tongue if requested. Anyway, professors “linger a short time at the doors” of their classrooms to clarify all doubts and misunder-

standings. The proprietary professors supposedly deposit these manu| | script lectures in the archives every year on a certain date. The professor who cannot produce a certificate from the secretary that he has

| done this is liable to have withheld the last third of his salary.** To. judge by the absence of these manuscripts in the University records, _

this requirement simply lapsed by general consent. a Every effort is made to see that the class is seemly. The professor has full proctorial authority in his classroom and sees that the students lis-

ten with “silence and quietness” of manner. For the first offense the _ student is reprimanded; and, if it is repeated, the bedel on the in-

: struction of the professor throws him out of the classroom. That “cam- _

| pus policeman” reports to the rector who is empowered to punish 66 AGG, Al. 3-25, 18308, 1962. Consulta acerca de que si habiendo derogada la | Constitucidn, atin se reciben alumnos ilegitimos, como en ella se manda, Afio de 1816.

67 Carlos Gandara Duran, Pedro Molina (Guatemala, 1936), p. 36. ,

, 88 Constituciones, Tit, XI, consts. cxiv, cxvi. | a , .

THE STUDENT 197 “with rectitude and integrity” to the extent of erasing the “matriculations” and expelling the student from the University.®° The rector him-

self, in company with the acting senior professor and the secretary, theoretically inspects the classes every two months to see that the instructor carries on his class and that the students conduct themselves

properly.”° ,

From the first the students in Guatemala proceeded to justify all

apprehensions on the score of their industry. The situation became so bad that by 1699 the Council of the Indies had been informed of the “great lukewarmness” with which the students attended to their studies in the University. Indeed, some professors had no students and, the Council feared, such negligence would go on producing “greater lan-

guor’ in the University body. The Council accordingly ordered the rector to join hands with the bishop in the strict fulfillment of the statutes."* The president of the audiencia, as vice patron, took part and urged the rector to control the attendance of students. The constant need for writing down what the professor read annoyed students more than meeting classes. Salazar thinks that this custom started because textbooks were not available, at least not at first.” If so, Sarassa y Arce anticipated a lack of texts, for he required this dictation in the statutes that he framed. Even after ample time had elapsed for the importation of texts, professors still droned out the “dictation” for thirty minutes every class hour. In many classes at least, the practice had become rigidly stereotyped by the 1780's, when many professors confessed spending half the time dictating in their classes.7* When, in

1787, the royal government approved the status quo, there was no | dictation in the chair of theology. A few years later, nevertheless, the students petitioned that they not be required to write down Professor Terrassa’s dictation and then give it back from memory without the clarification stipulated in the ordinances. They thought that dictating

for half an hour was a sheer waste of time and called attention to recent Spanish laws forbidding it. The cloister, now more sympathetic to the voice of modernity, ordered Terrassa to desist from that practice. He responded, however, like a true literalist: according to the original statutes, the professor of theology dictated half an hour each class. The

69 Tbid., const. cxxxiii. 70 [bid., Tit. III, const. xxix. 71 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12286, 1882, No. 26. Real cédula. Madrid, 4 de mayo de 1699. 72 Salazar, Desenvolvimiento, p. 41. 73 AGG, Al. 3, 1164, 45; AGG, Al. 3-9, 12683-12638, 1905. Afio de 1782.

198 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA cloister rejoined that the king approved this course without dictation at the time of the Aleas affair (1780-1787) and that the innovation was out of place.”* Terrassa must have suffered because of the changes introduced by Charles III as well as because of the popularity of his

modernist colleague, Dr. Goicoechea. | | The practice of committing to memory grew more disagreeable to — students as the colonial period wore on. In 1805, in protest against a requirement that the quodlibetos (certain questiones defended in one of the acts leading to the licentiate) should not be read “materially” _ (directly from the page) but should be committed to memory in Latin, a student of canons, Don Bruno Lugo, asked for exemption from this memory work because it was injurious to his health. Notwithstanding that he accompanied his request with a certificate from the substitute professor of medicine and a decree of the previous rector, Don Antonio Garcia, excusing him from the rote work and permitting him to read his quodlibetos, the cloister, on the basis of other medical opinion, reversed the decision.”®

The strike of the students at the College of Surgery the following year showed the temper of the day. The children (nifios) left the hos-

| pital because they were scolded for not writing in their notebooks as instructed. All the students save one sent a communication to the hospital thanking the institution and saying good-by. The medical author-

| ities (Junta de Caridad) regarded these communications as facetious and disrespectful and, after reprimanding the students, expelled them, while at the same time obliging them to return all the clothes, instruments, and other things received from the hospital."* There was so little tradition of steady application and such a complete lack of com_ petition, that it appears probable that these students created this difficulty in order to attend the approaching fair. In view of the hasty and _ “impolitic way” in which the expulsion was carried out, the captain

, general launched an inquiry. The Junta then agreed to readmit the | students on condition that they modify their conduct and study diligently. Thereupon the captain general, having made his wishes plain, , 74 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 7-7v., 21-22; AGG, Al. 3-8, 12560, 1903. Sobre pretender los cursantes de Teologia que no se escriba en la Catedra de dicha ,

Facultad. Afio de 1792. OO 75 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, fols. 164v.—165.

76 AGG, Al. 7, 12226, 1878. La Junta de Caridad de los Hospitales de San Juan de Dios y San Pedro, en vista del abandono del Colegio de Cirugia por alumnos, les _

cancela la beca de éstos. Afio de 1806. |

THE STUDENT 199 ordered Anselmo Quiroz to reinstate the students and “to watch out for such things in the future.” 7 All these minute particulars of student life reflect the old ways, and their modification by custom points to the new. The Spanish principle that young blood, even that of the male, is not to be trusted to itself long kept student brawls and town-and-gown squabbles at a minimum. Housing students with parents, relatives, and guardians,

or in seminaries and friaries, greatly cut down the possibility of ganging up in off hours, and a curfew more rigid than that of a “female” academy in England or the United States prevailed in

boarding houses and dormitories for young men. | Although this does not appear to be an atmosphere to nurture restlessness, students seemed to sense almost instinctively that, with

the status quo propped up by the letter of the law, what could not evolve officially had to be brushed away with the light touch. The pomposity of the old University was as surely laughed out of existence as the romances of chivalry. Thus the ribaldry of medical students, as well as the insane disrespect of Gil Rodriguez for the most sacrosanct University personalities, forced the deviations viewed

by the routinists with such horror. A certain vague resentment of sameness expressed itself at first in sheer deviltry and then revealed overtones of “Enlightenment” and political unrest. The overliberal holidays, which, instead of diminishing, actually increased, were now

attacked as time wasters. Even student dress departed from the statutes and reflected the changing temper. In matters of race and legitimacy in a mestizo society, custom modified the rigors of the law and made room for humanity. Even the fashionableness of rote memory

declined in direct ratio with the rise of modern science. This quiet, unofficial evolution, perhaps, explains why, as dissatisfaction with the stereotyped rules developed, the University, far from being boycotted, conferred more degrees than ever before. 77 Tbid. La Junta . . . esta dispuesta a recibir de nuevo a los alumnos del Colegio de Cirugia. Afio de 1806. Ibid., La Junta . . . conoce del Reglamento de la Catedra de Medicina Clinica y de que don Anselmo Quiroz asuma el cargo de Rector del Colegio de Cirugia al volver los alumnos. Afio de 1806.

The Academic Degree: Formalities and Fanfare

UNIVERSITY degrees played a role in every city of the Spanish Empire that was equaled nowhere in the English colonies except,

perhaps, among the Puritans around Cambridge in New England. In most places the dissenting English colonials, setting themselves _

| | adrift culturally (where social conditions had not already done so), were happy to survive and to wait for Old-World university refinements until they could afford them and, therefore, dictate principles __ and objectives. In consequence, their clergymen were often alto-

gether uneducated, their lawyers scarce and far away, and their physicians almost nonexistent. On the other hand, the Spaniards in _ America rigidly retained the same academic prerequisites for the law,

the priesthood, and the practice of medicine approved for Spain. _ The English society was better adapted to rapid change later, while —

the Spanish regime was better suited to the achievement of the cultural amenities and conventions of Europe at the moment. Therein

, lies the basic contrast between the history of universities in English

and in Spanish American | Oo a

a | _ Meaning and Distribution of Academic Degrees |

, 200

Making the academic degree the indispensable condition of profes-

sional life would have had little meaning if the supply had been | inadequate, poorly distributed among the various branches of learning,

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Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1625-1821

202 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | or stationary from generation to generation. Since the bachelor’s diploma alone was often sufficient to practice the professions, even medi-

, cine, and because the Jesuits continued to train their students in arts and theology without letting them take titles, the supply of trained personnel was sufficient to meet the minimal demands of pulpit and

| bar. By the year 1821 Guatemala City had seen 2,510 degrees conferred. The “universities” of the religious orders accounted for a

small percentage of this number, for the University of San Carlos had | bestowed eight times as many degrees per annum as they had— ample substantiation of the claims of the founders of San Carlos that the Jesuits were not satisfying the requirements of family pride

- and professional preparation.2 Even under “the public University” the census is not too impressive. The total number of degrees was awarded to fewer than 1,300 persons, for the bachelor of arts degree, _ the prerequisite to all others, was conferred only 1,281 times, and probably fewer than fifty of those obtaining higher degrees had. re-

ceived the bachelor’s elsewhere. a

, The common assumption that the Spaniard produced a shortage of secular personnel by catering to theology and little else is not altogether true. Though higher degrees in | theology were almost twice as numerous as those in civil and canon law; the bachelors in. _ both laws far outnumbered those in theology. The most serious de, ficiency was in medicine, with thirty bachelors, twelve licentiates, and twelve doctors during the entire colonial period. One should not dismiss this plight with the whimsical remark that medicine in Guatemala in the eighteenth century was not sufficiently developed for the shortage of physicians and surgeons to make any difference in the country’s health except to protect it, for medicine in Guatemala was cultivated in a scientific spirit, and the country, although engulfed’ with empirics, produced two or three outstanding medical scientists.

One of these, Dr. Esparragosa, was expert in the field of obstetrics, _ where such specialists could have relieved much suffering, _ | 1 See table of total number of degrees conferred in the Kingdom of. Guatemala,

, : Whereas the religious orders, in the fifty-two years (1625-1676) in which they exercised degree-conferring privileges, awarded 57 bachelors’ degrees for an average of 1.10 a year and 95 of all types for an average of 1.83 per annum, the University of | _ San Carlos in the course of 189 years (1683-1821) awarded 1,949 bachelors’ degrees _ for an average of 14 a year and 2,415 of categories with an average of 17.37 a year.

| Before 1683 no degree was conferred in civil law, canon law, and medicine, the _

arts and theology. BE

faculties which indicate far more cultural and professional independence than do

ACADEMIC DEGREE: FORMALITIES 208 Analysis of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala

Degrees Arts Theology Laws Canons Medicine Total

| 1625-1676 | Bachelors 26 Sl Ov Licentiates Masters 99.10—199

a Doctors 10 10 Total 44 51 95 1683-1699

Bachelors 59 13 4 9 85 Licentiates 3 10 1 1 15

Masters 3 3 Doctors 10 1 ] 12 Total 65 33 6 11 115 1700-1724

Bachelors 717 22 2 ] 6 108 Licentiates ] 17 ] ] 2* 22,

Masters 1 ] Doctors 17 Q* 19 Total 79 56 3 2 10 ~=150 Licentiates 8 19 6 10 3 46 Masters 8 8 Doctors 18 7 11 3 39 Total 144 51 85 45 7 282 Licentiates 4 18 5 6 33 Masters 4 4 Doctors 19 4 6 29 Total 162 78 37 48 5 830 Licentiates 2 36 7 13 7 65 Masters ] 1 Doctors 35 7 18 7 62 1725-1749

- Bachelors 128 14 22 24 ] 189 1750-1774

Bachelors 154 4] 28 36 5 264 1775-1799

Bachelors 324 79 60 69 6 538

Total 327 150 74 95 20 666

* One degree incorporated.

204 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA |

|| ‘Bachelors | 1800-1821 | a 463 81 124 85 "12 765 Licentiates 7 26 10 12 1 £56. a Analysis of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala (Cont.)

Degrees Arts Theology Laws Canons Medicine Total

, Masters 6 6 Doctors 96 7 Il 1 — 45 _ Tol «806i (A CtC(itéia KC Grand Total of Degrees Conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala, 1625-1821

| Degrees Arts Theology Laws Canons Medicine Total

Bachelors 1,231 281 240 224 80 2,006 |

| Masters 32 82 . - Doctors 185 26 42 13° 216 | Licentiates 34 186 80 438 18° 256

Total 1,997 552 296 809 56 2510 |

* One degree incorporated. , ,

The degrees conferred in the Kingdom of Guatemala also belie the _ assertion that culture in the Spanish colonies remained static. The number of university graduates rose sharply with the penetration of eighteenth-century philosophy and mounted steadily until independ-

| ence.® This evidence of growth is fully trustworthy, for the graph (see _ page 201) clearly and faithfully reflects the vicissitudes of history in the University and City—from fiscal crises to earthquakes. Despite

the decadence and financial stringency so apparent in Chapters XIII, XIV, and XV, the essence of intellectual progress as well as the

show was somehow possible. _ , i | Preliminaries to the Bachelor's Degree == | Three degrees were possible in any faculty of the typical Spanish university—the baccalaureate, licentiate, and mastership in philos8 Academic degrees conferred in the University of San Carlos:

|

Years | Bachelors Higher degrees 1683-1699 8042, , 1700-1724 ©85108

— 1725-1749264 -. - 66” 189 93. , 1750-1774 1775-1799 538 128 , .

| 1800-1821 765 107

ACADEMIC DEGREE: FORMALITIES 205 | ophy or the first two and the doctorate in all other faculties. Any student seeking a degree had to keep his goal steadily in mind. He established that he had taken a course successfully the year he took it, otherwise he lost all credit. As proof of having had a class, the student was obliged to bring elaborate notebooks (cuadernos) prepared during the course and initialed by the professor of that year. So serious was this matter that any secretary who allowed credit after the year was passed was liable to a fine of thirty pesos and any teacher

who did not require these elegant summaries was subject to suspension | and a five-hundred-peso fine.* The student had to swear to the courses | taken and produce two witnesses from fellow students in each course, and each year course had to last “more than six months” with every hour recitation “most of the hour.” A student could not concurrently carry on the work of two different years. The danger of violation must

have been considerable, for the penalties were severe. The candidate , lost the degree secured by this short cut, and the secretary conniving was suspended from office for six years, while the rector authorizing the exemption was deprived of his doctor’s degree for six years and fined five hundred pesos.® The length of time and the number of courses were not the same for all bachelors’ degrees. To graduate as a bachelor in arts required three

years, alternating between the two chairs in the field. In the course of these years the candidate “read ten lessons” or discourses—three in logic, four in philosophy, two based on Aristotle's De generatione, and one on his De anima. The degree was conferred at a final “act of conclusions.” °

The examinations for the bachelor of arts were basic and, therefore, planned in detail. Staged every year, their purpose was to test students

for graduation and to determine their fitness to enroll in major faculties. | The first cloister meeting after the annual election of the rector in

November designated three examiners of arts: a proprietary professor | of theology (alternating with the professor of St. Thomas Aquinas), a professor of medicine, and one of arts. It was the examiners’ duty to

meet for this occasion in the “Large Examination Room” at the hour set | by the rector. A master of the faculty, selected by the candidate, presided over this special act. As a basis for the exchange about to take place, the bedel distributed the propositions, selected beforehand from

4 Constituciones, Tit. XVI, const. cxciii. 5 Ibid., const. cxciv. 6 Ibid., Tit. XVII, consts. ccxvi, ccxx.

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Hones "Uta : Bachelor of Arts Theses of Félix Antonio Barreda

ACADEMIC DEGREE: FORMALITIES 207 the textbooks in the course’ and carefully transcribed or printed on a single large sheet of paper. The three judges, supplied with advance copies, “disputed” in order—i.e., put three questions on the passages proposed. The student satisfied this trio and answered all other doctors who wished “to make an opposition.” A simple majority decided the fate of the candidate in a secret vote. If approved, the committee told him with what faculty he could continue, as he might be suited to one and not to another, and the rector issued the corresponding license. The records of these conclusions—or theses—both in manuscript and in print constitute the best existing index to the evolution of philosophical and scientific principles.

Examiners of arts were enjoined to keep in mind the advancement of each student tested so that at the end of the year, when the board convened, it could assign each man to first, second, or third place. The secretary supplied any graduate wishing it a certification of the place achieved, presumably without charge when he got a “first.” § San Carlos also awarded the bachelor’s degree por suficiencia—that is, by presenting proof of achievements in the field without actually taking courses in the University.* The rector granted the necessary license, but the student was examined in the University. To qualify, the regular student seeking a bachelor’s degree by this method took two courses in the University—one in the temporal and the other in the proprietary chair of philosophy. Students from the Colegio de la Compajfiia

de Jess de Guatemala, however, who were already enrolled in arts or theology when the University was established were allowed by the Council of the Indies to finish their courses in arts (three years) and theology (four years) and graduate in the University. After the expira-

tion of this time, it was necessary for them to take the courses in the , University.?° Religious could qualify for the degree of bachelor of arts 71, Libros de Simulas; 2, The Universals; 8, books of Predicaments or Posterior Analytics; 4, first and second books of Physics; 5, third and fourth books; 6, fifth and sixth; 7, seventh and eighth; 8, the books De generatione; 9, the books De anima. 8 Constituciones, Tit. XVI, consts. ccxiv, ccxv; Tit. XVII, consts. ccxviii, ccxix, ccxxi, ccxxii, ccxxiii, CCxxv.

® Between 1794 and 1820 the University conferred thirty-seven bachelors’ degrees por suficiencia. One candidate, Pascual Lépez Plata, in 1799 took three bache-

lors’ degrees—in arts, civil law, and canon law—by this means. In 1806 nine such degrees were conferred, although from 1794 to 1820 there were fourteen years in which none appear to have been awarded. __ 10 Constituciones, Tit. XVII, const. ccxvii.

PROPOSITIONES PHYLOSOPHICE, 6

| ~ Molina deffendit: Oo

, quas pro Baccalaureatus gradu obtinendo D. Josepbus Raphael de

a | | EX LOGICA, — a |

Die sunt vise ad veritatem inveniendam , ratio nimirum & auc- , q toritas: haec vel divina vel humana: prima omnino infallibilis , |

‘ ea proinde nunquam licet dubitari: secunda autem fallibilis, de illa’ -@ igitur merito possumus dubitare, si nulla nobis sit ratio, qua cre-

, -damus, quod nec illa fallitur, nec nos ex malitia fallit. Quaenay a sint conditiones , quibus ornari debeat humana auctoritas , ut de il- ; la minime dubitetur, quzrentibus apperiemus. BO ,

QO | EX METHAPHYMSICA. uz entia sese conservare non sunt potentia, ea ne per se qui- a . _ & dem existere possunt. Est intrinsechs impossibile, ut ullum contin- 8 — gens in se habeat rationem sufficientem suz conservationis , & exis~ | tentiz. Similiter est impossibilis infinita contingentium serics sine ente ; - necessario 4 quo dependeat. Falsa est Voltzeri opinio putantis, habira Dei _ be gf ‘omnipotentiz ratione , materiei tribui cognitionem posse. Plura nos de ie —-@-~«Deo, & ejus attributis, plura item de anima nostra, & ejus immortalitate —

% scire possumus, certiusque & evidentius scire, quam de re ulla corporea. P oo

HK. EX ETHICA. , ;

‘& ~S Lomo nec in seipso , nec in bonis creatis potest veram fclicitatem in-

venire : Deus enim solus est summa hominis beatitudo. : |

EX PHYSICA. | , | a OQdinao corpus ejusdem est gravitatis specifice , ad fluidum in quo | immergitur , tunc dcbet in zquilibrio constitui, quocumque in fluid: ® loco versetur. Si fluido specifica gravius est, fundum petat uecesse est: &

vero levius, debet sursum ascendere. Corpus eam ami:tit ponderis sui i | | partein; ,siqua zqualis est gravitati paris voluminis flnidi . cujus lueum R| cc-upat. Si corpus diversis immergatur fluidis majorem sui ponderis par- k

ed tem Jebet amittere in fluido graviori , quam in leviori. oo , | i TN Regia, ac Pontificia Sanett Caroli Guatemalensi Academia D.O.M. ‘ | ; | ejusque P. M. faventibus. Praside B. D. Jocepbho Simeone de Cafas , ie |

oe _Primirie Phylosophie Cathedre per quadriennium Moderatore. Die J+ fe

, . — Dr. Batre. fe ESPERO NE Ea EE ee SNS

| ’ mensis Februarii anno Domini 1794. — - —Imprimatur. ls

_- Apud D. Alex. Marian. Bracamonte. Rector. ae Bachelor of Arts Theses of José Rafael de Molina |

ACADEMIC DEGREE: FORMALITIES 209 without attending the University; if they did not wish to take the degree after qualifying, they could matriculate in theology and graduate with-

out the degree." The ordinary candidate for the degree of bachelor of theology needed not only a bachelor of arts but also four years of theology in the chairs of prima of theology, sacred scriptures, or visperas of theology to obtain

the same degree in this faculty. The special acts for this degree re- | sembled those for the bachelor of arts. After the general conclusion and “dispute” at the end of the four years, the candidate took the oath and

stood uncovered beside the bedels bearing their maces and “suppli- | cated” the degree in a brief oration. The presiding doctor, wearing his insignia, but making no “oration or harangue on pain of losing his fee and paying another” to the University, replied in this wise: Auctoritate Pontificia, & Regia, qua fungor in hac parte, concedo tibi, Gradum Bachalaureatus in Sacra Theologia, & do tibi licentiam, ut possis Cathedram ascendere, ibique legere, ac interpretari Magistrum sententiarium, Sanctum Thomam reliquosque de Sancta Theologia benemeritos Doctores, & quod possis vti, frui, & gaudere omnibus privilegijs, exemptionibus, quibus gaudent, simili gradu condecorati in Vniversitate Salmanticensi, in Nomine Patris, & filij, & Spiritus Sancti. Amen.

Thereupon the doctor came down from the chair and the bachelor went up and continued developing a text until the presiding officer gave him the signal “to be silent.” Except for giving thanks, that closed the act.” The candidate for the bachelor’s degree in canon law “enrolled” in the chair of prima and took five specified courses in five years “of more

than six months each.” 1 Except that he must also prove that he had had the “body of canon and civil law,” the rest of the requirements for the degree were the same as discussed above. The same man, by taking two additional years in civil law ** and going through the customary ten “lessons” (discourses) and “concluding act,” also became a bachelor of civil law or,** as the Spaniards phrased it, both laws.** 11 Tbid., Tit. XVI, const. exe. 12 Tbid., const. cxcvii. 18 Two in Decretals (Decreto), one in Institutes (Instituta), one in the canons of Clement V (Clementinas), and another in the chair of visperas. 14 In the chairs of prima and visperas (or, when it existed, Institutes). 15 Constituciones, Tit. XVI, consts. cxciv, cc.

