Overview

This book tracks New Spain's mendicant orders past their so-called golden age of missions into the ensuing centuries and demonstrates that they had equally crucial roles in what Melvin terms the ""spiritual consolidation"" of cities. Beginning in the late sixteenth century, cities became home to the majority of friars and to the orders' wealthiest houses, and mendicants became deeply embedded in urban social and cultural life. Friars ministered to urban residents of all races and social standings and engaged in traditional mendicant activities, serving as preachers, confessors, spiritual directors, alms collectors, educators, scholars, and sponsors of charitable works. Each order brought to this work a distinct identity that informed people's beliefs and shaped variations in the practice of Catholicism. Contrary to prevailing views, mendicant orders flourished during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and even the eighteenth