16 Taken alone, the bachelor’s degree in civil law also required five distinct courses in five years (three in prima and visperas and two in Institutes). Lacking the required work of visperas, a student could make up the courses by taking work in canons or Institutes. By a reciprocal agreement between the chairs of law and

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«256 , UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | | raised his fees slightly, but certainly not enough to pay him for his

expense and trouble. - | | Pomp and Parades in Academic Investitures

Medieval pomp was part and parcel of the Catholic culture of the Spanish colonies; nevertheless, from the very beginning it proved burdensome and controversial. “Confraternities,’ or brotherhoods which

a conducted parades, even trickled down to the Negroes, Indians, and mulattoes. This did not fit in with the Spanish purpose in encouraging ceremony. Accordingly, in 1602 the king ordered all such cofradias put under the surveillance of the curate of the village.**®? University cere- _ monial might incite controversy because it infringed the prerogatives of _ sensitive officials, because it was expensive or a nuisance. When the University of San Carlos was barely launched, the new _ cloister, panting to show off its style, went in a body to the bull fights, going in coaches with horses hitched in long traces—symbols of exclu-

_ sive elegance to this day. Highly incensed, Captain General Barrios _ Leal forbade the practice the very next day.1° His purpose, he said, was to prevent the University of Guatemala’s exceeding the style and

; custom of the University of Mexico. Dr. Don Joseph Bajios, the first _ rector of the University and no shrinking violet, wrote the king a little more than a week later asking him to permit the cloister to go to the

| _ public acts of the University in coaches with two coachmen and the horses hitched in long traces. A year later the king granted this right and instructed the audiencia to offer no impediment to the decision.?*4 Such quick reversal of an action of the Superior Government was not _ frequent, but Bafios, being a relative of a member of the Council of the Indies, could expect to have his petitions sympathetically considered. Barrios Leal, evidently suspecting that Bafios had presented a

one-sided representation, demanded that the rector present to the real _ acuerdo a copy of his communication to the Council of the Indies. But _ such a decision did not keep the cloister from hitching its horses with _ long, broad traces adorned with fringe or pompons. | This problem, to judge by the concern of the captain general, in-

volved his prestige as much as that of the University of Mexico. It was only when modernization began to make the old custom ridiculous and

| 119 Pardo, Efemérides, p.36. 120 May 6, 1688.

| | 121 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882, No. 23. Real cédula para que la Universidad de ,

mayo de 1689. a

_. San Carlos pueda ir en actos ptblicos en coche con tiros largos. Buen Retiro, 25 de

ACADEMIC DEGREE: PROBLEMS 257 when the psychic returns were no longer commensurate with the exorbitant cost that the fight against useless customs took on the form of a crusade. In the University of Mexico, the fight against pomp and parades had been fought to a successful conclusion in the late 1760's and early seventies.1*? These Mexican victories were fully exploited by

the reform element in Guatemala, which brought certified copies of the Mexican cédulas to the kingdom.?** In Guatemala, Dr. Montufar led the struggle against unnecessary and

costly pomp. As early as 1772, in a letter to the Council of the Indies,

he called attention to Statute 228 requiring every candidate for the licentiate to stage an act of repeticidn even if he had done so in another

university and was incorporated at Guatemala. Statute 264 required that on the next day the secretary, rector, the senior doctor of the faculty,

the four examiners with their insignia, the master of ceremonies, and the bedels go mounted and with the sound of trumpets fit to herald the judgment day bring the candidate through the streets of the city to the main altar of the cathedral, decorated with carpets and chairs, where the candidate went through the ceremony of supplicating and receiving the degree. Montufar admitted that even though this pomp “encouraged the application of youth,” there were many bachilleres pasantes of conspicuous ability, men who could stand out “among the most illustrious doctors,” who utterly lacked the means of meeting the inflated expenses. For this reason he urged the suspension of the decoration of the general hall of the University for the act of repeticidén, as

well as the stage in the cathedral, and the omission of the parade for the doctor’s degree in cases of hardship known to the rector and curators of the University Chest. This letter of Montufar’s and the precedent

of the abolition of pomp and parade on horseback in Mexico by the cédula of 1771 set in motion a royal inquiry.1**

Instead of acting on the various problems raised by Montufar, the 122 Lanning, ed., Reales cédulas .. . México, pp. 209-210, 227-228. Reales cédulas al rector y claustro de la Universidad de México. San Lorenzo, 17 de noviembre de 1766; Aranjuez, 21 de mayo de 1771. 123 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12260, 1885. 124 The king asked the audiencia in 1778 to find out what should be the practice in Guatemala. (AGG, Al. 3, 1165, 45. Sobre el cumplimiento de la Real Cédula de 21 de diciembre de 1778 para que se informe sobre lo que representé el Rector de la Universidad en quanto a la pompa y paseos de a Caballo para la recepcién de grados segin lo mondado a la de México y acerca de las cAtedras que regentan los Religiosos de San Francisco. Afto de 1778. Real cédula a la Universidad de

Guatemala. Madrid, 21 de diciembre de 1773. The problem of the Franciscan chair, also treated in this expediente, is discussed in Chapter IX. ) |

| 208 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA Council of the Indies in 1778 ordered a general report on them without regard to rich or poor. The Superior Government then invited the secretary of the University, Diego de Morga, to report on the costs of the licentiate under Statutes 228 and 264, the expenses of the mojiganga,

gratuities, presents, and refreshments for all degrees, the number of degrees in each faculty, the chairs and salaries assigned to each, the

, total number of matriculated students, and the income of the University. Along with this information the poor secretary had to supply a

copy of the statutes.17> |

Morga took advantage of all the time allowed him and let the trou-

| blesome matter drop altogether after the rectorship of Dr. Montifar. That determined reformer, however, returned to the rectorship in 1775 and before the end of the academic year 1?* renewed his petition of 1772. Now he added the argument that the earthquake of 1773 and the moving of the City had left the University in an oppressive state of decadence. The one doctor of medicine had died, Dr. Juan Antonio Dighero alone remained useful in the faculty of law, and in the other faculties just a few remained in service. Montufar, supported this time by the cloister, even suggested “overlooking” the time of pasantia for exceptional students. Since the previous cédula on the same subject was never answered, there was nothing for the crown to do but to repeat it, to ask for a report to be made with “clarity, precision, and substantiation,” ‘7 and to compel Secretary Morga to report this time “without

any excuses whatsoever.” _ |

At last in 1778 Morga not only reported 1?* but added his own opinion. Twenty-seven years “in his post” had convinced him that the expenses of the doctorate were so high no student would bear them and that it would be a good thing to dispense with the parades, decorations, and luncheons. The example of Mexico sufficed, but the “miserable —

state” of the University threatened such a shortage of doctors as to make it impossible to fill the various offices by annual election as required in the statutes. Added to the shaken and run-down situation of the capital and its inhabitants, the “misery” of the University made it 125 The sub-decano of the audiencia, Dr. Bacilio Villarassa, when asked in August, 1774, to suggest the best way to get the information for the crown, made these recommendations. 126 September 9, 1776. 127 AGG, AI. 8, 1165, 45. Real cédula al presidente de la audiencia de Guatemala.

San Ildefonso, 9 de octubre de 1777.

128 See above, p. 232.

ACADEMIC DEGREE: PROBLEMS 259 absolutely necessary to lift the burden and graduate qualified students without the heavy payments (crecidos desembolsos) exacted in the past.*”°

Members of the cloister convened and declared in favor of keeping some less expensive pompas, such as the decoration of the assembly hall for the repeticiones and the cathedral for the doctoral orations. They favored abolishing the supper of la noche triste and the parade pre-

ceding the doctoral investiture. On the other hand, they would not shorten the time of pasantia, as they deemed it useful and not prejudicial.1*°

Early in 1779 the crown attorney advised the abolition of the decoration of the general hall, refreshments for major degrees, and the ridiculous feos.1* Instead of inspiring students to follow a literary career— the object of such things—the excessive costs only repelled them, “especially in a country in which the majority of those who apply themselves to study are poor.” It is not just, he said, that inability to stand these expenses should deprive a man of his career. He believed, however, that the propinas or gratuities were not excessive, as they were

a legitimate reward for the doctors and masters, conventional in all universities, and, far from discouraging youth, animated many to make the effort to become a member of the cloister, especially as these small gratuities were borne by the parents anyway. He did feel, though, that when the number of doctors exceeded twenty the poor should graduate with half fees. In respect to the lessening of the time required of bachelors before they could become licentiates, he thought that, in the case

of law, the five years required might be cut to three; and that, of the four years’ apprenticeship following the licentiate required for a license

to practice law, the audiencia had the power to dispense a candidate from any time he might lack. The enemies of this reform had tried to stalemate it by arguing that needy candidates could elect rich godfathers who would be glad to discharge these expensive obligations to their godsons. The godfather, in the Spanish university system, by bearing the outstanding expenses of

the university, was about as near to the benefactor of the privately endowed university as the Spaniards came. In 1780 the crown, after 129 AGG, Al. 8, 1165, 45. Informe of Bachelor Diego Josef de Morga. Guatemala, September, 1778. 130 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fols. 124v.-125. 131 Thus annulling Statutes 228, 266, 267, 268, and 269.

260 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA seven years of investigation, suppressed the pomp and parades on horse- | back for higher degrees, discarded the mojiganga or feos, the supper of _ the noche triste, all extraordinary refreshments, and similar useless show.

In a stroke it repealed these ceremonies and left only “moderate” expenses for the decoration and decent preparation of places used. No

, concession was made in respect to the time of pasantia.1*? By the time these useless exterioridades were abolished, custom had so endeared them to the Guatemalans that they could not forego them.

. The harassed crown attorney, Dr. Saavedra, reported to the captain general early in 1782 that all of these “exteriorities,” except the obvious parade, were going right on as if no royal prohibition had been issued

| on the point. The supper and refreshments remained as before. The original aim of reducing expenditures so that the poor could take degrees had not been achieved. Expenses were higher than ever. What was saved by omitting the “ridiculous mojiganga” was spent in other

“superfluous show.” 7 The Spanish colonial city, contrary to the smug belief of an

automobile-infested age, was afflicted with irregular and disturbing _ noises. Saavedra spoke sarcastically of his astonishment at the fireworks, orchestra, and popular noise experienced on the night of the examination of Dr. Felipe Fuentes, as if His Majesty had not expressly

forbidden this tumult or riot (molote), “to speak in the usage of the country. Such a thing deprived the public of its rest and invited violence. Saavedra thought that he would be remiss if he did not call attention to these excesses, in the interest of public tranquillity—the reason

for forbidding even various religions to make noise at unseasonable hours of the night. He then asked the captain general to enjoin the rector and cloister to moderation of expense in the higher degrees and

| to prohibit all celebrations not permitted in the cédula, designating fireworks, music, and all other noises “not a part of the argument.” His

7 remedy was to throw the “rocket makers, musicians, and other useless

| persons who attend such functions” into jail. To this end he demanded that the rector turn in the dates for the examinations in advance to permit stationing of the troops and officers necessary to maintain order.1** The captain general immediately forbade the cloister to use music and fireworks in the examinations or noche funebre. The rector 182 AGG, Al. 8, 1165, 45. Real cédula a Ja Universidad de Guatemala. San IIldefonso, 17 de agosto de 1780. Also Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fols. 146v.-147. 183 AGG, Al. 3, 1165, 45.

ACADEMIC DEGREE: PROBLEMS 261 and cloister, with an evasiveness indicating collusion with the students, said rather weakly that these disturbances took place in the streets and

houses of the graduating students where the cloister could not com-

mand.1*4 | So urgent a matter was under intermittent discussion twenty-two years. The vigorous Captain General Domas y Valle forced a crisis in 1796 when, “after careful reflection,” he decided that from ten o’clock at night until six in the morning no one could set off fireworks or bombs (mortar shells) on pain of two years in jail for the first offense “regardless of his quality.” Evidently the aristocrats had been taking the viceregal mandates rather lightly. Domas felt that fireworks disturbed the rest of people who had to work the next day, and the festivities served

vicious ends at night. He published this decision by ban and passed the information on to the rector so that he could be on guard to prevent

fireworks and music on the noche ftnebre, prior to the conferring of the licentiate. Why not signal that the candidate had passed by ring_ ing a small bell, which would be less disturbing and more in keeping with the decorous character of “the professors of sciences?” 1° Love of festivity alone cannot explain the resistance of the University to these common-sense orders. The “enlightened” King Charles III

was constantly infringing upon university autonomy, which rested legally upon medieval privileges and exemptions. If a state legislature in the United States should pass a statute replacing a university constitution and faculty by-laws with much more sensible state legislation

and at the same time require all doctors to wear the tassel on the right and not on the left side of their caps, would the university not resist both mandates? Since Rector José Bernardo Dighero could not frontally oppose an absolutist king or his men, his answer was oblique.

Thus, he made the sophistical claim that no person in the cloister— not even the man graduating—had ever supported the noisy celebration on the “funereal night.” Instead, the godfather, a secular person outside the body of the University, assumed the expenses with the object of preventing delay of the news of the candidate’s success in the examination from reaching his parents, “necessarily waiting anxiously _ 184 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro pleno, 2 de marzo de 1782, fols. 155156.

1385 AGG, Al. 8-9, 12636, 1905. Auto en que se manda suprimir la costumbre de anunciar con coetes y mtisicas el buen éxito del examen nocturno llamado “finebre” previo al Doctoramiento. Real Palacio, 26 de noviembre de 1796.

262 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | to hear the signal of joy.” The rector, despite all this, would force compliance with the “prudent dispositions” of the captain general and

would instruct the secretary to warn the godfathers of those gradu-

| ating not to indulge in such festivities. | Not even the dire threat contained in the order of 1796 was sufficient to end the hubbub and racket so entertaining to the man in the

streets. In 1801 the captain general reissued decrees forbidding hooded, self-pierced, or flagellating persons (tapados, empalados, y disciplinantes) going out in processions during holy week as well as the decrees repressing the music, parades, fireworks, and luncheons of the major degrees. On some of these points the audiencia had al-

ready taken steps, but the City and the University had returned gradually to the old customs, provoking scandals, dissipation, and in-

terruption of the common rest.

Finally, in 1804, the king unequivocally forbade fireworks, companies

of musicians, and luncheons. In addition, he renewed a cédula ad-

| dressed to America on February 20, 1777, interdicting night processions and all classes of public penitence.'** The highly gratified Su_perior Government sent this cédula with a writ of mandamus to the

rector and cloister.1°" a Despite this unmistakable cédula and the threat of Captain General Domas in 1796, the matter was still not ended. In 1805 the audiencia

| ruled that since any honorable citizen could resort to music and fireworks, anyone graduating as a doctor might have them, provided al-

ways that the coetes were ignited only in the atrio (“back”) of the _ _ church or in the patio of the house and that the music be kept indoors

in order not to conflict with royal law.1** . :

Beneath the love of pomp, so apparent throughout this chapter, lay a factor far more basic. The lines of development for state and Uni-

| versity were opposite and contradictory. As the modern age dawned, the national government became absolutist and centralist at the expense of corporate privileges. Thus, the University, while waging a a , 136 AGG, Al. 28, 10091, 1536. Real cédula al presidente y audiencia de Guate-

mala, Aranjuez, 2 de marzo de 1804.

1387 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12281, 1886. Real provisién en que por real cédula inserta se , prohibe las musicas y demas funciones previas a los grados mayores en la parte que

1808, fol. 154—154v. oO , -

, corresponde. Guatemala, 7 de septiembre de 1804. Also Libro de claustros, 1790-—

fol. 278-278v. ) , , 188 The cédula of March 2, 1804. (AGG, Al. 25, 1702. Autos acordados [1807],

ACADEMIC DEGREE: PROBLEMS 263 running fight to prevent encroachments upon the privileges it had acquired as a medieval guild, indirectly supported the modern principle of autonomy in learning and science. Unfortunately, the state, with its capacity for quick action, was sometimes so far ahead of the University that it could impose progress by fiat.

Even more fundamental than this struggle was the economic stringency, which cast a lasting pall upon the University, preventing its physical growth and retarding its intellectual development. The typical material problem of the University is, therefore, the next part of this book.

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Part Three

STRUGGLE WITH NATURE AND ECONOMICS RE

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All Money, Shelter, and Earthquakes

THE University had hardly begun to function normally when a fell blow of circumstance left its endowment in a permanently precarious condition. With a tenderness for the Indians hard for the Anglo-American who has read Thomas Gage to understand, the courts stripped the

University of its quitrents and restored them to the native villages. From the Marroquin legacy the institution had come into these titulos de terrazgos of the villages of San Felipe, San Anton, and Espiritu Santo, which produced an income of 1,182 pesos a year. The Indians of these

towns professed to find the payment of such a sum intolerable. The captain general, Don Henriquez Enriquez, taking a sympathetic view of their suit, represented to the king? the misery of these unfortunate natives. Since they had no land for their own planting, Enriquez advised excusing them from this burden. The Council of the Indies took the position that “the encomiendas” had been assigned to Marroquin, the first bishop of Guatemala, who had left them for the erection and maintenance of a university, that these arable lands were never the property of the Indians, and that the Indians merely coveted the fields, so conveniently close to the City, to tend them without costs. Moreover, the Council voiced the opinion that the payment of 1,182 pesos could not be very burdensome to so great a number of Indians. This attitude seems somehow backward, for the Peninsular government usually assumed the role of protector of the Indian while the creole and Spaniard 1 February 17, 1685. 267

268 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA , in America joined forces to exploit him. The verdict, nevertheless, was that the villages might be heard in the courts.’

Spanish Justice to the Indian Takes Precedence over the University The natives won their case and took over these endowment lands for their own use in 1689, thus at one stroke depriving the University of capital valued in 1681 at 38,832 pesos and 4 reales—about half its endowment. This decision, one can be sure, is never cited in support of the hoary thesis of Spanish brutality to the Indians. After this unexpected blow the University struggled along for twenty years minus half its capital. Sarassa y Arce, who had once managed to rescue the endowment from the hands of incompetent, if not actually dishonest, administrators, had moved up to the audiencia of Mexico. Lacking the energy and leadership of that dynamic individual, the cloister did not prevail upon the royal audiencia until 1708 to take its desperate situation to the crown. The teaching of canon law, civil law, and the Institutes was abandoned altogether. The University, finding itself unable to pay in full the administrative officers and professors who remained steadily with their work, was becoming burdened with debt. It was, indeed, dangerously close to complete collapse. Even instruction in theology might fail for want of means to pay the masters. Necessary repairs could not be made to the building, which was threatened with © total ruin. No compensation in kind had been made to the University— that is, the “Spaniards”—for the loss of the terrazgos to the Indians, not because the government did not wish to see it done, but because there was nothing to assign. To remedy this situation the audiencia, prompted __ by the University, advised the crown to assign the corresponding re-

muneration in “unassigned tributes, tithes, and unused incomes of vacant sees,” or from the royal treasury. Otherwise, the audiencia emphasized, there would presently be no one trained to teach, and ruin and idleness would follow.?

The forlorn situation of the University, so solemnly presented to the | 2 A decision then common to administrative procedure in contrast to pure litigation. (AGG, Al. 28, 10077, 1522, Cedulario de la Real Audiencia de Guatemala,

ne’ 1086) Real cédula a la audiencia de Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 15 de octubre 8 AGG, Al. 38-16, 138084, 1951. La Audiencia de Guatemala informa a S.M. de la situacion en que se halla la Universidad de Sn. Carlos y necesidad que tiene de

su real fomento. Afio de 1708. :

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 269 } audiencia, was taken very seriously by the Council of the Indies even

if it did take eleven years to resolve the difficulty. The crown responded * promptly enough, ordering the formation of a commission ° to draw up a plan for dealing with the problems of the institution and to submit it with the fiscal’s opinion to the crown. This junta was so preoccupied with revising the statutes, many of which had not worked out in practice, that it took two meetings ® to draw up its five-point pro-

gram of reform. Topping the list was the request for a royal fund of fifty thousand pesos from the unassigned income of vacant sees to provide the income lost to the natives. The fee-conscious cloister proposed lifting the requirement that all graduates make a payment into the University Chest.” It did not require the gift of prophecy to see

sity.

that the “king’s mouthpiece” (the fiscal) could accept all recommendations except the one involving expense to the crown. To justify a request for fifty thousand pesos, he took the sensible as well as the cautious view that the king must have a full accounting of the University’s capital, income, and expenses. The total endowment now amounted to only 42,177 pesos and 7 reales,* which brought in an income of 2,108

pesos and 7 reales. Professors had to be paid a total of 2,810 pesos and administrative officers 966 pesos. This disbursement of 3,776 pesos

exceeded the annual yield by 1,667 pesos and 1 real. The deficit was the direct result of the decline in the economic position of the Univer-

28 de junio de 1708.

4 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12386, 1882, No. 38, fols. 85-86v. Real cédula. Buen Retiro,

5 Also discussed on pages 230 and 240-241. On September 11 and 23, 1711. 7 The three recommendations not involving money were: (1) that degrees be granted during two years por suficiencia even if the candidates had not taken courses in the University; (2) that the ecclesiastical chapter make no one chancellor who was not a doctor of the University, and (3) that since reforming the statutes was a matter likely to take much time and labor, such deliberations be left to subsequent meetings. 8 Juros de heredad en la Real Caja (cédula de 9 de junio de 1686), amounted to

29,875 pesos. Trust funds and mortgages included a sugar mill belonging to the Dominicans, 9,275 pesos; a loan to Maestro de Campo don Joseph Agustin de Estrada y Aspeita, 577 pesos and 7 reales; another to Alférez Manuel Nujfiez Villavicencio, 1,000 pesos; house of Lorenzo Ramirez in the Tortuguero quarter, 500 pesos; houses where the Pharmacy of San Pedro Hospital was, 300 pesos; house and lot of Maria Cardona, 50 pesos; house and lot of Hipdlito Sarmiento, 100 pesos; house and lot of Dofia Francisca Cornelia de Altamirano, 400 pesos; and house and lot of the Ayudante Luis de Carceres, 100 pesos. (AGG, Archivo Colonial, Legajo 470, Exp. 4. Autos sobre que en virtud de Real Cédula se forme junta y se reconozcan las constituciones de la Real Universidad y se dé aviso de las que deban reformarse. )

270 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA i In contrast, the University originally had 57,576 pesos and 6 reales in investments and 29,547 pesos in terrazgos—the latter now lost entirely. The income on this total of 87,123 pesos and 6 reales amounted to 4,576 pesos and 6 reales, which after the pay of the professorial and administrative staff was deducted, left a balance of 579 pesos —

| and 6 reales. The crippling, if not ruinous, economic decline of the University is thus obvious enough. Yet it took the Superior Government in Guatemala six years to prepare and dispatch ® a petition for

the royal sanction. Oo | -

Three more years passed before settlement of this pressing financial situation came into sight.’° Early in 1719 the monarch assigned forty thousand pesos—not the slightly inflated fifty thousand requested—in | monies of vacant sees.1! Since it proved impossible to meet the extraordinary costs of the University, as expected, from the exorbitant fees required of candidates for higher degrees, the crown relieved aspirants of the payment of all except those to doctors, masters, administrative officers, and the University Chest, but fixed no definite sum.”

Economics and the Convulsions of Nature Throughout the eighteenth century the University of San Carlos teetered between the blows of economics and the convulsions of nature, _ and in the minds of the men of the cloister they were the same problem. The earthquake of September 29, 1717, severely damaged the City of

~ 9% September 25, 1716. a | | 10 AGG, Al. 8-1, 12236, 1882, No. 40. Real cédula a la junta formada del presidente y oidores de la audiencia de Guatemala y decanos de la Universidad. Madrid,

18demarzode 1719. - ,

11 The funds were to be set aside in juros of the government, the interest paid from the start, and the capital finally recovered altogether from vacantes de obispado, that is, sums set aside for payment of bishops who were not in residence. The report of a University committee in 1809 that this grant of 40,000 pesos was never implemented (“Nada tubo entonces efecto . . .”) seems like promotion talk. Before the grant, total capital was 42,177 pesos and 7 reales, bringing in only 2,108 pesos and 7 reales income, while later, except from 1748 to 1758 when the interest rates on juros were down from 5 to 3 per cent, the University had an income of 8,660 pesos (1759) and the treasurer reported a principal of 79,512 pesos in 1778, Since interest was spent from year to year, it would not have been possible

de 1809.) , ,

to build the principal up from 42,177 pesos and 7 reales without the 1719 grant or a substantial part of it. (AGG, Al. 3-16, 18099, 1951. Exposicién dirigida al _ Monarca sobre el estado decadente de la Universidad y medios de remediarlo. Afio

, 12 The University also got permission to confer degrees por suficiencia for four

years, at which time the practice was to cease. oo

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 271 Guatemala. The terror of the inhabitants was such that the president, some members of the audiencia, both cabildos, and prelates of the religious orders held a joint meeting to broach and discuss the subject of moving the capital—a subject most fateful for the City and kingdom.

A majority of those deliberating opposed removal on the ground that so grave a decision required “calmness of nerves, not to mention the royal approval. The cathedral, the “sumptuous edifice” originally costing 200,000 pesos, was so little damaged that “divine services’ were

never interrupted at the “canonical hours.” The University, while suffering some damage in the front part, was far from ruined. The episcopal and presidential palaces escaped altogether, and the onestory structures throughout the City suffered less damage than the public buildings. Acting upon extensive reports from Guatemala, the crown refused to issue a license to move, holding that much more information was necessary. The king, in calling for informes, put the pertinent question: “Who would build the convents, churches, royal and episcopal palaces at the new site?” “How would the lost rents of the convents, hospitals, and brotherhoods (cofradias) be made up?” * With the principal church properties intact and the memory of the disaster fast fading from the minds of the inhabitants, it was as good

as settled that nothing would be done until fresh disasters should force a reconsideration. The cloister was powerless to deal with such physical and financial

problems, for the autonomy the University had inherited from the Spanish medieval universities was fast waning. In the time of Sarassa y Arce the University got ‘* a free hand in dealing with its renters and debtors and with that power Sarassa surprised everybody—especially

historians—by summarily putting the finances of the institution in order. After the promotion of Sarassa to the audiencia of Mexico, the

rector assumed this special judicial power in 1689 and exercised it until the audiencia revoked the privilege in 1715 ** on the ground that the rector of the University could not exercise civil or criminal jurisdiction over laymen. The University complained and the king called for information '’—the invariable formula. 18 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 30. Real cédula al rector y claustro. San Lorenzo, 16 de julio de 1718. 14 By various royal cédulas, especially one dated September 17, 1688. 15 By an auto of September 16. 16 AGG, Al, 3-1, 12236, 1882, No. 28. Real cédula al rector y claustro. Buen Retiro, 31 de marzo de 1719.

972 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | Regaining this jurisdiction faded into insignificance when the crown stipulated in 1748 +7 that all juros, censos, and so forth—that is, money

deposited in trust with the crown to earn interest—should no longer , pay 5 but 8 per cent. The University of San Carlos, appealing to certain: - precedents of the University of Mexico in 1677 and 1678, maintained that University money was “privileged” and that interest should con-

tinue to be paid at the rate of 5 per cent.*® |

oe This ever-increasing financial attrition, however serious, was as nothing compared to the disaster that overtook the University on March 4, 1751. On that day a series of quakes shook the capital. One of unusual force and violence occurred at eight o’clock in the morning, and at four in the afternoon one of still greater violence rocked the City. The Royal Palace, the Casa de Moneda, and the University of San Carlos suffered great damage. The religious establishments of the — Society of Jesus, San Agustin, and the Colegio de Misioneros de la _

- Recoleccién escaped with scarcely less harm. _ | a | | The earthquake of 1751 underlined the financial problem brought

on by the reduction of the interest on the juros. The treasurer of the | University *® reported that the earthquake had completely collapsed the chapel and begged that the government authorize an official in| spection to determine the extent of the damage and estimate the cost of rebuilding. The government of Captain General Joseph de Araujo y Rio approved this suggestion, and a convenient military engineer undertook the assignment. In the University he found many walls, includ- |

| ing the principal ones, split and cracked. Some could be patched up; , others were good only for rubble. There was no solution on this site but to pull down ten partition walls and rebuild them of brick and wood (a construction more resistant to earthquakes than the conven-

| tional stone and rubble), collect and clean the roofing tiles, raze the chapel, and reconstruct it of brick and mortar, this time with a pointed

, roof and supporting pillars to make it safe and handsome. Even when allowing for jobs “appearing necessary with the progress of the work,”

17 By a cédula of December 1. _ | 18 AGG, Al. 8-5, 12377, 1894. El claustro solicita que su majestad declare no comprenderle a la Universidad lo ordenado en cédula de 1748 mediante la cual se reduce el cinco al tres por ciento los réditos de los capitales asignados para el sos-

: | tenimiento de dicho centro. (N.d.)

, 19 Don Miguel de Lima. , , 20 Luis Diez de Navarro, reporting October 10,1751, > - ,

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 273 the estimated bill for all this was only 6,788 pesos,”! a fine index to the value of money in Guatemala. The captain general could have done all

this with one year's salary. Captain General Araujo and his advisers saw, of course, the reasonableness of the position taken by the University and called the attention of the crown ”? to the “shortage of income” as a result of the reduction of

interest rates on juros from 5 to 8 per cent. Various expedients had already been tried. The chair of Cédigo had been suspended, and the chair of Indian language would also have been dropped in an effort to

make up the deficit had not the professor holding it volunteered to teach it without salary. The professors could not go on “with their literary tasks” in the University if the economic situation did not improve. This, in turn, would prevent the preparation of “worthy subjects for the Indian curacies.” The Superior Government then asked for the restoration of the original 5 per cent on juros.?® In 1752 the University drew up a complete statement of income from its properties—2,127 pesos and 5 reales—and another of salaries and "expenses ** amounting to 3,347 pesos and 4 reales. The University was falling behind at the rate of 1,219 pesos and 7 reales a year. This did not take into account everyday expenses nor much needed major repairs such as that of the “collapsed oratory.” *° 21 AGG, Al, 8-21, 13160, 1957. Autos sobre el reconocimiento de la ruina que padecioé la fabrica material de la Real Universidad de San Carlos de este corte con motivo del terremoto del dia cuatro de marzo y avaluo de lo que podra costar su reedificacién. Afio de 1751.

22 November 24, 1751. |

23 AGG, Al. 3-21, 13161, 1957. El Presidente de la Real Audiencia informa a su majestad de la ruina que padecié la Universidad con el terremoto del cuatro de marzo de 1751. 24 Since this is a typical year and since there is some slight administrative variation in the expenses as stated in the statutes, these costs of operation are listed here (in pesos): prima of laws, 500; prima of canon law (retired), 435; prima of sacred theology, 235; vespers of sacred theology, 250; Institutes, 200; philosophy, 200; languages, 200; medicine, 400; substitute of prima of theology, 100; substitute of prima of canon law, 100; secretary and master of ceremonies, 200; treasurer-syndic, 200; accountant, 50; bedel and head sweeper, 186; junior bedel, 25; opening day, 12; fiestas of San Carlos and Santa Teresa, 35 and 6 reales; funerals of deceased doctors and administrative officers, 17; and mass on election day, 1 and 6 reales. 25 A copy of this evidence, which had been in the suit to restore the interest on the juros, was certified on June 28, 1752. (AGG, Al. 8, 1152, 45. Testimonio de la real cédula y demas diligencias a su continuacién en que se ordena a esta Real Audiencia hagale informe que se expresa sobre la pretensién del Colegio de San Fran-

cisco de Borja de esta ciudad. Afio de 1752.)

274 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA Calamity forced the harassed University, unlike its wont, to sue vigorously for its solvency. The home government had asked for a report in 1750.2 And now in 1752, with an intervening disaster, the prosecution of the petition begun by Miguel de Lima was still dragging on. In the new situation nothing short of a special lobbyist at the court of Madrid to press for the restoration of “rents” would do. This choice fell upon Licentiate Domingo de Veira. The University “put all its hopes in Veira, agreed to send him five hundred pesos by two different routes,

and pressed him to get a revision of the cédula reducing the interest

| on the juros and to secure from the royal treasury or from tithes of

the University.?" | |

vacant bishoprics the money needed to rebuild the chapel and repair The precious public energy nearly always generated by the frequent catastrophes in Guatemala invariably died down before the slow ships could go and come and the unruffled home government could make up its mind. A colonial institution was often like an individual for whom no exalted impulse could ever flower and sometimes like a father who

| moderates his own ambition to concentrate it in the next generation. Thus, although the University and Captain General Araujo handled the reduced revenues and the earthquake damages of 1751 in an aggressive and clean-cut way, nothing had been done by 1754. At that time the Council of the Indies, while considering the problem of Jesuit degrees, accidentally discovered that its four-year-old request for re-

ports 28 on San Carlos had never been answered. This meant a new demand for information,” another casual turn of the wheel of delay. _ Encouraged, nevertheless, by this indirect invitation to renew the petition, Rector Miguel de Montufar bent his efforts *° on getting together __

, copies of the now-aging documents and depositions taken after the earthquake. Then, in 1755, he presented the whole batch to Captain | General Alonso de Arcos in a last-ditch appeal for relief.? The ayunta- _ miento ** also decided to join him and “take information” on the in-

26 In a cédula of July 28, 1750. ,

27 AGG, Al. 3-15, 18078, 1950. Nota de remisién de un poder al Licenciado , Taping de Veira para que gestione el restablecimiento de ciertas rentas. Afio de

28 Demanded in a cédula of July 28, 1750. ,

29 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12286, 1882, fols. 120-126. Real cédula a la Universidad de

Guatemala. Buen Retiro, 19 de febrero de 1754. , 80 AGG, Al. 3-21, 18160, 1957. 81 [hid., 13161, 1957. 82 Instructed by the cédula of the previous February.

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 275 come, chairs, number of students, and condition of the building of the University of San Carlos.**

Now that the University had renewed its petition—virtually at the invitation of the crown—one might normally expect an immediate solution. Not so, for while Montifar waited and fumed, the crown ordered ** the formation of a junta “to suggest means” of making up the revenues lost to San Carlos by the reduction of interest rates. This commission advised indemnifying the University through the accumulating income of major and minor vacancies, by levying on the annual

sale of indigo and cattle, and by drawing upon church livings ( beneficios curados ).*> These sources of revenue were too orthodox to be tapped by anyone save His Catholic Majesty. It should not have been

too great a surprise that after three years the crown refused ** to act on these suggestions pending the arrival of a supporting document mentioned in the proposed solution.**

There was no reason why the Council of the Indies should have drafted such an evasive reply, but it was typical. The king had already restored ** interest rates as they were in 1748. Thus in December, 1758, after suffering a 40 per cent diminution in the bulk of its income for ten long years, the University was again drawing 5 per cent on juros. The sum of 3,649 pesos and 3 reales in such interest and 10 pesos and

4 reales as rent on two small houses produced a total income of 3,659 pesos and 7 reales; when the regular expenses of 1758—2,871 pesos— were subtracted, the sum of 788 pesos and 7 reales remained to defray irregular expenses. Although nothing was said of making up the money the professors had failed to get in the past, it must have been a relief to the University to pay the full statutory salaries and begin such necessary repairs as those on the chapel, lying in ruins since it was shaken down by the earthquake of 1751.°° This disaster had suggested the idea of moving the University, but

bitter disagreement in the City over the new site during the next 33 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 212. 84 In a cédula dated September 11, 1755. 35 The University submitted two memorials seeking to raise the interest rate from 8 to 5 per cent during 1755 and 1756. (AGI, Guatemala, Legajo 878.) 86 On April 25, 1758:

87 AGG, Al. 3-1, 12236, 1882. Real cédula al rector y claustro. Buen Retiro, 25 de abril de 1758. The junta had also proposed the creation of three new chairs: one of mathematics at 200 pesos a year, one of anatomy at 150, and a third of surgery at 100. 38 April 2, 1758. _ 89 AGG, Al. 8-6, 12396, 1896. Sobre salarios y gastos. Afio de 1758.

276 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA , a decade threatened to paralyze the institution. In those monasticminded days, academics thought it desirable to have all classrooms and

facilities within one establishment or, at least, so near by that the

| _. students would not have to wear themselves out with walking or “get lost” en route. The Jesuits claimed that the mile or so between their

establishment and the University (on a Dominican site) made it necessary for them to be a degree-conferring university. The secular | clergy made their bid to get the University close at hand and out of the shadow of all the convents, The leader, Dr. Juan José Gonzalez Batres, rector of the seminary (Colegio Seminario de la Asuncién), cleverly tried

| a fait accompli. From Presbyter José Alcantara he bought the building adjoining the seminary in the hope that the authorities would put the new University there to replace the one now in ruins. This would have brought the University just across the street from the cathedral. Indeed, Gonzalez Batres stressed that the proposed building was close by and convenient, for most of the University students were also students | of the seminary. It would also save the teachers “long walks.” To make the proposition still more attractive, he proposed to sell the building © _ to the University and wait for payment. He would assign his salary as

| rector of the seminary and as substitute professor of canon law in the - University to help with the building costs. The archbishop *° gave his consent to the proposal, had the Alcantara place assessed, and found

, it worth 4,073 pesos 4 reales. | | Oo

_ The energetic Gonzalez Batres next undertook to win the University cloister over to his design. He pooh-poohed his critics with the realistic _ argument that, regardless of the location of the University, the rector

| could not—even if he were Argus-eyed—protect students from “losing themselves” en route.** The financial position of the University was _ much improved since the restoration of 5 per cent interest on juros,*” _ and the number of students was bound to increase and overtax the old facilities. The cloister quickly and unanimously approved the scheme,** _ but naturally consulted the captain general on a matter so important

40 Archbishop Francisco José de Figueredo y Victoria. , , , 41"... a mas desto se exponen (aun cuando su Rector fuese un Argos) a manifiesto peligro de extraviarse en perjuicio de su aprovechamiento y educaci6n.” _ _ #2 The income on 72,987 pesos 2 reales and 28 maravedis at 5 per cent came to

8,649 pesos 2 reales and 82 maravedis, which, added to the income from two houses, amounted to 3,659 pesos 7 reales and 82 maravedis. After minimum commitments were paid, a surplus of 912 pesos 3 reales and 32 maravedis was left for re-

pairs and extraordinary expenses. , , ,

, 43 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 7 de julio de 1759, fols, 12v.-18v.

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 277 , to the royal patronage. The agreement among the notables of the community on the advantage of the change was unanimous. One witness

enlarged upon the alleged risks of passing indecent and dangerous places,** but the captain general added his blessing to that of the archbishop, insisting, however, that the University put the king’s coat of arms on the door ** open to the public. The vice patron appreciated the possibility that this location could bring the University too far into the bosom of the church. He accordingly stipulated that, since the building was next door to the seminary, there was not to be, under any circumstances, any interior communication between the two buildings.* The Dominicans, who had literally had the old University “in their orchard” since the beginning, would not give in so easily to Gonzalez Batres’ plans. The prior, in the name of his convent, claimed owner-

ship of the land upon which the ruined University had stood. When the cloister first sanctioned the move, it recognized that the Dominicans had some claim to the site where the University then rested, appointed

agents or deputies *” to treat with them, and instructed experts ** to estimate the cost of rebuilding and the value of the old site and to check the capacity and value of the new location.*®

The Dominican prior vehemently pressed the claim to the site to be vacated, He maintained that when Bishop Marroquin conceived of the erection of a university he arranged with the Dominicans to give the ground on which their orchard was located on condition that the institution would prefer Dominicans as professors in the chairs carrying a salary. He took the position that this arrangement made a contract and not a donation and that if the University moved the Dominicans should have the land back. The cloister, now too hard pressed to give in altogether to the Dominicans, told them to take the matter to court. When the prior received this information, he went into a rage, took the papers away from the notary public, declared that the convent did not regard 44 “Por dicha distancia se extraviasen a otros lugares no decentes y peligrosos.” 45 For complications connected with this matter, see above, pp. 114-120. 46 AGG, Al. 3, 1157, 45. Autos acerca de que la Universidad de San Carlos Borromeo sea trasladada a la casa que habia ocupado don José Alcantara ubicada al

sur de la catedral. Aftlo de 1758.

47 Drs. Miguel A. Silieza and Miguel de Montufar. 48 “Master Mason” José Ramirez and “Master Carpenter” Manuel de Santa Cruz. 49 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 13 de julio de 1759, fols. 13v.—-14v. When the affair took the form of a lawsuit, the claustro on November 14, 1759, ap-

pointed “Dr. and Master” Juan Batres and Manuel Ignacio Carcamo as its representatives. Ibid., fols, 16v.—l7v.

278 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | , the cloister as a judge or court, and condemned the action of the Uni- — versity as “stupid” (torpe). This was a blast that the official dignity

| of colonials could not abide. The excited cloister wrote into the record | that the prior had called them stupid and ignorant and ran to the Superior Government for redress. The captain general heard both sides, decided to have the offensive words expunged from the record, and told both parties to stop their foolish bickering and get ahead with the main issue. Here the official record *° abruptly ends, but the fact that — the sale price of the old University was counted in the assets toward building the new is proof enough that the matter was eventually resolved

| in favor of the University.** | The Alcantara property to the east of the seminary was not large 7 enough for the new building. To expand its holdings the University in 1760 undertook to buy the house of the chancellor, Don Agustin de la Cagiga, next door to that of Alcantara. From a surplus of 1,435 pesos

7% reales the cloister set aside one thousand pesos toward the purchase of the Cagiga house. The University then raised two thousand in cash *? and mortgaged two chaplaincies for three thousand pesos °° in order to pay the owner the six thousand pesos he asked.** 50 AGG, Al. 8, 18769, 2003. Representacién del Tesorero Sindico de la Real Universidad de San Carlos contra el Convento de Santo Domingo sobre la traslacidén de la Universidad y alegar propiedad a su suelo dicho Convento. Afio de 1759. _ 51 AGG, Al. 8-21, 18162, 1957. Autos fechos sobre el avalio, venta y remate del sitio y fabrica de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Carlos. Afio de 1764. The

bidding started in May at 7,500 pesos, indicating that the original evaluation of 10,542 pesos was too high. The old University finally went to Don Miguel de Molina for 9,000 pesos and the expense of the auction on July 23, 1764. (See also , AGG, Al. 3-25, 13244, 1961. Don Miguel de Molina en quien fincéd el remate del. _ antiguo edificio de la Universidad pide se le dé posesién de él. Afto de 1764. This

document records the transfer of the property to Molina. )

52 Of this sum Archbishop Francisco José de Figueredo y Victoria donated 1,000 pesos, the curate Bachelor Ignacio Acosta 500, Don Mateo Cornejo 300, and Dr. and Master Juan José Batres 200. The remaining 1,000 came from University funds. __

Bachelor Acosta donated on the ground that he was an alumnus—one of the few indications of sentimental attachment of former students in Latin America similar

to the feeling that has increased the endowment of so many universities in the United States. (Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fols. 21v.—22, claustro de 14 de

noviembre de 1760.) oe ,

58 One belonging to the congregation of San Felipe Neri for 1,000 pesos and | the other for 2,000 pesos to Alejandro de Ibarra, resident presbyter of the archbishopric. (AGG, Al. 20, 887, 409. Venta de la casa que aqui se expresa. El Albacea del sefior Dr. Agustin de la Cagiga, Maestrescuela de esta Sta. Metropolitana Yglesia en favor de la Real Universidad de San Carlos de esta Corte. Afio de 1760.) 54 AGG, Al. 3-4, 12328, 1890. E] claustro de la Real Universidad acuerda la

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Royal and Pontifical Arms Facing One Another across the Court in the University Building in Antigua

280 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA Somehow by the middle of 1763 the new building was ready. In mid-October, the cloister heard the writ of the vice patron authorizing _

| the transfer of the University from the old to the new site and appointed Dr. Gonzalez Batres to see the building through to “total perfection.” *°

| _ The ghosts of debts and deficits moved with the cloister from the old building and, with a most unghostlike disregard of atmosphere, haunted

the new. Within less than a month the rector raised the perennial

question of whether or not professors should contribute part of their salaries to the building costs as set out in Statute 340, but the cloister resolved that for the time being this was not necessary. A certain number

of distinguished professors ** volunteered to give a part of their | stipends.*’ The cloister, despite the fear of the vice patron that the | University might be too closely identified with the Seminario Tridentino, was apparently obliged to hold its meetings in the general hall | of the seminary for some time.®* The University authorities even begged

_ the municipal government for money to finish “the houses” of the | institution.*® Eventually, in 1766, the building superintendent, for 5,160 pesos, managed to buy the houses of Dr. Tomas de Guzman next to the University in order to fill out the square University building

| and provide quarters for such functionaries as the bedel.°

| | Ruin and Removal Oo | | The City of Guatemala on July 28, 1778, was a noble and mystic city, ranking among the largest in America.* Nestled down in a valley with _ | compra de varias casas para hacer construir nuevo edificio. Afio de 1760. Also Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 20 de agosto de 1760, fol. 19-19v.; ibid., claus-

ITOS. . 44y.-45v. : , oo ,

tro de 24 de septiembre de 1760, fols. 19v.—20. (The sale of the Alcantara house was closed on November 7, 1760. ) 55 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 18 de octubre de 1763, fols. 42—43v.

, 56 Dr. Miguel de Silieza, Dr. Miguel Francesch, and Bachelor Juan de Dios Jua-

57 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 16 de noviembre de 1763, fols.

58 From August 26, 1765, to July 31, 1767. (Ibid., claustro de 26 de agosto de 1765, fol. 51-5lv.; ibid., claustro de 11 de junio de 1766, fols. 55v.—56. )

59 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 228. a

60 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 11 de junio de 1766, fols. 55v.—56.

| Mexico City. , |

61 Salazar, Desenvolvimiento, p. 275, holds that in the middle of the century

| Guatemala City was larger than New York or any city in Spanish America except Population statistics for colonial Guatemala are very rare and unsatisfactory,

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 281 the Agua and Fuego volcanoes overlooking it, Guatemala was a series of majestic convents and churches with a more subdued University, seminary, and government palace in the center. The modern observer is dismayed by the massiveness of this city as it was 175 years ago. He discerns signs of monastic dominance in the overwhelming energy obviously required to raise these imposing structures. He notices that the colonial -architects, to achieve this massive grandeur, had filled in the

thick walls between points of stress with packed earth, creating an | alternating combination of weakness and strength most inviting to a

crumpling earthquake. |

Here society, dependent upon the church for its amusements and its salvation, was so steeped in ecclesiastical tradition that any other situation would have been hard for the inhabitant to imagine, much less appreciate. Though the Spaniard and the Indian have retained to this day a remarkable capacity to pile fiesta upon fiesta and to absorb them all, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that fiestas and holidays themselves became monotonous. Something supernatural or cataclysmic was required to relieve the bored of their boredom.

Nature periodically accommodated, twice with catastrophic jars resulting in the relocation of the city. Agua had opened up and swept the old city away in 1541. The great earthquakes of 1717 and 1751 had but it seems unlikely that the population of Guatemala City was ever more than 25,000 people. Manuel Calisteo reported in 1774 that 9,144 people remained in the “ruined city” and that 5,917 had already emigrated, thus showing that the population of Antigua at the time of the earthquake of 1773 was 15,061. (Pardo, Efemérides, p. 257; AGG, Al. 10, 1535, 55. Padrén que determina por parroquias, la poblacién existente en la Antigua Guatemala. Afio de 1774.) Garcia Peldez thought that the population of New Guatemala in 1782 had already reached 14,461, although the component figures he gives do not add up to that sum. (Francisco Garcia Pelaez, Memorias para la historia del Antiguo Reino de Guatemala [Guatemala, 1943-1944], I, 140.) Juarros, using the census of 1778, placed the population of the entire kingdom at 797,214, while the inhabitants of all castes in New Guatemala, on the basis of a census of 1795, came to 24,424, When he was writing the book (1808-1818) he thought that, “without danger of exaggeration,” the popula-

tion passed 30,000. (Domingo Juarros, Compendio de la historia de la Ciudad de , Guatemala, 8d ed. [Guatemala, 1986], I, 61.) Matias de Cérdoba wrote in 1797 that “in this city” there were “thirty-six thousand souls’—an increase over Juarros’

figure for 1795 that is difficult to explain. Cordoba estimated that only one in twenty dressed like a white man. (Matias de Cérdoba, “Utilidades de que todos los indios y ladinos se visten y calcen a la espafiola y medios de conseguirlo sin violencia, coaccién, ni maltrato,” Anales de la Sociedad de Geografia e Historia, XIV [1937], 213-214.)

282 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | undermined the confidence of many in the dependability of the very earth in the Valley of Panchoy. Then on July 29, 1773, the City was “destroyed” ® in the famous “earthquake of Santa Marta.” Although the City was not totally ruined, the possibility of its utter abandonment, which had begun to be heard in 1751, now was murmured again. But when the interests of surviving property reasserted themselves, and when the terrorized people gradually forgot the vividness of the disaster, as a man forgets some past pain, confidence took hold again. This time, however, the exponents of removal to a new site included government officials who would not be bobbed up and down like a _ cork on the undulating emotions of the population. Both sides—for

those in favor of removal (traslacionistas) and those against it (terronistas) soon began to form parties—rushed to collect facts and testimony to support their respective positions. A registry of the in-

habitants of the city was completed in the fall of 1778, showing a total population of 9,144.%* Some six thousand “timorous ones” had _ fallen away in three months without waiting for an official decision. Had the University building suffered little enough damage to put the cloister definitely on the side of those against abandoning the City? Vice Rector Dr. Monttfar, in the absence of the rector, and Secretary Diego de Morga called a “master of architecture” and a skilled carpenter ® into consultation. These experts and University officials then conducted an inspection, finding the classes in theology, medicine, laws, philosophy, and language in session. The architect expressed the view that the rooms were not dangerous. He and the carpenter agreed that five hundred pesos would suffice to put the University in satisfactory repair. The opinion was unanimous that the building was safe and that

62 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 246. | : Oo | 68 AGG, Al. 10, 1535, 55, Padrén que determina, por parroquias, la poblacién

existente en la antigua Guatemala. (22 de octubre de 1778.) , | a 64 Saenz de Santa Maria (Cdtedra, p. 26) says the University “was left with eighty students.” When Captain General Mayorga called upon-the professors to , report their enrollment, five of them who reported in 1774 gave a total of sixtyeight students—lacking two of being the same enrollment with which the University opened a century before. Miguel Francesch, professor of prima of theology, — reported an enrollment of fourteen out of the twenty-six students he had before the “ruin.” (AGG, Al. 3-23, 18247, 1961.) In the five years before the earthquake the University conferred seventy-two degrees, while in the succeeding five years it

ing as many men as ever. | ,

awarded only thirty-eight. At the end of a decade, however, it was already graduat65 Juan Ramirez and Juan Dios de Vasquez.

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 288 an edifice costing fifty thousand pesos to build should not be abandoned

to save five hundred. The University was obliged to conduct the election of the rector outside the University, for the meeting hall was jammed with altar ornaments and paintings from the fallen cathedral across the street.® A general governmental survey was the indispensable preliminary to _ any decision on so drastic a step as the removal of what was then a great city. Most of the public buildings of the City were in infinitely worse

condition than that of San Carlos and the preliminary inquiry of the captain general contained an ominous hint for the University. He, Don Martin de Mayorga, wanted to know as quickly as possible all about

the “real estate, income, rents, loans, and mortgages” that remained “whole or in part” after the earthquake. But especially he wanted to know the amounts and means that could be counted upon for the extensive expenses and building costs should the City be moved.® The cloister thereupon required Treasurer Miguel de Rosales y Vivas to submit a report. Rosales revealed that the University had a principal of 79,512 pesos, 79,300 in juros and the other 212 in mortgages on two houses. Although the houses were destroyed in the earthquake,

the treasurer surmised that the ground they occupied was worth the sum at which they were capitalized. Thus the University, if one excepts the 500 pesos the experts thought necessary to put the building in repair, had lost virtually nothing in the earthquake.®® After interest was paid on University obligations, the expenses of the fiestas of San Carlos and Santa Teresa and the “anniversary of the doctors” were met. The surplus—249 pesos in this case—went for repairs and payment of debts. In 1772 the University had paid 1,000 pesos on its debts.

The cloister thus claimed that abandoning Guatemala City meant 66 AGG, Al. 3-21, 13163, 1957. Certificacién en que consta que estan en fun- | ciones las clases de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Carlos. Afio de 1773. 67 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustros de 8 y 10 de noviembre de 17738, fols. 99v.—100, Dr. Juan José Batres, who had had charge of the construction of the building in the first place, was most appropriately elected rector.

68 AGG, Al. 3-16, 13086, 1951. Informes sobre el estado en que quedaron las

rentas de la Universidad al arruinarse la Ciudad de Guatemala. Afio de 1774. } 69 Value of the University building before the “ruin” of 1773......... 30,000

A mortgage at one-tenth of its value ............................ 8,000 Value after the ruin (one-tenth of original)...................... 8,000

Mortgage reduced to one-tenth upon removal of the University... ... 300 (AGG, Al, 3-21, 13165, 1957. Avalio y remate del sitio y edificio que ocupé la Universidad, en las inmediaciones de Santo Domingo. Afio de 1790.)

284 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA a , the liquidation of the physical wealth of the University. It had scarcely lost anything in the earthquake, but in case of moving the City, only the surplus of 249 pesos could be counted upon for new construction. There was no other source of income for this purpose except the “ex-

| | tinction” of the chair of Cakchiquel, which would add 200 pesos a year

to the surplus. This money could be added to the 249 each year until the building was completed. Then it could be devoted to a very —

necessary chair of visperas de medicina."° , | |

Rector Batres submitted a separate report to Mayorga,” expressing _ relief and satisfaction that the University, so close to the cathedral, had escaped with so little damage. He explained that the professors im-

mediately after the earthquake had undertaken to teach the students _ who had not left in safe places, for the cloister had voted right after

the “ruin” not to oblige them to hold classes in the University and to permit them to teach in temporary buildings or huts (ranchos). The

, professors had shown courage, and the University proudly boasted that many courses were under way, but another earthquake on December

13, 1773, upset the order being re-established little by little. _ , In this situation of increased complications the Dominicans came forward with an offer of the principal temporary building in their patio, which they had been using as a church. The cloister quickly accepted the proposition and arranged to have the necessary furniture carried there and to force the professors to comply with their duties as required by the statutes. The bedels posted edicts enjoining both the professors and the students, who were nearly all absent, to resume _ their studies. But on the first day—April 11, 1774—very few students

appeared.”?

Mayorga courteously acknowledged the information received and advised the University to go on trying to find means to continue teach- . ing despite the earthquake. Although he was comforted that the disaster had lowered the University income very little, he felt that he would have to have “all the antecedent factors” in hand before he could -

| Oly, :

- accept the offer of the University to contribute to the cost of a new |

fols, 102-104. | | Se

_ 10 Ibid. See also Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 6 de abril de 1774, 71 On April 12, 1774. (AGG, A1. 8-16, 18087, 1951. El rector informa que a pesar

de 2 “ de la ciudad de 29 de julio de 1778, continuan las tareas escolares. Afio to, Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 7 de marzo de 1774, fol. 101—

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES — 285 building with the money saved by the abolition of the chair of Cakchiquel,’* regarded as a failure by most University authorities since 1762.

Mayorga’s tone of restraint was followed by a request sounding a | dangerous note. He wanted secret information from Diego de Morga, secretary of the University.* He had plans that he knew the cloister would not relish. Only the completest details on the University would satisfy him.?> The nature of the information requested, as well as the secrecy imposed upon the secretary, indicates that the authorities had already committed themselves to a policy of moving the City. They obviously believed there were unnecessary academic expenses in that age of Enlightenment that might be diverted to more essential things in the new environment. Suddenly, in the year 1775,"* the king delivered the coup de grdce to Antigua Guatemala. The City of Santiago of the Knights of Guatemala would be moved from the Valley of Panchoy to the Plain of the Virgin.

Captain General Mayorga,’’ executor of this momentous sentence, ordered the University not only to consent to move but to deputize representatives to receive the sites where its buildings would be located in the new city. Every corporation involved got a copy of this order and a summary charge to obey it without excuse or pretext.7® This command precipitated a complete breach between the Superior

Government and the cloister of the University. The captain general, evidently informed in secret that the cloister intended to disregard his first order to move to the new site, followed it in six days with a second,

brief and menacing. Yet eighteen months later 7 the University was still resisting the efforts of Mayorga to bring it to New Guatemala, again taking the position that it would be much more reasonable and economical to repair the building, since the classes had been recon- — 73 AGG, Al. 3-25, 13249, 1961. El capitan general don Martin de Mayorga acusa recibo de los informes acerca del numero de asistentes a clases, rentas y estado del edificio, después del terremoto de Santa Marta. Afio de 1774.

74In a letter dated Hermita, September 3, 1774. See p. 283. , — 7 AGG, Al, 3-16, 13088, 1951. El Presidente Gobernador del reino pide informes secretos al Secretario de la Universidad, sobre muchas y diversas cosas relacionadas

con el modo de ser del establecimiento. Afio de 1774. ,

76 In a cédula dated El Pardo, July 21, 1775. 77 Acting with the sanction of the real acuerdo, on December 9, 1775. 78 AGG, Al. 8-25, 18258, 1961. Acerca de la traslacién de la Universidad al Llano de la Virgen. Afio de 1775. 79 That is, on June 6, 1777.

286 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA stituted and regularized.®° The rector, recently back from an interview

with the captain general in New Guatemala, read a letter from that persistent man calling again upon the cloister to resolve at once the matter of moving to the new capital. After discussing the problem “with the gravity required by so serious a matter,’ the “full” cloister, by a ten-to-one vote, went directly to the king, protesting above everything the loyalty of the cloister to the crown and consequently to the

orders issued by the captain generalin the king’sname. | Then, in “the sole nature of an informe,” this senatus academicus went on to show that the University would be out of place in the new capital. The Colegio Seminario, supplying most of the University students, did not appear to be moving. Having lingered in Antigua until the inevitable inflation overtook the new “government town,” the cloister could now apply some powerful economic arguments against moving. Students who were not seminarians would find themselves competing for subsistence in a boom atmosphere. The work on the houses of New Guatemala could not proceed fast enough to prevent soaring rents. Rooms could be had only for extravagant figures. In the event that the University was moved precipitately, it would be left without students. Many who would have attended in Antigua would lack the means of continuing their careers in another place. The “notorious decadence” of the University for twenty years past, the tendency of the students to neglect “letters” altogether or to do well in them and

then follow other undertakings, and the declining prestige of higher degrees, which, formerly frequent, were now rare indeed, foretold further decline in the case of removal. It was not good medical practice

to move a man when he was ill. The hard circumstances of the time would not permit the University to “reflower.” Dr. Miguel Francesch did not concur in this opinion.*? As an academic conservative, he was

| resentful that the scholastic University of the two decades before the full adoption of the Enlightenment should be called “decadent” by _ his modernist colleagues. Another impression one gets is that the main__ stay of the resistance, Rector Juan Antonio Dighero, was at that moment,

at least, a stubborn, inept, and querulous old man. , Mayorga, made venomous by the malingering in Antigua, issued the celebrated ban of June 28, 1777,*? giving notice to the corporations

_ 80 Pardo, Efemérides, pp. 259, 260, 261. , , 81 AGG, Al. 3-4, 12330, 1890. Traslacién de la Universidad a la nueva capital.

Afio de 1777. Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, fols. 116-118v. | 82 This document has been transcribed verbatim in Pardo, Efemérides, p. 261.

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 287 in Antigua that within the year the City should be “constituted” in New

Guatemala and that at the expiration of that time everything left standing in Antigua would be demolished. Even the inhabitants were to abandon “that proscribed ground.” Mayorga singled the University out for particular mention in this strange document, and when he re-

ceived another memorandum from the University,** he was furious at still being opposed. Accordingly,** he explained to Dighero that a royal acuerdo had decreed that the University should be set up within three months “without any reply or excuse whatsoever.” ®* Still adamant, the University did not move. At last, when the first time limit set by the captain general had expired, he notified the cloister that, counting from September 2, 1777, the date of the ultimatum, the University should be in the “Nueva Ciudad de Guatemala de la Asunci6n” within

two months. This time the cloister recognized the hopelessness of further resistance. The captain general meant business and left them no loopholes.

Dighero’s petulance had a deeper motive than the simple fact that the University stood to lose in the neighborhood of twenty-five thousand pesos on the value of its building. He was canon of the cathedral and undoubtedly shared the animus of Archbishop Pedro Cortés y Larraz toward the move to New Guatemala, especially since he would lose his chair of law should the University move and the cathedral chapter remain behind. Indeed, we find him and Montifar petitioning the cloister of the University in the spring of 1778 to postpone the oposiciones for chairs because they had to attend Lenten services in the old cathedral. Two months later Dighero, acknowledging defeat, resigned his professorship to stay in Antigua with the cathedral.*¢ Now it only remained to get the professors to move with the requisite

alacrity—a problem that still distresses university authorities. The professors got orders, six weeks in advance, to be in New Guatemala by November 2 to participate in the annual academic elections and to begin their classes.*’ The last cloister meeting in Antigua was held on October 30, 1777, and, after this learned council moved on November 3, the first one in New Guatemala took place on November 5.8% 83 Submitted on June 10, 1777. 84 On July 17, 1777. 85 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro pleno de 30 de julio de 1777, fols. 118v.-119.

86 Ibid., claustros de 7 de marzo y de 9 de mayo de 1778, fols. 124-124v., 129-

180.

87 [bid., claustro pleno de 18 de octubre de 1777, fols. 120-121.

88 AGG, Al. 38-4, 12338, 1890, fol. 120v. El claustro acuerda citar a los ca-

, 288 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | | Dr. Manuel Jauregui, elected first rector in the new situation, fully recognized that Dr. Dighero had antagonized the captain general and ~ perhaps injured the University. The king had sent a cédula scolding the rector for not answering two letters ordering the University moved from Antigua. Jauregui accordingly implored the captain general to make it clear that the recalcitrant rector was his predecessor. Obviously feeling that he deserved praise rather than censure, Jauregui submitted a “relation of his merits” and services showing that he was responsible for getting permission to hold University classes in the Convent of San Agustin while waiting for an adequate building in the new city and that he had used his own house for the storage of University equipment and archives. And, like a good servant of His Majesty, he submitted a

| testimonial of the fiscal that he deserved the king’s gracious favor for what he had done for the University.®® The cloister admitted the justice of Jauregui's complaint and agreed to write to Dr. Dighero in Antigua asking him to assume the burden of explaining why he had not

answered the king’s orders.®° | Contrivance and Construction a

- In New Guatemala everything was improvisation. The cloister was even reduced to begging “his majesty” for “one big bell and two hand- | bells” formerly “belonging to the Jesuits” to “signal the hours.” ®t When the treasurer,®? regarded by some base professors nowadays as the one indispensable administrative officer, lingered with the bedel in Antigua, a disturbed University voted twice to summon him to New Guatemala.** Temporary quarters denied to the University the prestige

that an imposing “material building” would have afforded it. And, of © tedraticos para que se trasladen a Ja Nueva Guatemala de la Asuncién. Afio de 1777. Also Libro de claustros, 1756~1790, claustro de consiliarios de 5 de noviembre

- de 1777, fols. 121v.-122, > , ,

89 AGG, Al. 10-2, 4525, 69. Auto en que consta la actuacién del Rector de la Universidad Don Manuel de Jauregui acerca de la traslacién y organizacién de la

127, | | , so eres al Nuevo establecimiento de la Nueva Guatemala de la Asuncién. Afio - 90 See Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 19 de agosto de 1778, fols.

180-131. The king’s cédula was dated April 20, 1778. mo =

| ” Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro pleno de 8 de abril de 1778, fols. 125~-

_-92 Miguel de Rosales. oe 7 . oo , ®8 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustros de consiliarios de 19 de enero y. de

19 de agosto de 1778, fols. 123-128v., 180-131. os

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 289 course, the makeshift situation was vexatious to the instructors and tended to give the religious orders housing the various divisions a certain unwelcome influence over the University.” The construction of the building in New Guatemala went on slowly

and unsatisfactorily. Some classes moved into “their own house” in 1781. Yet the curators of the University Chest in 1784 commissioned Dr.

José Flores to talk with Dean of the Cathedral Gonzalez Batres and to inspect > and report on the state of this half-finished building, now

badly damaged, probably from a tremor and long exposure to the elements.°* Thus in 1785 the University building, although still under construction, was already more beaten and torn than the one abandoned in Antigua. In the spring of 1785 Dr. Flores presented his report. The walls and roof of the building had been severely damaged, but the University could make only the most urgent repairs. These would include props in all rooms where the timbers of the wall had divided, the construction of a terrace in the bedel’s house, and the cleaning and repairing of the tile roof throughout. Dr. Gonzalez Batres got instructions to go on with the “obras muertas” necessary for the “perfection” of the building.® Although this decision was taken in April, in August the building was still “part unfinished and the finished part menaced with ruin.” To this task of repairing the finished part and of going on with the part not yet completed, the cloister even devoted such small monies as were realized

from a sale of duplicate books in the library. With the damage still unrepaired, the University had no better solution than to take the ®4 The cloister, at first conducted in the Convent of San Agustin, began in 1779 to hold its meetings in the library of the Convent of Santo Domingo, the order most closely related to the history of the University. In 1779 Dr. Félix Castro, a Franciscan, was given permission by Rector Juan José Gonzalez Batres to conduct

his class in philosophy in the Franciscan convent on the ground that the one narrow room available in the Dominican establishment was not adequate. The cloister renewed this privilege in 1780 and agreed to give credit for the course, provided all the “literary functions” of the course were held in the University. (AGG, Al. 8-25, 138256, 1961. El Catedratico de Filosofia, Dr. Félix de Castro solicita licencia para servir su catedra en el Convento de Sn. Francisco por carecer de comodidad el edificio donde esté provisionalmente dicho centro. Afio de 1780. See also Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro pleno de 2 de octubre de 1779, fols. 184v.~135; claustro de consiliarios de 10 de abril de 1780, fols. 187-188. ) °5 Together with Don Antonio Bernasconi, a master mason, and a carpenter. 96 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de Diputados de Hacienda, fol. 204~ 204v.

97 Ibid., claustro pleno de 11 de abril de 1785, fols. 206-207.

, 290 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA materials from the most ruined parts of the building to finish the least

damaged ones.*® , a

The unpaved streets of Guatemala were a quagmire during the rainy season, and the professors railed and complained that they could not get from one place to the other and maintain a semblance of cleanliness and dignity. So urgent was this matter of paving that the cloister even agreed, if the “Supreme Government” would grade the street in front of the University, to pay for paving that one street with stones.®® For this essential work the University paid what was then the impressive sum of

750 pesos.?°° | os

To meet the urgent need for construction money, the University authorities neglected nothing. They even sold a site in the back of the

_ University *°t when the physical restrictions were already cramping. In the same pressing task, the cloister commissioned the rector in 1790 to solicit a part of the sales taxes (alcabala).‘°? When the University did not have enough to finish the front of the building in 1796, it humbly set out to the king the great “need of means to continue the building.” *° Yet two years later the cloister, still pondering construction finance, proposed that the tax on brown sugar be allotted to it as soon as the term

in which the ayuntamiento was to enjoy this tax expired.’ } Compared with the expeditious building of the beautiful structure which stands in Antigua, the construction in the new city must have seemed interminable. In 1798, with the building usable but still unfinished, the University had the expense of putting bronze grills on the windows of the auditorium to keep out smoke. This noble seat of learning even had to make a sterile outlay to defend itself against 98 Jbid., claustro pleno de 25 de agosto de 1785, fols. 212v.-215v. . 99 Ibid., claustros de Diputados de Hacienda de 18 de octubre de 1786 y de 14

de febrero de 1787, fols. 222—223v., 229v.-230v. -

100 [bid., claustro pleno de 12 de julio de 1787, fols. 283v.—236. 101 To Don Antonio de Aguado Mendoza, on the advice of Dr. Juan José Gon, zalez Batres. The attitude of the cloister toward Dr. Batres was such as to indicate that the building was being pushed largely by him through gifts of his time and money, although, in addition to professors, Archbishop Cayetano Francos y Monroy and some of the corporations of Guatemala, in view of the lack of liquid funds, must have given some money to enable the University to construct its building. (Ibid., claustro pleno de 29 de enero de 1788, fols. 244-244v., 256-257.) |

(102 Ibid., claustro pleno de 12 de abril de 1790, fols. 279-280. _

See also fols. 55v.-56. , , ; , ,

108 [bid., 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 9 de diciembre de 1796, fols. 66-67v. 104 Ibid., claustro pleno de 20 de abril de 1798, fols. 77—78v. Oo

MONEY AND EARTHQUAKES 291 suits.'°> So slow was the progress in raising the “material building” in New Guatemala and in repairing the damages wrought by the elements that in 1809 the cloister started all over again in its building schemes.

The very meeting that discussed the matter of a medal bearing the likeness of Ferdinand VII to show disapproval of Napoleon’s tricky and roughshod occupation of the Peninsula also examined new plans for the University °° calling for partial demolition and rebuilding.’ Once again, as when the last building was put up in Antigua, the cloister debated what to do about requiring professors to contribute from their fees (Statute 340) to building costs.1°%° Dr. Antonio Garcia solicited curates and private citizens. The University even sold an altar ornament

for 150 pesos.1° Solicitors waited on the bishops and ecclesiastical cabildos.1° Borrowing was a temptation, but a thing not too easy in those days for a nonprofit corporation. When the cloister assembled to bid good-by to Dr. José de Ayzinena, on his way to Spain to serve as counselor of the Supreme Government, it gave him “powers to take up the material building of the University.” 14 It also resolved to beg the

“provincial deputation” to the Cortes of Cadiz to raise the funds promised for the building from community chests or from duties (entradas ).1'? The travail never let up. So, the colonial period drew to its end with these pathetic little devices to raise money for finishing the University building still under

way. Between 1815 and 1818 Dr. Bernardo Pavon, charged by the 105 Tbid., claustros plenos de 20 de abril, 6 de noviembre, y 9 de diciembre de 1798.

106 Drawn by the architect, Santiago Marqui. A royal high commission (Real Junta Superior ) had the right of final review of architectural plans. 107 In March, 1810, the new building commissioner of the University begged and got permission to pull down the “class” at the corner in order to build anew.

108 The cloister decided that, after the rector got the consent of the captain general, there should be a reduction of half of the total sum of the fees for major degrees. Due to the “scarcity of income” of the professors, however, the plan was not to assess a specific quota, although all were liable for an annual voluntary contribution. Other members of the cloister, and anyone else who seemed a likely prospect to Dr. Diego Batres, who had been commissioned to raise money, were also liable to solicitation. 109 Libro de claustros, 1808-1831, claustro de 8 de mayo de 1809, fols. 5v.-6. 110 [bid., claustros plenos de 14 de marzo y 12 de noviembre de 1810, fols. 9v., 17-17v. 111 [bid., claustro pleno de 11 de enero de 1813, fols. 3lv.-33. 112 Tbid., claustro pleno de 27 de noviembre de 1818, fol. 88-38v.

| 292 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | University with the management of the construction, repeatedly urged

the cloister to “devise” means to continue the building. It was willing to ask the king to turn over the six thousand pesos provided for the Colegio de Nobles Americanos *** from the money chests of Indian communities and, while it would not itself mortgage the University | building and sell the apparatus, it nevertheless gave Dr. Pavén authority to take these steps. In 1818 the ancient problem of whether fees

_ should be turned back to finance building ** was up again. To take

them was plainly regarded as in drastic prejudice of higher degrees and a discouragement of able people who might otherwise choose a “literary career.” Yet so perpetual was the building problem that the cloister agreed in February, 1821, to put “in full force” Statute 340,

‘Spain.

thus taking the gratuities of the professors for construction purposes.!"°

This was the year of independence. | |

118 That is, funds assigned to help finance the college for “noble Americans” in

Pa According to Statute 840. _ ,

115 Libro de claustros, 1808-1831, claustros de 22 de agosto de 1818 y 12 de

febrero de 1821, fols. 89—90v., 119v.-120v. os

XIV , The Library: Useful versus “Stale Scholastic” Books

UNIVERSITY and other libraries in the Spanish colonies were more numerous and had more books than did those in the English settlements. In quality, if you allow every man to cater to his own system, they were about the same at first. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, the most imposing scientific collections anywhere in the New

modern. | |

World were in the Spanish Empire. The library of the royal botanical station started at Mariquita in New Granada could not have been more

These impressive holdings were not, however, in the hands of the Spanish colonial universities. Their collections, wanting the under-

pinning of good round pieces of eight, were patently obsolescent by the late eighteenth century. University professors who taught Newton in their classes and hobnobbed with draftsmen from Florence and Paris

and astronomers and botanists from Madrid and Cadiz, were fully aware of all this. They had little hope of raising the money to buy all the up-to-date books they wanted, but if they could lay their hands upon old collections, they might sort out the “useful” works from the many useless ones. The colonial universities were, therefore, keenly alive to the need of garnering in the collections of books lying idle everywhere

there had been Jesuit colleges and houses. | 1AGI, Santa Fe, Legajo 667. Inventario de la Librerfa de la casa que fué la Botanica a cargo del Dr. Mutis. ce , 293

294 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA The University of San Carlos de Guatemala particularly coveted the library of the College of San Francisco de Borja, which, after being packed in boxes and stored on the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, had been left in the custody of the commission on ex-Jesuit property (Real Junta de Temporalidades ). In 1778 the cloister made a vigorous effort to secure the books of the “expatriated Company” in the kingdom before they were eaten up by insects. Such a precedent had been established by the king when he awarded the universities of Salamanca and Santiago the books of the expelled Society. The University, since it had no room or library building, would provide a “salon” for the books, inventory

and arrange them there, and appoint a librarian to care for them and insure public enjoyment of this literary windfall. Not a single book _ would go out without the express permission of the rector.’ The University easily overrode all other claimants for this collection of eighty-nine crates of books.’ By royal order Jesuit libraries not already allocated had been turned over to bishops and archbishops for the formation of episcopal libraries. In Spain, Charles III had made an exception where there was an approved University, but in Guatemala © the Superior Government did not know whether this exception extended © to America. It decided, however, to follow the “enlightened” secular

tradition of the reign and agreed to save the books from insects and dampness by turning them over to the University—on the strict condition that His Catholic Majesty not bear the cost of unpacking.‘ Thus the University of Guatemala came into possession of 5,578 books *—a not insignificant index to the intellectual standards of 2 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro pleno de 3 abril de 1778, fols. 125-127.

See also AGG, Al. 3, 1162, 45.

8 AGG, Al. 3-19, 13130, 1954. Testimonio del quaderno formado sobre la entrega de libros hecha a la Real Universidad de esta corte y quedaron, o fueron de los Regulares Espatriados de la Compafiia de Jesus. Afio de 1779. _ 4 The fiscal, Dr. Francisco Saavedra, reported on January 8, 1779, that the books _ had already been turned over to the University authorities subject to certain routine of the Junta de Temporalidades. (AGG, Al. 8, 1162, 45.) The Jesuits had begun to build up a library in their University before it was supplanted by the University of San Carlos in 1676. (AGG, Al. 3-25, 18332, 1964. Inventarios de los libros y papeles que paraban en poder del Br. Dn. Juan Sdenz de Oxel como Secretario que fué de la Universidad que estuvo fundada en el Colegio de la Compajfiia de

Jesus de esta Ciudad de Goathemala. Afio de 1677.) : , ;

5 This expediente (AGG, Al. 1-19, 13180, 1954) contains two lists, one of 2,102 titles of 4,081 volumes and the other of 838 titles and 663 volumes for a total of 4,744 volumes. In the “Cuenta de entrega” the total is 5,578 books. There

were 140 manuscripts. : Oo

THE LIBRARY 295 | Antigua Guatemala in its last days. “The Company” did not co-operate

with San Carlos as did the Tridentine Seminary; consequently one cannot determine the intellectual standards of the Jesuits by consulting

propositions defended in the University by the graduates of their college. This library, therefore, clears up some dark corners. As is to be expected, the books were of a predominantly theological nature. There were other titles, however, testifying to a natural preoccupation with practical problems as well as to a broad curiosity about the world and, within limits, up-to-dateness in philosophical and scientific matters. The works of Suarez, the Monarchia indiana of Juan de Torquemada,® the Politica indiana of Juan de Solérzano, a study on the ever-absorbing

question of the American Indians,’ the very informative Teatro eclesidstico,® as well as numerous titles on Japan, the Moors, and other non-Christian peoples, show the broad curiosity of a missionizing order about the world at large. Books on such figures as Cardinal Bellarmine

indicate where some of the ideas on popular sovereignty then abroad in Guatemala might have originated. The traditional interest of the Jesuits in languages is strikingly upheld in this catalogue. Not only were there Latin, French, and Italian grammars, but the collection was especially strong in native languages. Modernity in philosophy, within the boundaries natural in a Catholic

country in 1767, was in evidence. Such materials include Juan Luis Vives, one of sixteenth-century Spain’s foremost exponents of the “observation of nature, various compendiums of natural philosophy, and the satirical novel, Bruto, by Quevedo.® The “Cartas de Feixo” }° are a perfect indication that the works of the famous Spanish eclectics were reaching Guatemala before the surface of conservatism in the University appeared to be broken. Titles in the sphere of science combine practical manuals *! with more theoretical and intellectual treatises. 6 Juan de Torquemada, Monarchia indiana con las poblaciones, descubrimientos, conquista, conversion y otras cosas maravillosas de la misma tierra (8 vols., Madrid, 1723). 7 Fray Gregorio Garcia, Origen de los Indios del Nuevo Mundo e Indias Occidentales ( Valencia, 1607). § Gil Gonzalez Davila, Teatro eclesidstico de la primitiva iglesia de las Indias Occidentales (2 vols., Madrid, 1649-1655). ® Francisco Gomez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645), Vida de Marco Bruto, Las zahurdas de Plutoén, invectivas contra los necios. ©

Te yontto Jeronimo Feij6o y Montenegro, Cartas eruditas (5 vols., Madrid, 1741-

11 Pedro de Medina, Arte de navegar (Valladolid, 1545), Arte de fabricar

296 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA a When the full cloister learned early in 1779 that the University had been granted this collection they decided that the library “should be _ open every day except on holidays from 8:00-11:00 and from 8:30-

, 5:00” and that the librarian, elected or re-elected annually, should have © a salary of two hundred pesos from the surplus of the University. In this, as in everything else, the University illustrated the penchant for grandiosity and details in the small and trifling matters marking the colonial epoch. Every year the rector, within one month after his election, should visit the library accompanied by two specially designated professors and the secretary. In the meantime the librarian should _ take an oath not to loan out a single book from the y“judicial list” of © the secretary, whose duty it was to oversee the cataloguing. With these

| tokens of confidence, the cloister elected a librarian.!? _ | , | _ Evidently the triumph of the University in securing the Jesuit collection did not stimulate this functionary to catalogue the books and put the library in good order. It was five years before he presented to the __ cloister an alphabetical index of books.?? When the first librarian re- — signed in 1781, his successor was elected on condition that, within six - months, he would put the library in order, establish “good method,” put.

, aside all duplicates, triplicates, and so forth, make a good catalogue, and have all books worth keeping bound. In order to bring all books together in one place, the cloister voted to add an adjoining room to | the library and put the necessary shelves in it—all at the expense of the

University. oo , Cleaning and selling the books of “stale scholasticism” were the main

problems of the library for thirty years. The man selected (1782) to weed out the waste material to be sold was Dr. José Antonio Goicoechea, |

the very symbol of the modern in Guatemala since 1769.15 Next year _

, the full cloister rejected the suggestion of the University auditor to | sell all University books and, instead, named both Dr. Goicoechea and Fray Mariano Lépez Rayén to sort out the “useless” books for ‘sale.’* _naos (?), Juan de Barrios, De la verdadera medicina, astrologia y cirujta (Mexico,

1607 ), Diccionario matemdtico (?), and Ciencia de ingenieros. 7 _ 22 Licentiate Manuel Lorenzo de la Rosa. (Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claus-

tro pleno de 20 de enero de 1779, fols. 132v.-133v. ) a - , _ 18 The second librarian, José Mariano Villavicencio, prepared the index. (Ibid.,

claustro pleno de 29 de octubre de 1784, fols. 199-200v. ) a 14 Ibid., claustro pleno de 11 de junio de 1781, fols. 149-150. 8 -

, 15 Ibid., claustro de consiliarios de 8 de enero de 1782, fols. 259v.-260. = == . 16 Ibid., claustro pleno de 1 de agosto de 1783, fols. 182-188. °- = =.

THE LIBRARY 297 And so, at last, the accountant announced that the University had realized 1,204 pesos from the sale of “obsolete” books between 1781 and

1784. In the next ten years discarded books netted 126 pesos and 3 reales, Who would not have retired such duplicates as Verdades eternas at 25 pesos and 4 reales, or Reflexiones christianas (4 vols.) at 37 pesos when 200 pesos was an ordinary professor's salary? 1” The University gradually lost the struggle to keep the library vital. In 1792 the cloister again appointed Goicoechea and Lépez Rayén to examine the books in the library and to select the ones “useful in the

classes,” obviously with the idea of relieving the constant financial pressure. The usefulness of the library was now in doubt.1® No competent person would remain in charge. Dr. Goicoechea, who gave up the post in order to become provincial of his order in Ciudad Real,*® was the third man to resign. Finally, in 1809, the librarian’s salary ceased. Thereupon the University authorized the sale of “all books,” but urged the professors to select rare items and masterpieces and withhold them from sale. The “useful books” withheld, along with others donated by Dr. José Flores, were deposited for public use in the cloister

room—a step first sanctioned in 1798. Dr. Mariano de Larrave and Bachelor Antonio Rivera opposed such a sweeping sale of University books.?° A faculty committee in 1809 was positively ashamed that the penurious condition of the University prevented the purchase of labora-

tory equipment and books necessary for modern learning.” Yet so | desperate was the financial need that the 305 pesos realized from the sale of books in 1810 were allocated to the building fund.”? The evidence

cries out that if the Spanish colonists did not have more books on experimental science and modern philosophy, it was not because they did not appreciate them; it was because they did not have money to buy them. 17 AGG, Al. 3-19, 18129, 1954. Sobre entregas de la libreria de la Real Universidad a los Bibliotecarios y fianzas de estos. Afio de 1785.

18 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 28 de julio de 1795, fols. Slv.—52.

19 Tbid., claustros plenos de 12 de noviembre de 1792, 22 de diciembre de 1794, 28 de julio de 1795, fols. 25-26, 49v.-50v., 51v.—52. 20 [bid., claustro pleno de 4 de septiembre de 1798, fols. 83-84; ibid., 1808-1831, claustro de 2 de mayo de 1809, fols, 5-6.

21 AGG, Al. 3-16, 18100, 1952. Exposicién dirigida a S.M. acerca del estado decadente de la Universidad. Afio de 1809.

fo, pro de claustros, 1808-1831, claustro de diputados de 16 de abril de 1810,

298 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | _ Notwithstanding the regular efforts to purify the collection and to profit by the process, the end of the century—even the end of the ~ colonial period—found the cloister divided on the question of getting rid of it altogether. Those against the library argued that it should be sold in toto. They held that, despite the previous sales of duplicates and outmoded books, many useless ones still remained; that the University had spent more than four thousand pesos running the library; and that | it was actually located outside the University for want of a room to house it there,” although in 1812 a “library was erected.” After thirtythree years, “the room destined for the library” was in order.** It must be said for the cloister that, while it was always willing to sell books of “stale scholasticism,” it never once agreed to sell a book that could profitably be used. Nevertheless, the leading factor in the decline of the library was need for the money realized from the sale of books and

want of means to buy replacements. ,

Just as powerful a reason for the poor health of the library between the acquisition of the Jesuit books and the last act of the cloister on the subject before independence, was that the idea of a central collection, natural to the tightly organized Jesuit organizations, never made > a strong impression upon the University. There learning depended upon

the close mastery of a few books and, since most students came from _ the upper rungs of society, many could afford individual ownership of the expensive but limited number of books necessary. Moreover, the library of the seminary was open to University students and the professors depended upon it for many modern works.”* The failure of the 23 In spite of these cogent reasons, the full cloister decided not to sell all the library but to repeat the old process of having Goicoechea and Lépez Rayon select the useless books to be sold, and to continue the librarian on the conditions set up © in 1779. The rector, however, had his opinion specifically recorded. His plan was to “extinguish” the library, sell the inactive books, and place the active ones in the classrooms where they were most pertinent. The monies realized would be de-

, voted to the purchase of “other useful books’—not squandered on the financial need of the moment. (Ibid., 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 18 de junio de 1799,

fols. 98v.-100.) -

24 Dr. Simeon Cafias and Dr. Bernardo Pavon were appointed to select the best and most valuable books for this library, sell the rest, and burn the unsalable. (Ibid., _ 1808-1831, claustro pleno de 13 de abril de 1818, fols. 25v.-26.) Again in 1820 the cloister approved the sale of books of “less usefulness.” Pedro Molina, professor of medicine and bitter enemy of intransigency, proposed the sale of extraneous and obsolescent books in his faculty in order to purchase others more useful. (Ibid.,

claustro pleno de 11 de noviembre de 1820, fol. 116—116v. ) , . 25 Some of the brightest lights among Guatemalan intellectuals, men who had as

much influence as anyone, actually taught in the seminary. | _

THE LIBRARY 299 University cloister to develop the keenness we feel today for a University library was also due, in considerable measure, to the fact that their books, far from forming the nucleus of a proud collection, were in the main outmoded and distasteful at the moment when backwardness was keenly perceived and actively resented as a current menace. Despite the formidable handicaps to library building, a determined

student could usually find the book he wanted in Guatemala City. When added to the collections available in the seminary, in all the convents and friaries, and in the sometimes up-to-date private libraries of

priests, laymen, and professors, the University library afforded the “scholar” a reasonable chance to penetrate all branches of learning. Besides, superior degrees were denied any man who could not prove that he had a personal library in his field. After all, the largest college library in New England in the eighteenth century was almost exactly the size of that of San Carlos, a typical, not a large Spanish colonial university.

| An CC *L 29 : “Anguished State NO ONE was more keenly alive to the stifling effects of the isolation | of Guatemala than the liberal intellectuals in the University. Indignation as well as argument against it was a running theme of the Gazeta de Guatemala, faithful mouthpiece of that faction. At the beginning of

} the last decade of the eighteenth century, the insignificant Guatemalan exports, never very large, revealed the “miserable state’ of Guatemalan commerce and the “anguished situation” of the country itself. Without cart or wagon roads, it was necessary to deliver goods by mule train to Porto Bello or Vera Cruz, four hundred leagues distant, especially when —as often happened—Honduras navigation was cut off. Hardly enough

| was left after freight charges to make any trade worth while.” To the | cloister of San Carlos * this plight was all the more vexatious, because, while other provinces were raising themselves to the “greatest opulence,”

in Guatemala “nothing was seen but poverty and nothing was heard

| but misery.” * What was Guatemala doing while Havana “augmented her agriculture and consequently her commerce to incalculable and un- __ ~ 1 Guatemalan exports from 1790 to 1794 were as follows: bags of indigo, 23,114;

arrobas of sarsaparilla, 729; jugs of balsam, 1,515; and coined silver, in pesos,

192,059. (Salazar, Desenvolvimiento, p. 172.) :

2 Ibid., pp. 299-300. See also Virgilio Rodriguez Beteta, Evolucidn de las ideas

(Paris, 1929), p. 92.

- 800 ,

8 AGG, Al. 8-25, 18277, 1962. El rector y el claustro representan contra el Real _ _Decreto de Consolidacién de 28 de noviembre de 1804. Afio de 1805.

4 “No se ven mas que pobrezas, no se oye otra cosa que miserias.” __ ,

AN “ANGUISHED STATE 301

cities’? ,

believable sums” enabling her “to compete with any of the most famous

“Miserable State” of Finances in San Carlos One does not have to look far to see how this economic pinch. caught the University. When called upon early in 1799 to make a “voluntary donation” or “loan,” the cloister could subscribe only 757 pesos.® A request from the archbishop to all vicars and curates, reinforced by the captain general, for the promotion of a voluntary contribution to the University, still struggling to finish its building in New Guatemala, netted only 900 pesos. Yet the University community was excessively proud of this financial campaign, promoted by the famous

alumnus Dr. Simeén Cajias.® :

When thus hard pressed, the University in 1805 received another fell. blow—a by-product of Spain’s constant juggling to finance the Napoleonic war. The home government, without warning, suddenly ordered

all money in church hands, government bonds (juros), and similar trusts turned over to the crown at no more than 5—usually 8—per cent.

The cloister protested’ that this measure, coming upon the heels of earthquakes and locust plagues, would ruin the province. The University was particularly anxious to be exempted, for 79,300 pesos, all of

its capital except 212 pesos, was invested in juros paying 5 per cent. Having waged a long hard fight in the eighteenth century to preserve this rate, the cloister understood the disaster involved in the crown’s proposal and accordingly begged exemption from the application of.

the law.® |

The cloister felt that this funding of the some three million in various.

securities was only a device of the government to get control of all capital, ruin every family that had confidently invested, and deprive | the University of its endowment in juros. The further impoverishment of fathers would prevent them from sending their sons to colleges and universities. This, in turn, would mean no medical doctors, no eccle-: siastics, no masters and professors. The picture of deterioration in. higher education since the days of Antigua was not reassuring. Whereas 5 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustros plenos de 28 de enero de 1799 y 6 de

noviembre de 1799, fols. 94, 10l1v. : :

6 Gazeta de Guatemala, VIII (No. 866, 1 de octubre de 1804), 355-856. See also AGG, AI. 8-24, 138170, 1957. Relacién de los gastos y arbitrios invertidos en la con-

struccién del edificio de la Universidad. Afio de 1815. .

7 On August 81, 1805 8 AGG, Al. 8-25, 18277, 1962. See Note 3 above.

| 802 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA =” in Antigua there were two colleges, although not sufficient, and a University where students could come direct from private homes, in _New Guatemala there was only the Colegio Tridentino and an impoverished University. The enrollment was even more depressing, _

for there were perhaps twenty students who had scholarships and paid no fees. These, together with a very few students who could afford

to pay, were the sum total of the student body. This situation, the worst that had ever been seen,® the professors attributed to nothing but poverty. This state of affairs contrasted sadly with days in Antigua when

| fellowships were available. Greatest ignominy of all, the University had not been able to finish its building after more than a quarter of a century in the new city, not to mention its inability to establish much — needed chairs. For want of funds, chairs, authorized for 125 years, had never had professors. The embittered intellectuals of Guatemala plainly implied that the promotion of agriculture and free commerce was a better avenue to solvency than financial manipulation of miserable

college endowments. | oe — | The Professor and “the Ruinous and Decadent State”

_. In the year 1809 the rector and cloister again made known in a striking exposition the “ruinous and decadent state of the University.” Knowing that because of the Napoleonic invasion of Spain any appropriation from the royal treasury was out of the question, the cloister

- proposed income from other “just and equitable sources.” *° After 133 years the University, far from gaining, had lost much of its endowment. _

Professorial salaries were the same as they had been in the beginning, | although the pay of government officials had been raised repeatedly to meet new conditions. (One royal judge earned more than all the professors.) With the inflated cost of housing, clothing, and other neces-— | sities a competent person who cared to compete for a chair could hardly

_ be found. A substitute professor, unless he had independent means and _ did the work for the sake of vanity, had to live on the one hundred pesos

_ paid for a year. The advocates of reform said bluntly that a man who did not earn enough to dress decently to appear before his classes or to

, satisfy the first necessities of human life could not be expected to take |

enough interest to do his work well. | oO

6 “Tan corto numero jamas havia legado a verse...” _ , , 10 AGG, Al. 8-16, 18099, 1951. Exposicién dirigida al Monarca sobre el estado

decadente de la Universidad y medios de remediarlo. Afio de 1809. ,

AN “ANGUISHED STATE 303 In a situation of such elemental want the prospect of getting labora-

tory equipment, of buying the books needed “to advance and illuminate” the students, and of launching new chairs to keep abreast of the times was remote indeed. Without funds for books and instruments,

“studies” would always remain stationary or, “better said, go on retrogressing imperceptibly,” in accordance with the rule of life that there is no institution so wise and so useful as not to need reform in a

hundred years.’ So chairs of latinidad, Latin grammar, rhetoric— sanctioned twenty-two years before *7—and mathematics could not be founded and there was no chair of language save that of Cakchiquel.

Fund-raising Devices The University had recourse to many petty devices, in addition to the sale of “stale books,” in order to lay hold of small extra sums. It was considered a significant triumph when the treasurer reported, in July, 1805, that he had received two hundred pesos from the estate of the late secretary of the University, Bachelor Diego José de Morga. Secretaries and bedels, like petty administrative assistants in American universities today, came to have an affectionate and proprietary interest in the University. When certain ornaments and vestments left the University by Rector Simeédn Cafias were scattered, the cloister commanded the treasurer to run these down and recover them. The splendid altar ornament of the University chapel (a retablo) was put on the market for two hundred pesos, but when there were no buyers at that price, the cloister accepted 150 pesos offered by Fray Tomas de Jaura.’* The need for financing was so great and so widely felt that the idea of privately endowed chairs, except for the shortage of transferable capital, almost certainly would have taken hold. Even so, there is little certainty that “a jealous king” would have consented and some concrete

evidence to the contrary in his refusal to approve such a chair in oriental languages at the University of Mexico.‘* Hence there was nothing left to do but to beg from the little fellows, as many an austere private university must do in the United States today. 11 “Es regla constante q¢ en lo humano no hay instituto tan sabio y vtil q¢ a los cien afios no deba sufrir reforma.” 12 In a cédula of 1787. 13 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 6 de julio de 1805, claustro de

diputados de 8 de julio de 1805, fols. 158-158v., 159-159v. Ibid., 1808-1831, claustro pleno de 18 de mayo de 1809, fols. 5v.-6. 14 Lanning, Reales cédulas . , . México, pp. 203, 205.

304 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA . One of these campaigns to raise funds in 1808 and 1804 had provided nine hundred pesos. Another afoot in 1809 hardly promised enough to.

continue the building effectively. The fact that professors left half of

their fees in the University Chest (Statute 340) was an intolerable privation. Among the “just and equitable sources,” the cloister “reverently” asked for the six thousand pesos “levied on the miter of Guate-

| mala” by royal order in 1804 for the Colegio de Nobles de Madrid. The bishoprics of Leén, Comayagua, and Ciudad Real could provide one thousand pesos, Leén four hundred, and the other two three hundred. each, Although poor, it was only fair that these bishoprics should contribute something to the University where their sons studied and got their degrees. The “royal patron” could assign the two thousand additional pesos needed “from the accumulating income of major and minor vacancies” in the church to make up for the income on the forty thousand ~ granted but never paid.'® Once the wars of independence, euphoniously called “preoccupations over America,” were “dissipated,” obstructions

in the path of this plan would vanish. There was a tiresome sameness about this financial predicament and the jeremiads it provoked, but individuals did develop a bolder, | more sacrificing spirit. Though professors’ salaries were now “not only small but miserable,” teachers and doctors grimly continued to turn in their mites. Juan José Batres y Mufioz actually “attached” the six thousand pesos originally appropriated for the Colegio de Nobles de Madrid,

, but had to await royal sanction. By 1815 Dr. Bernardo Pavén, who was commissioned to carry on the building, had spent some five or six thou-

| sand pesos of his own funds. Pavén ** had the right, then, if anybody _ did, to lay before the captain general and audiencia a series of proposals that the rector, Dr. Garcia, and four senior members of the

cloister approved without binding the University legally. _ Dr. Pavén’s plan could not have been improved upon if he had had the advice of a contemporary money-raising expert from New York catering to desperate colleges. He would make lists of professors, doctors, and alumni, repeat the subscription campaign of 1803-1804, and conduct an annual canvass. The sale of “those stale scholastic books” 1” ,

15 See p. 270n. | os |

16 AGG, Al, 8-21, 13170, 1957. Relacién de los gastos y arbitrios invertidos en la 7

construccién del edificio de la Universidad. Afio de 1815. ,

it, . . aquellos escolasticos rancios . . .” ,

AN “ANGUISHED STATE 305 and the marketing of the medical instruments (“glass pieces”) left by Dr. Flores *® twenty years before were typical recourses, but more

desperate was the proposal to raise the rent on the old building in Antigua and to collect from the tenant of the “adjoining house of the bedels,” who, despite every “extrajudicial” pressure, had “not paid in five or six years.” In Antigua, until very recent times, miserable squatters

moved with their chickens and scrawny dogs into the acres of ruins, made absolutely no improvements, lived communally if not pleasantly,

and did not expect to pay rent any more than a stone-age man expected to pay for some choice cave he found along the river bank. Two suggestions of Dr. Pavén’s were as audacious as they are in-

structive. Since the candidates for higher degrees paid the bulk of University fees, the professors and judges, with due respect to “the honor of the University,” should pass all worthy candidates. Thus the strain of finance bent the twig of standards. Although University financiers had for 155 years been vainly eying the community funds of the Indians, Pavén proposed to raise one or two thousand pesos a year from these sources for the University, “the most appropriate literary establishment for this concession in the kingdom.” It was proper because the Indians, paying a slice of the bill, would go to the University

and graduate as solid, not demagogic, “coadjutors,” lawyers, and physicians, who could return to minister to their own people. In presenting this plan, Dr. Pavén rather wistfully anticipated the objections of “the routinists, who think and always will think of what they have heard of olden times without advancing a single step.” 1°

The University’s few windfalls usually blew in some thorns amid the scented leaves of fortune. There was “the six thousand of the College of Madrid,” yet the cloister had to beg “the Minister of the Indies . . . by the next mail” not to settle the matter without consulting it, and Dr. Pavén suggested José de Ayzinena, counselor of state at court, and Antonio Larrazabal, member of the Cortes from Guatemala, to press this petition. It was a characteristic situation when the execu-

tor reported that the legacy of five hundred pesos left by Presbyter José Esteban Ramos could not be paid “for want of property to pay 18 To be selected by Buenaventura Rojas and Dr. Narciso Esparragosa. 19°“, .. los rutineros que piensan, y pensaran siempre de lo que de antiguo han

oido decir sin adelantar un paso.”

| 306 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA | it” 2° It was perfectly fitting that the colonial period should come toa _ virtual close with some member of the cloister of San Carlos quibbling about whether to accept the annuities from the eighteen thousand pesos willed by Dr. Pavén and used in finishing the always unfinished building *4 upon which the benefactor had already spent large sums of his

own fortune. | | | |

The pathetic efforts of the cloister to realize a little something from its intact building in Antigua is a good index to the extreme stringency of financial conditions in the last forty-five years of the colonial epoch. Large public buildings in the old city became practically useless once — the authorities had enforced their inflexible rules for removal to New

, Guatemala. No sooner had they resolved to move the City than an alcalde proposed using the old building of the University as a jail for women.”? The question had more or less been settled by force of circumstances, for the ornaments of the cathedral had been moved across _ the street from the stricken cathedral into the less stricken University immediately after the earthquake, and they were still there in 1778

| when the cloister voted that the “dean and cathedral chapter” should either pay rent or take their stuff out of the building.?® In 1786 these ornaments still reposed in the old University building, but at this time the cloister demanded that the cathedral pay retroactively for use of the building from 1773 and rent it in the future. The dean and cathedral

chapter then agreed to pay eight pesos a month from 1780 and ten pesos a month in the future. The University would use the money in finishing its major salon.?* A few years later the curate of Remedios in _ Antigua asked for the University building in order to transfer his parish

there for services. But the cloister would not surrender any property rights in the building, and the next year they rented it to Don Miguel , Piravalt, who asked for and received permission to repair it.” The Superior Government, with a ruined palace in the old capital

fol. 43-48v. 7 a 22 Pardo, Efemérides, p. 257.

20 Libro de claustros, 1808-1831, claustro de diputados de 9 de mayo de 1814, _

_ 21 [bid., claustro pleno de 12 de julio de 1821, fols. 125-126v. 23 Libro de claustros, 1756-1790, claustro de 19 de agosto de 1778, fols. 130-181. 24 Ibid., claustro de 13 de julio de 1786, fols. 219-221v. 25 Ibid., claustros plenos de 26 de abril de 1790, 21 de junio de 1790, fols. 280281, 282-283v.; ibid., 1790-1808, claustros 22 de julio de 1791, 12 de septiembre de —

1791, 19 de febrero de 1798, fols. 10-11, 11lv.—12, 28-28v. 7 , |

AN “ANGUISHED STATE’ 307 and chronically short of space in the new, tried in a half-hearted and half-informed °° way to rent or buy the University building in Antigua.?”

The president of the audiencia, however, merely announced his deter-

mination to rent the building for the storage of gunpowder. The clois- , ter acquiesced with good grace and left the matter of repairs in the abler hands of the royal exchequer.** For some reason, talk of renting the building gave way to a rumor that the government was buying it.”° The only prospect slipped away when the “acting administrator of gunpowder” tried to get the refectory of the seminary for the refining of nitrate. Finding this occupied with cathedral furniture, the Superior Government sought and obtained permission to rent two rooms in the

old University.*° The cloister, however, refused to lease the entire building as a powder magazine.*

Anyone having need of a large building in lethargic Antigua naturally |

bethought himself of the old University. Parish priests who had to stay | in the old city and care for their poor residual flocks looked with covetous eyes upon a building in such a good state of repair, for nothing was kept up in Antigua. When a curate wished to rent a room of the University for a sacristy in 1806 and open up the wall for communication, the cloister denied him,** so fierce was the five-century-old tradition of separation of the “academic guild” from all other powers. Thus, when dealing with Spanish culture, we should not speak just of church and state, but church, state, and university. In 1816 and 1817 the Municipal Junta of Antigua negotiated with the University author26 At the turn of the century an offer came from the captain general to rent the seminary in Antigua from the University—an overture revealing that even in the mind of the vice patron the University and the seminary were a joint institution. Little wonder that the University quickly informed the captain general that “the University has nothing to do with the seminary.” (Ibid., 1790-1808, claustro pleno de 14 de febrero de 1800, fols. 106v.—107. )

27 The cloister first assigned Dr. José Bernardo Dighero to this problem. 28 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustros plenos de 18 de febrero de 1800, 24 de abril y 28 de abril de 1800, fols. 107-107v., 108-108v., 108v.—109. 29 The cloister then commissioned Dr. Juan José Gonzalez Batres as its agent. (Ibid., claustros plenos de 9 de mayo de 1800, 16 de mayo de 1800, 27 de mayo de 1800, fols. 109-110, 110v. ) 30 AGG, Al. 3-16, 18097, 1951. Sobre ocupar salones del ex-edificio de la Universidad en la Antigua Guatemala, para almacenar pédlvora. Afio de 1801. 81 Libro de claustros, 1790-1808, claustros plenos de 19 y 23 de febrero de 1801, fols. 119, 119v.—120.

82 Ibid., claustro pleno de 14 de mayo de 1806, fol. 167-167v.

| —-808 UNIVERSITY IN GUATEMALA ities to buy the old building.** The sale was never closed and—misfortune upon misfortune—in 1820 we find the cloister, after a fire, de- _ bating whether to rebuild all the University or just the houses of the

| bedel. Late in the year, the church warden of San José de la Antigua

, rented a part of the building on condition that he partition off his part so that it could not be seen from the rest.** Such were the petty vicis- _

| situdes of an honorable building in an abandoned city during the last

half-century of Spanish domination. — | a

75~T5v.) | a oe | noviembre de 1820. :

| 83 Dr. Bernardo Pavén was the commissioner who treated with the Junta. ( Ibid., 1808-1831, claustros plenos de 80 de julio de 1816, 2 de abril de 1817, fols. 67,

84 Tbid., claustro pleno de 7 de julio de 1820, claustro de consiliarios de 6 de _

Glossary of Academic and

Other Words and Terms

ACOMPANAMIENTOS. Processions in which graduating doctors, rectors, or polit-

ositions. |

ical officials are given the escort prescribed in the statutes of the University. ACTO DE CONCLUSIONES. A disputation; statement and defense of certain prop-

Actos. Acts, i.e., literary exercises or conclusions defended in universities and _ houses of study. AD CURAM ANIMARUM. For the pastoral care of parishioners (instruction, administration of sacraments, etc. ).

ALCABALA. Sales tax. , ALCALDE. Mayor or justice of a town. | | ALCALDE DE CORTE (DE CASA, DE RASTRO). A judge, member of the audiencia,

with criminal jurisdiction in the area within five leagues of the city. ALCALDE DEL CRIMEN. A judge of the chamber of criminal justice in the audiencia. (In small audiencias like that of Guatemala, the oidor, or judge of the chamber of civil law, did the work of the alcalde del crimen.) ALCALDE ORDINARIO. A native citizen elected every year to exercise jurisdiction

of first instance in a town, sometimes to preside over meetings of the town council, and to assume tasks of city management and government. ALCALDIA MAYOR. A royal province. ALEGAR ANTIGUEDAD. To claim the right, by virtue of seniority, to take a degree

in advance of another candidate. AucuaciL. Constable or sheriff.

ALGUACIL MAYOR. Bailiff. | |

AMPOLLETA. Hour glass used to time oposiciones, etc. | 809

310 GLOSSARY

ANATOMiAas. Anatomical dissections. , ,

APROBADO. Passed, approved. , Arca. University (money) Chest.

AsEsor. Assessor, consultant. . ASESOR ORDINARIO. Assessor in ordinary.

ASSERTIONES. Theses or conclusions.

ATABALES. Kettledrums, used in doctoral parades. | , Atrio. Space back of a church. — , AUDIENCIA. Supreme court of Guatemala, staffed only by oidores (civil judges) ; council of the president (captain general). _AUTO ACORDADO. A decision on a general matter taken by the audiencia and its

president in administrative session. |

AUTO DE FE. The public ceremony in which the sentences of those arraigned by

the Inquisition were read.

, Autos, Written records of a procedure or lawsuit; decrees or edicts.

AVERIA. Convoy tax on overseas trade. , AYUNTAMIENTO. Town council; same as cabildo. ! BACHILLER PASANTE. The holder of a bachelor’s degree, in residence and

staging “acts” for higher degrees; a graduate student. _ , , BALDAQUINO (BALDAQUIN). Baldachin or canopy to serve as a “showcase” for

the arms or insignia of the doctoral candidate at the time of his investiture. _ BARRENDERO. “Head” sweeper; sub-bedel. -

BEADLE. See BEDEL. © a | , BECA DE PENSION. A scholarship carrying an annual stipend.

a university. ,

BEDEL. The proctor, messenger, policeman, mace-bearer, and doorkeeper of

-BENEFICIOS CuRADOS. Church livings. -

BrsaMANos. Hand kissings as at a court levee. , -

Bocas MANGAS. Cuffs of sleeves. |

BOLETA DE CITACION. Written summons. , oe BouiiLos. Ruffles of taffeta or blue muslin on the cuffs; starched cuffs.

four points. the vernacular. |

BoNnETE. Bonnet or academic “cap” of the ecclesiastical doctor, usually with

Borua. Doctor’s bonnet or cap with tassel; equivalent to “doctor’s degree,” in

| Capiipo. A meeting of the town council or the town council itself.

Caja. See ARCA. — oO a ,

Guatemala. . CANCELARIO. See CANCILLER. , |

CaAKCHIQUEL. One of the principal indigenous languages of the Kingdom of

CANCILLER. Chancellor. See MAESTRESCUELA. (In universities canciller and

So cancelario are the same. ) | -

GLOSSARY _ oll CANONGIA LECTORAL. A canonry with a lectureship annexed.

Capa. Cloak. CaPILLA Mayor. Main altar or chapel of the cathedral.

Caprirote. Hood. |

Caso RESERVADO. A high crime. CATEDRA. University chair. CATEDRA DE PROPIEDAD. Proprietary chair (held for life). CATEDRA DE SUSTITUCION. A chair held by a substitute. CATEDRA TEMPORAL. An academic chair given in competition every four years. CATEDRATICOS DE PROPIEDAD. Professors holding their chairs for life.

CrpuLanio. A systematic collection of cédulas (orders-in-council) addressed to or concerning a specific institution. CensorEs Recios. Royal censors in the University to encourage scientific method and good taste and to defend the prerogatives of the crown. CERTAMEN. A literary contest, usually poetical. CurmimiA. A high-pitched, Moorish reed instrument similar to the oboe; very

penetrating; used in doctoral processions. | |

CrruJANO HONORARIO DE LA CAMARA DE S.M. Honorary Surgeon of H.M.’s

Bed-Chamber. CrruJANo Mayor. Chief surgeon. CLAUSTRO DE CONSILIARIOS. Board of electors, charged with the selection of

the rector and the staging of oposiciones. CLAUSTRO DE DIPUTADOS. Treasury deputies, or “curators of the University Chest.” CLAUSTRO ORDINARIO. “Ordinary cloister,” which met every two months, ten

members and the rector constituting a quorum, to transact unimportant business. CLAUSTRO PLENO. Full cloister, a community composed of the officers of the

University, professors, and other holders of higher degrees in the City (the general University electorate); as a governing body, it met upon summons

of the rector to transact important business. Cortes. Fireworks.

Corrapias. Fraternities, groups of persons joined together to enjoy the same privileges or to carry out some charitable purpose. CoLEcIALEs. Persons having scholarships or regular status in a colegio.

Co.ecio. An institution preparing students in Latin and perhaps also conferring degrees in one or two (philosophy and theology) of the five faculties

of the conventional university. . CoLEcio Mayor. A community of youths engaged in the study of philosophy

and law and living in one place under minute rules.

Indian towns. | | ,

COMUNIDADES, CAJA DE, FONDO DE, RAMO DE. Money chest, public funds of

312 © | GLOSSARY _ Conc.usi6n. One of four special acts, coming after the repeticién and leading to the licentiate, in which the candidate defended four separate parts of

; the Book of Sentences. Be Conc.usionEs. Propositions or theses defended in an academic act. __ | versity of San Carlos. _ , Concorn1a. A pact or working arrangement between the Jesuits and the UniConpeEcoraci6n. The act of conferring a degree or honors upon a person...

CoNSEJERO DE Esrapo. Counselor of State. ,

CoNSTITUCIONES. Statutes of the University. | , Consu.ta. The written opinion of a full council to the king to help resolve

. some matter reserved to the supreme authority. | _ CONTADOR DE CUENTAS. Accountant, auditor of public accounts.

_ CONTADOR DE LA UNIVERSIDAD. University accountant.

Indies. / | | , decisions. a , ,

CoNTADOR DE RENTAS. Accountant of rents or income. St ,

CoNTADURIA GENERAL. The accounting department of the Council of the

ConTranio mpenio. The power of the king or an official to reverse his own

CorrEGIDOR GENERAL. General royal agent. | ,

CorrEcIMiENnTO. The district (province) or office of a corregidor. |

Correo Mayor. Chief supervisor of mails, postmaster general. : } CorriiLos. Groups standing around to look, to discuss, and to criticize. Cvuapernos. Notebooks, as a rule formally drawn up, for presentation at the _

end of a course. , Oo

| Cursti6n pocroraL. The “doctoral question,” proposed by the candidate , and briefly disputed at the doctoral investiture, immediately before the

_ bestowing of the insignia. | - ,

CuRANDERO. An unlicensed and generally untrained person who treats

diseases and prescribes medicines. an oe

Cura RECTOR. Curate-rector of a parish. SO Curt EcLEsiAstIca. A tribunal dealing with ecclesiastical matters. =

Curia Romana. A tribunal for ecclesiastical affairs. oS

Deanato. Deanship (of the cathedral chapter). = ,

DecanaTo. Seniority of a faculty. ee oe

Decano. Senior member or doctor of a faculty or corporation. |

De cCENSsO. Invested to obtain an annual pension; secured with landed prop-

De cracta. Relating to voluntary concessions of royal favor in contrast to —

de justicia. See DE JUSTICIA. | , ne

| De jusricia. Relating to the phases of justice in which the government is _

bound by law. See Dr GRACIA. re De numero. Regular (applied to a member of a faculty or society).

GLOSSARY 318 DERECHO DE GENTES. “Natural law” (law common to all men), often inter-

national law as handled by Spaniards like Vitoria. DicTAMEN. A considered opinion, usually of the fiscal in a given case. DiLIcEncias. Usually the steps taken to execute or carry out decrees or other commissions by a notary public or court clerk. DipuTaDos DE Hacrenpa. “Curators of the University Chest.” DISCIPLINANTES. Flagellants.

DisPENSAR. To exempt from some academic requirement such as prescribed time or examinations for a degree. Docroranpo. The “incepting” (graduating) doctor, a candidate in the process of getting his doctor’s degree. Docror MAS ANTIGUO. Senior doctor.

Donativo. A contribution or donation made to the king to help in some crisis or public cause, whether “requested” or voluntary. DoseEt. A canopy for the exhibition of the insignia of a graduating doctor. EMPALADOS. Persons with flesh pierced as an act of penitence.

ENCOMENDERO. A person having the right to receive or collect tribute from

and, in some circumstances, to enjoy the services of a group of Indians, with the reciprocal obligation to supply religious instruction and to defend the country. ENTRADAS. Property, especially money, placed in a treasury or in the power of someone. EPIQUEYA. “Equity’—a merciful and prudent interpretation of the law to fit

the circumstances “of time, place, and person.” Ercos. “Therefores,” a slur on the Peripatetic method. EscriBano. A notary public. EscRIBANO DE CAMARA. Clerk of court (audiencia). ESCRIBANO REAL. Royal notary.

EscruTInio. Secret ballot. Escupo. Coat of arms. Esrera. Study of the sky, astronomy.

dalgo). ,

ESTADO GENERAL. Ordinary citizenry of Spain (the rank-and-file below hijosEsTATUTOs, Statutes or “constitutions” of a university or other corporation. EXPEDIENTE. File of all papers related to a given case or problem, dossier.

Facu.taD. Faculty, a “science” or branch of learning in a university (arts, theology, law, canons, medicine) ; the aggregate of professors in a particular “science.” FACULTAD MAYOR. Major faculty (all faculties except philosophy).

Facu.rativos. Members of a faculty, or experts in a science, such as trained

medicalmen. _ |

Feros. See MOJIGANGAS.

314 GLOSSARY

| the title. | | _ , , Finca. Farm, land yielding a regular income. a , |

FiscaL. Crown attorney in most instances. The University attorney assumed

GENERAL Mayor. Auditorium, assembly hall. , | GENTE DE RAZON. People with reasoning minds. , Gosrerno Superior. The highest government in the kingdom, the president and the audiencia, but usually involving just the offices of the presidency.

Goria. A wide collar, like a hood or short cape. , ,

latto.” ,

Gorra. A brimless cap used in the investiture of the lay doctor. | GRACIAS AL SACAR. Certain exemptions from some general law for a pecuniary

consideration; removal of disqualification, such as the “condition of mu-

Grapo. Academic degree. | Grapos Mayores. Higher degrees (licentiate, doctorate, masters’).

GrabDos MENORES. Bachelors’ degrees.

university. a , , riding abroad. , , oO ,

GRANOS BLANCOS Y NEGROS. White and black balls for voting.

Gremio. The claustro (cloister), the general electorate or corporation of a GuaLprapa. Caparison, ornamental horsecloth required of secular doctors

HactenpA. Treasury or exchequer. :

ImMpriMaAtTouR. A license to publish. | -Incorporacién. Admission to the same degree in one university as a person has obtained in a former university. (Ratification or validation.)

-Inpv1os vacos. Indians on vacant encomiendas. , oe INFORMACIONES Y PROBANZAS DE CuRSOS. Documentary proofs of courses taken.

INFORME. A report, usually by special request of the crown authorities.

Instrructones. Institutes of any given science. ee INSTITUCIONES CANONICAS. Principles of, or introduction to, canon law. —

JusiLacion. Retirement to status of supernumerary professor. | Jusiiavo. A professor, retired after twenty years in a proprietary chair.

JUEZ CANCELARIO. Judge-chancellor. a

JUEZ DE COMPETENCIAS. Judge of jurisdictions. , JUEZ SUPERINTENDENTE. Judge-superintendent, the title of the chief officer of

the University of San Carlos before it was fully organized. ,

JuEZ suPERIOR. Superior judge.

some problem. oe a

Junta. A meeting (commission) of various persons to consult upon or resolve _ Junta DE CaTEpRATICOs. Meeting of professors, usually for the assignment

| of textbooks for the following year. | a JunTA pe Sanmap Ptsiica. Commission of public health. a :

GLOSSARY 315 Junta pE TEMPORALIDADES. The commission handling Jesuit property after the expulsion of the Society in 1767.

Juros. Annuities assigned upon the king’s revenues (a type of government

bond). Justicia Mayor. A royal deputy, presiding officer of a town council. Jus UBIQUE DOCENDI. The right to teach in the same faculty in another university without further examination. Juzcapo DE BIENEs DE Dirunros. Probate court.

Latinos. Applied to experts in a faculty (facultativos) who have studied Latin; in contrast to Romancistas. Lecci6n. An examination, especially the two parts of the final examination on the noche ftnebre of the licentiate.

Lecajo. A bundle of papers, boxed or tied together. | Lencua. An interpreter of a native language. LIBRO DE CLAUSTROS. Minutes of cloister meetings. LIBRO DE MATRICULAS. Registration book.

LicENc1abo. Licentiate, the first and basic higher degree in all faculties. LIMPIEZA DE SANGRE. Purity of race. MAESTRESCUELA. Chancellor, member of the cathedral chapter, with royal and

pontifical authority to confer higher degrees and validate documents looking toward the incorporation of degrees in the University. MALA RAZA. Bad race” (Jews, Moslems, Negroes, mixed-bloods, but not pure-

blooded Indians). :

Manteo. Long cloak, academic robe. | MatTertias. Subject matter of university courses.

Matricunas. Certification of courses passed (list of students passing submitted by the professor). MEDIANOS y MAyoRES. Advanced Latin.

Mercep. A king’s grant of employment, dignity, land, or income to his subjects. METHODO MEDENDI. Method or art of treating disease, a branch of ancient and scholastic medicine. Miupa. A cornfield or farm. MINIMOS Y MENORES. Elementary Latin.

MojicGanca. Masquerade (involving ridiculous masks, usually of animals) in

the fiesta on the eve of the doctoral investiture. _ Mo ote. Tumult or riot. | Morat. Chair of moral philosophy. . Mozos. Drums for the parade on the eve of conferring a doctor’s degree. _ Muceta. See GOoLiLua.

Natura.es. Of pure blood, especially Indian; natives of a country or province. NEMINE DISCREPANTE. Unanimous (none dissenting).

316 GLOSSARY | | Nocue FUNEsRE. Funeral night, the act or final examination for the licentiate, held at night and in two parts—the first and second “lessons” like the first

and second public examinations at Oxford. a ,

OBEDECIMIENTO. Act of obeying (e.g., a cédula).

Osra Pia. A charitable work. , ee :

| audiencias. | —

a Owor. Judge of the audiencia, with only civil jurisdiction in the largest Orosici6n. Trial-lecture and disputation in competition for a university chair.

| Oposiror. One who competes in an oposicion. a | _ Paprino. Godfather of the graduating doctor. - | ParECER. An official opinion, especially of the fiscal. _ |

Partino. A political district. _ | ee PasaNTIA. Required residence and acts staged for higher degrees. =’ PaSEO DE pocror. Parade on the afternoon before and the morning of the

doctoral investiture. =—> , ~ Patron. Patron saint of the University. a

maravedis. oe : ,

Peso “DE TipuzQuE.” Gold peso with mixture of copper worth about 272

Pino. Bell-ringing. } 7 PESOS FUERTES. Standard pesos of 8 reales or 272 maravedis. __

Pompas. The “sumptuous” pageantry of parades, decorations, insignia, etc.,

attendant upon the investiture of the licentiate and doctor. oo PONER EDICTOS. To post notices declaring a chair vacant, etc. : | PRACTICANTE. One who practices medicine or surgery under an established

expert to get experience. | So oo

PrAcTIco. One experienced and expert in something. __ i , PraGMATICca. A general law or statute issued to remedy some excess, abuse, or

damage felt in the commonwealth. | a -

PREBENDAS DE OPOSICION. Prebends awarded in competition. a | PREDICADOR GENERAL. “Preaching Friar General,” a title of the Dominicans, __

_the preaching friars. a oe | of divinity who has fulfilled the requirements and awaits (is “presented” . for) the master’s degree. _ | oe oe PRESENTADO. A title given by some religious orders to a theologian or teacher

, PRESIDENTE. The captain general in his capacity as presiding officer of the _ audiencia; also the presiding officer or moderator of an act.

Oo Prima. The “first” or leading chair in a field of learning, called prima because the class was held in the early morning in medieval times. —s_ -

Proceso. Process, lawsuit; records of a lawsuit. a |

council at court. | , | Se

Procurapor. The “colonial agent”; a solicitor, procurator, or agent of the town

GLOSSARY : 317. PROCURADOR GENERAL. The general agent of an American province of a re-

ligious order at court in Spain. | |

PROMOTOR FISCAL. Prosecuting attorney.

Propinas. Fees or gratuities distributed among those in attendance upon certain academic functions. PROPOSITIONES. Theses or texts defended in various academic or literary acts. PROTOMEDICATO, REAL TRIBUNAL DEL. The protomedicato after its formal

organization as a board composed of the protomédicos (three in Spain) to examine and license physicians, surgeons, etc., and to perform other administrative, judicial, and scientific duties. PROTOMEDICO. The medical examiner or member of the board of medical examiners.

PRO UTRAQUE PARTE. On both sides of the argument. : PROVIDENCIAS. Steps taken to achieve an end.

QvuaEsTIONES. Propositions or assertions defended in academic acts such as quodlibetos or other “literary” disputes. Quop.LiBETos. The quaestiones selected by the candidate in disputations leading to the licentiate in theology, requiring two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon.

Rancuos. Temporary buildings in the patios of convents where, after the “ruin” of 1778, religious services and classes were held. REAL ACUERDO. Executive session of the audiencia with its president (i.e., the captain general) and fiscals. REAL AGRADO. The royal will or pleasure.

REAL CEDULA. A royal law, general (de oficio) or addressed to individuals (de parte) issued by the king, as an order-in-council. REAL DECRETO. A royal law issued like a cédula. (The decreto became more common toward the end of the colonial period, especially while Ferdinand ‘VII was in exile.) REAL PATRONATO. Royal patronage, or the king’s hegemony over the church in his dominions (the right to make nominations for church appointments, to control councils and synods, to veto briefs and bulls, etc.). REAL PROVISION. A royal law most formally drafted, issued by the king in council or by the viceroy or captain general with the audiencia. Rector. Superior administrative officer of universities on the model of Bologna

or Salamanca. |

REGENTE. Supernumerary professor of a chair. REGENTE DE ESTupIOS. Supervisor of studies in a friary or headmaster of its school.

Recmorss. Aldermen of a town council.

Recistro. Book in which entries are made or records kept. |

318 _ GLOSSARY RELACION DE MERITOS Y SERVICIOS. A formal listing of accomplishments and

| services, usually with the idea of winning some royal concession. a RELATOR. Reporter, a counselor appointed by the court to draw up the briefs of causes to be tried. After both parties have approved, he reads them be-

fore the court. , :

REPARTIMIENTO DE INDI0S. Allotment of Indians for specific purposes. REPETICION. An act of an hour and a half, during which time the candidate for

ments). , : , oe

| the licentiate gave a discourse and answered three “oppositions” (argu, REPIQUE GENERAL. Simultaneous ringing of bells throughout the city. _ Répiica. In Spanish universities, making réplica was generally the same as “making an opposition” or objection to the respondent, who maintained his

thesis against the difficulties proposed. _ — REPROBADO. Failed. _

position, |

REPUBLICA. Commonwealth or commonweal, sometimes also “republic” in

English, as “republic of letters.” . a

RETRACTADO. A person who has recanted or disavowed his former word or ROMANCE. The vernacular language (Castilian) or a kind of poetry. Romancista. Applied to facultativos untrained in Latin, especially surgeons. RUEGO Y ENCARGO. A solemn charge directed to bishops, etc.; a writ of manda-

mus to enforce obedience to some law, order, or sentence. | “RUINA, LA. The catastrophic earthquake of 1778. , SaBATINAS. The Saturday discourses and disputations of students. SALA DE CABILDO. The chamber of the cathedral chapter. __

SALA DEL CRIMEN. The chamber of criminal justice in the audiencia. _ | _ SaOn DE actos. The hall in which literary functions, examinations, or “acts”

were held in the University. , |

or examination. ee | ,

| esteemed. | | SENoria. Lordship. a | SiNDICO. City attorney. Oo , , SENALAR PUNTOS. To assign propositions, passages, or texts for a disputation SENOR, TRATAMIENTO DE. The right to be styled “sefior,” an honorific title much

| SINDICO PROCURADOR. City attorney. oe

SIN REPLICA. Without another word of discussion or litigation; used to enforce ,

_ compliance with some order. __ , -

SocrEDAD ECONOMICA DE AMIGOS DEL Pais. One or another of a number of pro-

gressive societies of the late colonial period, usually advocating reform of trade, agriculture, and Indian life; devoted to the advancement of philoso-

phy, science, and, especially, useful knowledge. , SOCIO DE MERITO. Honorary or distinguished member. , ,

GLOSSARY 319 Socio NaTO. Ex-officio member. SoTANA. Cassock of priest or scholar. SUB-DECANO. “Under-decano.” See DECANO. SUBDELEGADO. An administrative officer in local districts under the intendant

system. SUFICIENCIA (POR). Qualifying for a bachelor’s degree by presenting proof

of proficiency without actually taking the prescribed course in the University.

SUPERIOR GOBIERNO. See Gobierno Superior. , Tapapbos. Persons with heads covered or hooded. Tarja. A thesis sheet or an “act” of examination, usually printed on one side of a single large sheet. Tercios. The payment of salaries in three installments. TERNA. A slate of three.

TERRAZGO. Landed property or rent on the same. TERRONISTAS. Those opposing the removal of Guatemala City from Antigua to its present site. TERTULIA. A voluntary meeting for discussion or diversion. TESORERO SINDICO. Treasurer of the University. THESES. Propositions defended in academic acts, generally printed as a broadside.

Tiruo. A subdivision of a literary work; a certificate or diploma; a title of honor, count or marquis. Toston. Four reales or one-half peso. Trascoro. The place or part of the church behind the choir. TRASLACIONISTAS. Those favoring the removal of Guatemala City from Antigua

to its present site. TRATAMIENTO. Style of courteous address or usage (e.g., sefioria, merced, excelencia). TRroMPETAS. Clarions used in doctoral processions.

Urnas. Receptacles for ballots in an election. Vecinos. Householders; in America, white citizens. VEJAMEN. A witty, thirty-minute speech in Castilian made at the doctoral investiture by a doctor appointed by the maestrescuela. Veni. The formal asking of permission of some dignitary present, as a gesture of courtesy, to begin an act. VESTIDOS TALARES. The long cloaks or gowns of academic dress reaching to the heels. VisPERaS. Second or subordinate chair in a faculty, called visperas because, in

the formative age of Spanish universities, it was obliged to take the unwanted afternoon hours. VOTO ACTIVO Y PASIvO. Right to vote and be voted upon.

BLANK PAGE

Index

Absence, leave of, 167; see also Cutting Amésqueta y Laurgain, Bartolomé de,

Academic chair, see Chairs 76, 77, 82-85, 107, 167

Academic degrees, 8, 17, 18, 20, 27, 29, Amézqueta, see Amésqueta 51, 74, 87, 98, 160, 161, 204-223; and Ancén, 7

the Jesuits, 26-29, 92-95; conferred Antigua, see Guatemala City (Antigua) by the Dominicans, 26; meaning and Aquinas, Thomas, 34, 35, 142, 205;

distribution of, 200-208; problems chair of, 91, 160 and privileges, 227-244; incorpora- Arana, Felipe, 165

tion of, 245-254 Aranda, Count of, 96 Academic investitures, 221, 222, 228, Araujo y Rio, Captain General Joseph 925-226, 256-263 de, 272, 278, 274 Academic terms: difficulty of translat- Archive of the University, 110

ing, vi-ix; glossary of, 809-319 Arcos, Captain General Alonso de, 274 Academic titles, expense of, 230 Ardén, Diego de, 60 Acts (literary), 102, 213-215, 216 Arechaga, Juan de, 56 Acuna Moreira, Esteban de, 58n Arguments, order of, prescribed, 218

Address, style of, 183, 134 Arms, coat of, on University building,

Administration, costs of, 49 116, 118, 119, 277

Agua Volcano, 281 Arpide, Juan de, 65

Agiiero, Baltasar de, 151 Arrazola, Juan de, 11 Aguiar, Diego de, 56, 57 Arroyo, Sebastian de, 193 Aguila, Panteleén de, 183 Arts, extraordinary chairs of, 164-165 Ahumada, Luis, 22, 23-24 Assertiones, 215 Albizuri, Francisco, 61 Attendance, see Cutting

Alcal4, University of, 86, 127, 2388, 245, Audiencia, 83, 128, 124, 126, 180, 236,

247n 271; favors a university, 11-12n; dis-

Alcantara, José, 276, 278 pute over ceremonial, 126-128; see Alcayaga, José Antonio, 154, 237-238 also Superior Government

Aleas, Fermin, 128, 155, 198 Augustinians, 31, 161

Alfonso the Learned, 8, 85, 174 Aury, Louis, “the Pirate,” 136 Altamirano, Pedro Ignacio, 94 Aybar, Gaspar de, 35, 43

Alvarado, Pedro de, 5 Ayuntamiento, 5, 15, 36, 89, 43, 186, Alvarado y Guzman, Tomas de, 106 143, 274; strives for a university,

Alvarez, José Maria, 195 8-14

Alvarez, Pedro de, 82 Ayzinena, José de, 246, 247, 249, 252,

Alvarez Alfonso, Captain General Se- 254, 291, 305

bastian, 44 Ayzinena, Marquis of, 183, 186

Alvarez de Toledo, Bautista, 159

Amésqueta, Francisco de, 65, 68 Bachelor’s degree, 19, 204-218, 238 821

822 INDEX , Bachiller pasante, 214 Cano Gaitan, Antonio, 18 Baldachin, 222 - Canonization, 142.

Banking, risks of, 66 Canon law, 146n; chair of, 49n; bacheBafios y Sotomayor, José de, 57, 73, 80, lor’s degree in, 209-211; teaching of, — =—«- 82, 83, 84, 85, 88, 256 suspended, 268 Baraona, Sancho de, 24n, 34, 45, 51n, Canons of Pope Clement V, 146

68 - Captain general, 129, 213

Barozabal, Andrés de, 97 Caracas, University of, 246, 248, 249,

Barrio, José del, 132, 172, 258 250-251 |

Barrios Leal, Captain General Jacinto Carbonell, Antonio, 251, 253

de, 81, 256 Cardenas, Juan de, 65 |

Batres, Diego de, 249 , Cardenas, Rector Juan de, 88, 179 Batres, Rafael, 188 Carmelite nuns (unshod ), 188, 189, 140 , Batres, see also Gonzalez Batres Carmona, Licentiate de, 56 ,

Batres y Mufioz, Juan José, 304 Carnestolendas, see Carnival days |

Beatification, 142 _ Carnival days, 189

Becerra del Corral, Joseph, 67 Carondelet, Baron, 244- Oo

Bedels, 49n, 102, 111, 114, 180, 165, Carrascosa, Alejandro, 126.

— 190, 280 a Carrefio, Juan, 59 .

Bellarmine, Robert, 295 | Casa de Moneda, 272

, Besamanos, 137 - Casaus y Torres, Ramén de, 189 , Binueza Medina, Captain Juan de, 35n, Castilian, 149, 155, 156 4 | | 37, 89, 45, 46 . Castillo, Rafael del, 57n, 60n, 61, 62, 78 Bishop, 130, 176 , 7 Castillo Valdés, Ambrosio del, see Diez

tion | Cattle, 275 a _

Board, of Judges, see Committee of selec- del Castillo Valdés .

Bolillos, 191-192 , Cédula of foundation, 80 , Bologna, University of, 245 __ Cedulario, 129

Bonete, 222 , Censos, interest on, reduced, 272 ©

Book of Sentences ( Liber sententiarum), Ceremony, 122-180, 183, 216

~ 60n, 217, 218 Certamen, 129

Books, 197, 216, 298-299, 808 Cervellén de Santa Cruz, Rodrigo, 19

Borla, 222, 228, 232 Oo Cevallos, Francisco, 20, 21, 22, 23 _ Bouzas, Manuel Antonio, 142, 187 Chabarria, Francisco de, 179 oe

Brawls, 175-181, 199 Chacon, Juan Manuel, 182, 185 ~

Building, 51, 276, 280, 282, 288-292, Chacén Abarca, Jerénimo,61

306 Chairs, 26, 49, 58, 61, 83, 91, 96, 151,

, 166; increased from seven to nine,

Cabildo: secular, see Ayuntamiento; ec- Ol, 59; first filling of, in the Uni-

~ clesiastical, 108, 180, 218 , versity of San Carlos, 52-58; fixed

Cabrejo, Miguel, 152 nature of, 144; filled by oposiciones, Cadena, Carlos, 2438 144-163; three classifications of, 144; Cadiz, see Cortes of os vacancies in, 145; winners take posCagiga, Agustin 242, 278285; session of, of 150; contest for, 154; new Cakchiquel: chairde of,la, 49n, 284, method filling, 154-158; cease to

, rofessor of, 61 carry living wage, 158; special types Cola, Isidoro de, 285 . of, 158-168; friars appointed to spe~ Calancha, Cristébal, 48, 44 | cial kinds of, 161; honor of holding, Camacho de Cuenca, Matias, 178 , 167; see also Cakchiquel, Indian lan-

Camato, Antonio Ramon, 168 guages, and Oposicién ,

Campo, Joaquin del, 32n — Chancellor, see Maestrescuela ,

Cafias, José Simedén, 120, 123, 189, 140, Charles III, 4, 96, 114, 154, 294

. 141, 147, 157, 158, 164, 169, 190- Chiapas, see Ciudad Real , , 191, 195, 249n, 298n, 301, 308 Chile, 19, 21, 22 — a

| 167 a | the University, 193 :

Cano, Agustin, 57n, 58n, 60n, 62, 81, “Chinos morenos,” refused admission to

INDEX 323 Church, conflict of the University with, 26; trustees of, prepare for founding

176 of a university, 89; administration of

Church and State, 114-120 the funds of, 44; university authorized

Cities, noises in, 260 in, 46; cédula creating university in,

Ciudad Real (Chiapas), 25, 238, 304 48; accounting of, 50; endowments Civil law, 146; chair of, 49n; teaching of, 50

of, suspended, 268 Colegio Maximo (Mexico), 89

Classes: problem of starting every year, Colegio Seminario de Nuestra Sefiora de

163-165; “cutting” of, 165-166; term la Asuncion, 98, 191, 276, 286, 295, of, 190; regulations concerning, 196; 802; scholarships for Indians in, 235;

conduct of, 196-199; annoyance of students of, get degrees from the

note-taking in, 197 University, 240; see also Seminario Claustro, see Cloister de Nuestra Senora de la Asuncién Claustro de diputados de hacienda, see Colegio Tridentino, see Seminario and

University Chest, curators of Colegio Seminario

Claustro ordinario, see Ordinary-cloister Colegio universidad, sought by Domini-

Claustro pleno, see Full cloister cans, 25

Cloister, viii-ix, 78, 108, 116, 142, 148, College of Christ Crucified, 107, 142 256, 271; struggles to gain control of | College of San Francisco de Borja, see

the University, 72-75; first organiza- Colegio de San Francisco de Borja tion of, 74; definition, composition, College of San Pedro and San Pablo, 91 and role of, 101-104; secrecy in, 102; College of Santo Tomas de Aquino, see voting in, 103; minute regulations Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino of, 104; decorum in, 131; high dignity College of Surgery, 198 of, 136; opposes new method of select- College of the Society of Jesus (Guateing professors, 155-158; investigated mala), see Colegio de San Francisco

by the Superior Government, 156; de Borja

see also University of San Carlos Comayagua (Honduras), 238, 304 Cloister of councilors, see Councilors Commerce, 300 Cloister of curators of the University Committee of selection, 149, 150, 152, Chest, see University Chest, curators 153

of Company of Jesus, see Jesuits

Codigo, 146; chair of, suspended, 278 Conciliar Seminary of Leon, 244

Cofradias, 256 Conclusions, 214; acts of, 216

Colaciones, 262 Concordia, 90-92

Colegio de la Compafiia de Jesus, see Condecoracién, 247, 248 Colegio de San Francisco de Borja Confraternities, 256 Colegio de Misioneros de la Recoleccién, | Conquerors, 5

272 : Consiliarios, see Councilors

Colegio de Nobles Americanos, 292 Constituciones, see Statutes Colegio de Nobles de Madrid, 304 Constitutions, vii-viii; see also Statutes Colegio de San Francisco de Borja, 89, Construction, 229, 288-292; see also 92, 98, 191-192, 198, 241; University Building of San Carlos seeks to eliminate “uni- Contrario imperio, 251

versity” in, 87; students of, placed Cérdoba, Diego Ignacio de, 78, 79 on same footing as those of the Semi- Coronel, Maximiliano, 244 nary, 94; students of, graduate in the Corrillos, 180

University, 207; library of, 294 Cortés, Antonio Alonso, 184

Colegio de Santo Tomas de Aquino, 14, Cortes of Cadiz, 194, 291 19, 21, 21n, 29, 35, 37n, 50; income Cortés y Larraz, Archbishop Pedro, 287 of, 7; trustees of, 7; trustees of, de- Cosio, Captain General Toribio, 90

cide to try for a university, 9; in- Cost of living, 802 augurated, 13-14; protests degree- Council of Constance, 112 conferring privilege given Jesuits, 17; | Council of the Indies, 19, 24, 25, 26, 27,

end of dream of a permanent uni- 29, 30, 41, 58, 70, 72, 79, 187, 2380, versity in, 24-26; chairs in, suppressed, 258, 256, 258, 269, 274, 275

324 INDEX |

Council of Trent, 16, 80, 112, 182, 228, 24; degrees conferred by, 26; sanction a 239 , public university, 89; blamed, 68; | Councilors, 75, 88, 108, 104, 145, 170 establish chair of Thomas Aquinas, |

Courtesies, 133 , : 160; claim original site of the UniCredits, 289 , versity, 277 oo _ Crespo, Francisco, 22 “Donations,” 8301 Crespo Suarez, Pedro, 38, 43, 51n, 68, Duns Scotus, Joannes, 162, 163; chair 69; sketch of, 32; makes a university of theology of, 159, 162; chair of

| possible, 82-35; executors of, 85; leg- philosophy of, 91, 160-161 |

acy of, applied to good works, 45; Duran, Juan,193

accounts of, 66 | , Cruz, Juan de la, 60 Earthquakes, 204, 270, 272, 281, 282, endowment of,-in probate court, 46; Duran y Aguilar, Juan José, 188

, Curfew, 199 7 284

,| Davila | ,ln,Empalados, 262 , y Quifiones, Antonio, 57n, 62, Empirics, 202 — 167, 175 | Encomiendas, 235; proposal to finance Cutting, 82, 197; problem of, among Elections, conspiracies to control, 151 _

professors, 114, 165-166 Electors, board of, see Councilors.

Debts, 66, 69, 70, 229 | | university from, 41 :

Decano, 222 Endowment, 32-48, 50, 51, 65-75, 280,

_ Decorations, 137, 259 7 267, 268 , a Decrees of Gratian, 146 Enlightenment, 157, 199 Decretals, 146 | Enriquez de Guzman, Enrique, 78, 267

Degrees, see Academic degrees Episcopal hierarchy, sponsor of a uni| De la Cueva, see Roldan de la Cueva, versity in Santo Tomas, 24 :

Jacinto | Escobar, Felipe de, 79, 189 ,

Delgado de Najera, Tomas, 61 Escobar, Ramon, 189 —

Descartes, René, 1380 a Escobedo, Captain General Fernando ,

Diez del Castillo Valdés, Ambrosio, 18, Francisco de, 53 , | 29, 382n Escoto, Luis de, 154,169 _ || , Digest, 146 oO Escudero, Luis, 17 | Dighero, José Bernardo, 162, 163, 178, Esparragosa y Gallardo, Narciso, 128, |

195, 249n , 188, 184, 185, 172, 202, 245-255

, Dighero, Juan Antonio, 118, 119, 183, Espiritu Santo, 267

258, 288 | Estrada, Pedro de, 18, 20, 28 , Chest, curators of Etiquette, 1384 Disciplinantes, 262 oe Examinations, 102, 205, 211, 212, 217, Diputados de hacienda, see University Estrada, Sebastian de, 141 = |

Dispensations, 92-93, 242, 248, 259 218 , Oe

- Doctoral investiture, 221, 222, 223, 225- Examiners of arts, 207 oe 226; see also Academic investitures Expenses, see Fees oe | Doctors, 106-107, 186; seating arrange- Extravagants, 146n |

ment of, 180; funerals for, 136; in- | ,

, , 258-259 259 , . | | signia and dress of, 221-222 Falla, Ignacio, 106 — .

Doctor’s degree, 19, 124, 221-230, 234, Fees, 102, 228, 227, 228-234, 237, 238,

| Domas y Valle, Captain General José, Feij6o y Montenegro, Benito Jerénimo,

125, 188, 188, 247, 249, 251, 261, 262 295 | Se

Dominicans, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 25, 29, Feos, see Mojigangas | a 67, 142, 160, 242, 284; agree to pro- Fernandez, Miguel, 76, 77 © vide plot for a college, 7; struggle Figueredo y Victoria, Francisco José de,

with Jesuits for control of higher edu- 276n oe Oe to confer degrees in Guatemala, 20; Fines,227 , sponsor a university in Santo Tomas, Fireworks, 261,262 . cation in Guatemala, 15-31; enabled Figueroa, Joaquin, 147 |

INDEX 325 Flores, José Felipe, 123, 138, 184, 153, try in which Dominicans could confer

167, 168, 170, 289, 305 degrees, 22; “anguished state of,” 300Francesch, Miguel, 152, 183 808; isolation of, 300; see also UniFranciscans, 31, 48, 141, 159, 160-161, versity of San Carlos de

168 Guatemala City, 204

Fuentes, Felipe, 260 Guatemala City (Antigua), 57, 138,

Fuentes y de la Cerda, Joseph de, 37n 275, 280, 286, 288-289; schools in, Fuentes y Guzman, Francisco Antonio 97; entertainment in, 143; worship in,

de, 53 143; moving of, 270, 282, 285; popu-

Full cloister, 103 lation of, 280; ecclesiastical tradition

Funds, devices for raising, 8303-308 in, 281; imposing character of, 281;

Funerals, conduct of, 136 building in, 306-308

_ Funereal night, see Noche finebre Guatemala City (New), 188, 262, 285, 287-288, 290, 8302

Gaceta de México, 181 Guatemalan nation, first great liberals

Gage, Thomas, 21, 24, 178, 217, 267 of, 249

Galen, 60n, 224 Guerra, Ignacio de, 134

Gallegos, Francisco, 45 Guerra, José Leandro, 194

Galvez, Captain General Matias de, 118, Guirao, Alonso, 14

119, 184 Guzman, Tomas de, 131, 280

Gandara Duran, Carlos, 196

Garate y Francia, Juan de, 44n, 56 Haring, Clarence H., viii

Garcia, Gregorio, 295n Herrarte, Miguel Isidro de, 241-242 Garcia, Manuel, 188 Herrera del Puerto, Alonso de, 9n Garcia, Mariano, 249n Higher degrees, 216, 232, 241, 260

Garcia Redondo, Antonio, 157, 249n, Hippocrates, 224

291, 304 Holidays, 189-191, 199 de, 61 Honors, 133, 1384, 186-143

Gastafiasa, Commissary General Pedro Honduras ships, 77

Gazeta de Guatemala, 300 Horchata, 232 Gereda, José, 153, 167 Humanitarianism, 235

Gil, Matrona, 184 Hurtado, Catalina de, 7n Gil Rodriguez, Rafael Crisanto Mariano, 181, 182, 183-184, 185-186, 187, 199 Illegitimates, admitted to the University,

Glossary of academic and other words 194

and terms, 309-319 Immaculate Conception of the Virgin

Goicoechea, José Antonio, 141, 157, Mary, 141, 225; oath to defend the 168-169, 170, 186, 198, 249n, 296, doctrine of, 112, 132; fiesta of, cele-

297 brated, 141

Gomera, Conde de la, 18, 24; see also Incorporation, 74, 76, 108, 245-255

Peraza de Ayala y Rojas Indian languages, 41-42, 44, 49n, 57, Gomez de Losada, Diego, 27n 61, 273, 284, 285

Gémez de Quevedo, Francisco, 295 Indians, 143, 238, 256; admitted to Uni-

Gonzalez, Melchor, 32 versity, 193; handed part of San Car-

Gonzalez Batres, Juan José, 106, 153, los endowment, 230; crown stresses 231, 234, 285, 276, 280, 289; project equality of, with white man, 234;

of, for educating Indians, 236 scholarships for, in Colegio Triden-

Gonzalez Davila, Gil, 295n tino, 235; status of, in universities,

Gonzalez Donis, Gaspar, 32n, 34n 235; education of, 236; apply for ex-

Gonzalez Donis family, 45n emption from fees, 237; royal tender-

Gorra, 222 268

Gonzalez Soltero, Bartolomé, 27-29 ness for, 267; given University lands,

Gramallas, 102 Indigo, 275 Guatemala: prospects of the colony of, Inoculation, 143 9-10; included with New Granada, Inquisition, 181-187, 193 Chile, and the Philippines as a coun- Insignia, 221-222, 223, 224

826 , INDEX |

Institutes, 51, 83, 146, 151, 268 Laburu, Sebastian, 183

Investiture, see Doctoral investiture Lacunza, Joaquin de, 92, 24] Investment, see Endowment _ Landivar y Bustamante, Rafael, 92, 241

Irungaray, José Ignacio de, 164 _ Lanuza, Miguel de Jesus, 162

| Larios, Diego de, 17, 18

: Jauregui, Manuel, 288 , Larrave, Mariano de, 297

Jesuit chairs, “extinguished, 96 Larrazabal, Antonio, 97, 125, 153, 249n,

Jesuits, 20, 24, 29, 31, 48, 88, 95, 96, 305 _ 272, 276; fight Dominicans for con- Latin, 5, 156 trol of higher education in Guatemala, Leal, Raymundo, 242

15-31; lead in revitalization of higher Ledn, 304; Conciliar Seminary of, 244;

education, 16-17; authorized to award university for, 244 degrees in Guatemala, 17; opposition | Leén y Goycoechea, José de, 164, 249n

to degree-giving privilege of, 18; Libraries, contrasted with those in Engmove to assume functions of a uni- lish America, 293 —

versity, 19; turn the tables, 21; win Library, 293-299 _ }

contest with the Dominicans, 26-29; Licentiate, 130, 186, 228; degree of, 19; tactics of, opposed by Bishop Payo pasante supplicates for, 215; require-

de Rivera, 42; give their college im- ments for, 215-221; noche ftnebre posing name, 47; ascendancy of, in of, 219-220; conferring of, 220-221;

education, 86; the University threat- fees of, 228, 238 | ened by, 86-90; denied privilege of Lima, Miguel de, 274 , conferring degrees, 87; refuse to co- Lima, University of San Marcos de, 19,

operate with the University, 88; edu- 79, 90, 245 |

cational reputation of, 90; arrive at Loaisa, Isabel de, 24n, 268 | concordia with the University, 90-92; Loans, collection of, 66-67

refuse to compel attendance at the Lombard, Peter, 60n, 218; see also Book

University, 91; want degrees without of Sentences _

attendance at the University, 93-95; Lopez, Juan, 167 higher education upon the expulsion Lopez Rayoén, Mariano José, 148, 249n,

of, 95-97; uprooting doctrines of, 112; 252n, 296, 297 boycott University, 240; disposition Lugo, Bruno, 198 ,

of the library of, 294 Luncheons, 262 Jocotenango, 7, 44n,69 , } Juara, Tomas de, 303 , Maeda, Nicolas de, 50, 66n, 69, 176 Juarros, Juan de Dios, 107, 123, 125, Maestrescuela, 74, 76, 103, 104, 107, 126, 127, 128, 142, 152, 181, 252n 108, 129, 181, 186, 215, 216, 2921,

Jubilacién, see Retirement 223, 233; incorporation of, 108; quali-

Judaism, 182 oe fications of, 108; duties of, 109; takes Judges, board of, see Committee of se- _ oaths, 111 —

lection Margil de Jests, Antonio de, petition

, Juez superintendente, 59 for the canonization of, 142

Junta de Temporalidades, 294 __ Mariana, Juan de, 112° }

Junta Extraordinary, 50, 52,58, 57, 58, | Mariquita, library of the royal botanical

63, 65, 69, 71, 73, 130 . station at, 293 ,

_ Junta of 1708, 230, 240 . Marmol, Ignacio, 84 _

Juros, 45n, 72, 273, 283, 801; interest Marmol Dardén, Ignacio del, 176-177

rates on, restored, 275; interest on, Marqués, Antonio, 60 -

reduced, 272, 278, 301 - | Marroquin, Francisco, 5-6, 7, 24, 29-81,

Justinian Code, 146, 273 44n, 51n, 68, 267; initiates Latin

Juzgado de Bienes de Difuntos, 46n, 50, studies, 5; seeks a college, 5-8; does

66 not mention a university, 7;8will , 7-8, 25; death of, | oe of,

, , 249, 252, 254 ee

Kettledrums, 221 , Martinez, Bernardo, 182, 147, 164, 247, Laboratory equipment, 297, 303. Martinez de Apalategui, Miguel, 177

INDEX 327 Masquerades, see Mojigangas New Guatemala, see Guatemala City

Master of Arts, 19, 130, 136, 241 (New)

Master of ceremonies, 122 New Spain, 235

Matriculation, 192 Newton, Sir Isaac, 293 Mayorga, Martin de, 283, 284, 285, 286 Nicaragua, 238

Medical materias, 211 _ Noche ftnebre, 218-221, 232, 233, 260Medical students, ribaldry of, 199 261 Medicine: chair of, 49n, 52, 76; degree Novels, 146 of bachelor in, 211-212 Nueva Ciudad de Guatemala, see Guate-

Medina, Antonio de, 68 mala City (New) Meléndez Carrefio, Juan, 57

39 , Oboes, 221

Mencos, Captain General Martin Carlos, Oaths, 111-112

Méndez, José Mariano, 137 Obregon, José de, 193 Méndez Higunte, Alonso, 35 Obstetrics, 202 Mendicant orders, see Religious orders Ocampo, Pedro, 91

Mendoza, Viceroy Antonio de, 5 Oposicién, 56, 57, 81, 158, 161, 190;

Merced, Convent of, 10, 68 held in Mexico, 52, 53, 56, 58; in Mercedarians, 31, 136, 161 Guatemala, 53; held in Spain, 76;

Mesa, José de, 60 © chairs filled by, 144-163; original Mesa, Luis de, 79n passages for, 145; theses for, selected Mestizos, 198, 194, 234 from textbooks, 145-146; rules of,

Methodo, 211 147; single candidate in, 147; pre“Mexican” language, 57; chair of, 49n cautions in, 148; candidates briefly Mexico: oposiciones held in, 52, 53, 56, speak vernacular in, 149; challenges 58; viceroy, audiencia, and University in, 152; relatives of candidates not of, support a university in Guatemala, permitted vote in, 153; civil govern-

31 ment makes effort to reform, 154-158;

Mexico, University of, 10, 18, 28, 31, 36, judgment of, 158; poor quality of 87, 41, 52, 79, 89, 90, 124, 126, 127, candidates in, 171

142, 144, 166, 245, 256, 258 Opposition, ix, see also Oposicién

Moderator, 213 Ordinary cloister, 108

260 Ornaments, 303

Mojigangas (masks), 232, 256, 258, 259, Orefia, Baltasar de, 24n, 25, 29n

Molina, Juan de, 60 Ortega y Montafiez, Juan de, 52, 53-55, Molina, Manuel Antonio, 123 73 Monarchia indiana, 295 Ortiz de Letona, Joseph Ignacio, 181 Money, handling of, 113-114 Oxford University, vii, viii Montifar, Miguel de, 92, 93, 166, 241, Ozaeta, Pedro de, 76, 77, 107 | 257, 258, 274, 282

Mora Chimo, Vicente de, 235 Palacios de la Bastida, Juan, 61 Moral theology, chair of, 49n Palafox y Mendoza, Juan de, 142

Moran, Francisco, 35n Palencia, Francisco Joseph de, 152 Moreira Espinosa, Alonso, 27n Panegyrical oration, 129 ,

Moreno, Jacinto Jaime, 57n, 61n Paniagua, Captain Jerénimo, 177, 178 Morga, Diego José de, 258, 308 Paniagua, Nicolas de, 142

Mulattoes, 193, 256 | Papacy, 79-81, 116

Musicians, 262 back, 124, 220, 221 , Mufioz, José Antonio, 252 Parades, 102, 256, 260, 262; on horseParis, University of, 245 Pasante, 166, 215, 239

Naboa Salgado, Benito de, 55-56 Pasantia, 242, 243, 258, 259

Napoleon, 302 Patron saints, 65, 186-143

Native languages, see Indian languages Pavdn, Bernardo, 142, 291, 292, 298n,

Negroes, 198, 194, 256 304, 805, 306

New Granada, 19, 21, 22 Paz, Patrona, 174

328 INDEX

Pedagogy, 213 Rashdall, Hastings, ix Pepys, Samuel, ix Receptions, 214

Pejia, Juan de la, 9n Real acuerdo, 134, 256 Peraza de Ayala y Rojas, Captain Gen- Records, 110-111 eral Antonio, 21; see also Gomera, Rector, 103, 109, 111, 136; election of,

Conde de la 104; powers and jurisdiction of, 105;

| Pereira Dovidos, Juan Luis, 14 duties of, 105-106, 296; constitutional

Pérez, Estevan José, 195, 247n restraint upon, 105-107; doctors: dis-

Pérez, JosephLorenzo, 178 a like toreligious serve as,orders 106,excluded 107; members Pérez Dardén, 74 of as, 109-

Philippines, 19, 21, 22, 235 111; oath of obedience to, 112; fuPhilosophy: chairs of, 91; books in, 295 nerals for, 136; jurisdiction over stu-

Plain of the Virgin, 285 dents, 176; audiencia tries to limit

Plaza, Joaquin de, 118 jurisdiction of, 271

Points, selection of, 145 Reforms, 108, 154-158, 230 Pomp, 256, 257, 259, 262 — Regicide, 112

Pompas, see Pomp Relacion de méritos, 167

Pontifical arms, 116, 119 Relatives, forbidden to vote in opostPoor: scholarships for, 234; graduated ciones, 158 without fees, 238 Religious orders, 140, 158-168, 168, 169;

Pope, see Papacy establish “minor universities,” 16; liti-

Prebend, 162 . gation between, intensified, 22; memPrecedence, 104, 122, 1380-186, 216 bers of, excluded from rectorship,

Presentados, 239 - | 109-111; rivalry of, 160 |

| Priestley, Herbert Ingram, viii Repartimiento de indios, 10 Prima, chairs of, 166 Repeticién, 216-217, 232, 2838, 257, 259

Probabilism, 112 Retirement, 167, 169-171

Professors, 181, 158, 197, 214, 287; Reyes, Cristébal de los, 15 project to bring from outside, 49; Rioting, 178, 179, 260 salaries of, 49, 171-173; conflict over Rivas, Diego de, 57n, 60n, 62, 81, 132 first selection of, 58; brought from Rivera, Antonio, 297 Spain, 75-78; absences of, 114; cele- Rivera, Juan Bernardo de, 56 brate their. victories, 150-151; give Rivera y Enriquez, Payo de, 88, 41, 42,

fees upon winning chairs, 151; cut 44, 45, 47, 52, 53 classes, 165, 166; substitutes for, 166- Rodriguez, Luis, 11

169; retirement of, 169; monetary Roldan, Nicolas, 47, 89

contributions of, 172; role of, in class, | Roldan de la Cueva, Jacinto, 50, 52, 55 196; dictate in class, 197; forced to Romana y Herrera, Felipe, 114, 116, 119 contribute to building fund, 291-292; Roman law, 146

also Chairs , 166, 283 Propinas, see Fees | Rosa Ramirez, J. de la, 188

financial distress of, 302-303; see Rosales y Vivas, Miguel Manuel de,

Propositions, 214, 215 | Royal family, special honors for, 136 Protomedicato, vi, 76, 133 Royal Palace, 272 Pro utraque parte, 219, 223 Royal patronage, 116

Public university, 29-31, 37 Ruiz, José Tomas, 237: Ruiz del Corral, Felipe, 14, 17, 29n |

Quartero, Jacinto, 18, 20, 25n

Quiroz, Antonio de, 44n Saavedra, Francisco, 260, 294n Quiroz, Diego de, 58n Sacred scriptures, 45n, 161, 162, 163

Quodlibetos, 198, 217 Saenz de Osel, Juan, 87n, 294n

Sdenz Manozco y Murillo, Juan de

Racial purity, 198, 194 Sancto Mathia, 198 Rada, José Francisco, 185 St. Andrew the Apostle, 189 Ramirez, Bernardo, 120 St. Catherine, 140 Ramirez, see also Rosa Ramirez, J.dela St. Lucy, 190

INDEX 329 St. Martin, 190 Mexico, 71; complains of obstructions,

St. Peter Martyr, 34 71; given special legal powers, 71; St. Peter of Rome and Antioch, chairs judicial authority of, not recognized,

of, 190 71; receives award, 72; statutes of, Thomas firming statutes of the University, , Salamanca, University of, 3, 4, 28, 36, 78-79 St. Thomas Aquinas, see Aquinas, approved, 72; seeks papal bull con59, 60n, 79, 82, 127, 128, 144, 154, Scholarships, 39, 234

166, 238, 245, 248 Scholasticism, 296, 298

Salaries, 49, 114, 171-178 : Scholastic theology, chair of, 49n

Salazar, Diego de, 148 Scotus, see Duns Scotus, Joannes

Salazar, Captain General Pedro de, 235n Seals, 110

Salazar, Ramon A., 197 Secrecy, 102

Salmeron, José de, 56, 57n, 61n Secretary, 109-111, 232, 233 San Agustin, Convent of, 272, 288 Secular clergy, 57

San Antén, 267 Seminario de Nuestra Sefiora de la

San Carlos Borromeo, 65, 108, 1387, 140, Asuncion, 16, 17, 183, 298; see also

143 Colegio Seminario de Nuestra Sefiora

of Seniority, 77, 89, 104

San Carlos de Guatemala, see University de la Asuncién

Sanchez de Barrospe, Captain General “Sefior,” treatment of, 133, 134

Gabriel, 89 Senoyo, José Angel, 57n, 62

San Felipe, 267 43 San Francisco, Convent of, 10 Shelter, question of, 276

Sandoval y Zapata, Juan de, 17, 20, 22 Serrezuela Calderén, Antonio de, 39, 42-

San Francisco de Borja, Jesuit College Sicilia, Isidro, 247-248, 249, 254

of, see Colegio de San Francisco de Sierra Osorio, Lope de, 55,58

BorjaLucas, Slaves, excluded from the University, San 143 193 San Marcos de Lima, see Lima, Univer- Society of Jesus, see Jesuits sity of San Marcos de. Solérzano, Juan de, 295

San Pedro and San Pablo, see College Sousa, Nicolas de, 179

of — Spanish universities, affairs of, con-

San Salvador, 238 ducted by rigid statutes, 101 Santa Maria, Juan de, 19, 28 Statute cexxviii, 257, 258 Santander, Sebastian de, 9n Statute cclxiv, 257, 258 Santa Rosa Ramirez, Juan de, 107 Statute cecxxxx, 292

Santa Teresa de Jesus, 65, 108, 137, 1388, Statutes, 50, 63, 65, 72, 92, 104, 105,

139, 140 166, 212, 240-241, 248; approved, 72;

Santo Domingo, Convent of, 10; Domin- difficulty of complying with, 73-74;

ican university in Convent of, 21; confirmed by papal bull, 79, 80; in-

University of, 248 flexibility of, 101, 156; reform of,

Santo Tomas de Aquino, see Colegio de 108; precedence in, 180; violation of,

Santo Tomas de Aquino 139; limitations of, 151; blind follow-

Sarassa y Arce, Francisco, 65, 66n, 67, ing of, 230; academic community im70, 82, 105, 130, 131, 158-159, 225, patient with, 246 228, 268, 271; completes statutes of Students, 174-199, 286; behavior of,

the University of San Carlos, 63; 151; living quarters of, 174; preponloaded with an accumulation of prob- derance of town over out-of-town, lems, 63; overcomes embezzlement 174; arguments among, 175; disposiof University endowment, 63-75; re- tion of, to form bands, 175; forbidden ports shortages, 65; complains of weapons, 175; jurisdiction of the rector powerful debtors, 67; despairs of suc- over, 176; restlessness of, 179-180; cess, 67; takes part in management conduct of, 180-181; political unrest

of the University, 69; report of, 70; and lawlessness of, 187-189; pro-

appointed judge of the audiencia of fessors report on, 188-189; ages of, :

330 INDEX Students (cont.) — 114, 166, 175, 227, 229, 257, 269, 189; work habits of, 189; dress of, 270, 289; curators of, 73, 75, 103, 118 191-192; cut classes, 197; dislike University endowment, see Endowment

note-taking, 197; oppose memorizing, University funds, 105 198 University of San Carlos de Guatemala,

Suarez, Pedro Francisco, 193, 295 vi, 28, 49, 71, 76, 86, 87, 94, 125, 126,

, Substitute professors, 166-169, 170 130, 195, 238, 239, 244, 298; camSuficiencia (por), 207, 240 paign for, 81-49; administrative and Sunsin de Herrera, Joseph, 132 maintenance costs in, 49; establish-

Superior Government, 15, 23, 27, 114, ment of, 49-62; patron saints of, 65; 122-180, 134, 156, 162, 285, 306 financial situation in, 66-72; conflict

of Junta and cloister for control of, Talavera, Manuel de, 237, 249n 72-75; final reorganization of, 73-75;

Tapados, 262 privileges and exemptions of, 79; bull

Teatro eclesidstico, 295 confirming, read, 80; threatened with

Tercios, see Salaries failure, 81-83; Jesuits and, 86-91;

Terna, 161 neglect of the statutes of, 92; supreme

Terrassa, Juan de, 163, 170, 197, 249n, officer of, 104; records of, v, 109;

952 archive of, 110; falls into controversy

Terrazgos, 44n, 267, 268, 270 with the Superior Government, 114;

Terronistas, 282 royal and pontifical arms in, 116-120;

Tesorero sindico, see Treasurer precedence in, 122-180, 135-136; Texeda, Matias Domingo, 249n chapel of, conceded right of “privi-

Textbooks, 197 leged altar” and “plenary indulTexts, 211 gence,” 187; selecting professors in,

Theology, 202, 209, 217; see also Quod- 149-150, 154-158; liberals of, 157;

libetos devitalized by system of retirement,

Theses, 145-146, 205, 207, 211, 214, 170; income of, 171-173; rioting of

215, 216, 217, 218, 219 : students of, 179; relation of, to In-

Titulo, 222 quisition, 181-187; liberal admissions

Toledo, Manuel Angel de, 107-108, 128, policy of, 194; conduct of classes in,

191, 192 196-199; degrees conferred by, 202;

Torquemada, Juan de, 295 damaged by statutory fees, 230-231;

Town-and-gown squabbles, 199 Secretary Morga reports on, 258; deTown council, see Ayuntamiento cline of economic situation of, 267-

Traslacionistas, 282 268, 272, 278, 274; monarch assigns _

Treasurer, 67, 118-114, 166, 227 forty thousand pesos to, 270; autonTreasury, see University Chest omy of, 271; suffers from earthquakes,

Trent, see Council of 271, 272, 280-288; regains financial nario and Seminario ing for, in Antigua, 276, 277, 280;

Tridentine Seminary, see Colegio Semi- position, 275; new location and build-

Trumpets, 22] resists abandoning Antigua, 282, 285; Tyrannicide, 112 summarily ordered to New Guatemala, 287; construction of, handi-

Ugarte Saravia, Agustin, 27n capped in New Guatemala, 288, 290-

47 Cloister

Ullarai, Juan de, 44n 292; library of, 298-299; “miserable

Universidad Pontificia y Regia (Jesuit), state” of finances in, 301-308; see also

Universities, 3, 4, 20, 29-31, 37, 45; Urban VIII, 27n conditions for establishment of, in the | Urquiola y Elorriaga, Juan Bautista de, _

Indies, 19; essential chairs of, 144; 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 61, 63, 66n, 176

required to graduate the poor without Urrelo, Domingo, 152

fees, 238; books of, 293-294 Urrutia, Carlos, 182 |

University chairs, see Chairs

University chapel, 803 Valdés, José, 194 :

University Chest, 35, 102, 103, 110, 118- Valladolid, University of, 86, 245

| INDEX 33l

Valle Marroquin, Francisco del, 8-9 Virgin Mary, see Immaculate Concep-

Valley of Panchoy, 282, 285 tion of the

Vasquez de Hinojosa, Diego, 53 Visperas, chairs of, 166 Vasquez y Molina, Juan, 130 Voting, rules of, in cloister, 103

Veira, Domingo de, 274 Vulgate, 156

Velasco, Pedro de, 28

veers rozco, Diego de, 73 War of the Spanish Succession, 230

Verde Words and terms, glossary erdades eternas, 297 Worship. 143 of, 8309-319

Vestments, 303 Ps

Vice patronage, 125

Vienna, Council of, 80 Zelaya, Antonio, 184, 185 Villa Urrutia, Jacobo de, 134, 250, 251 Zelaya, José Tomas, 252

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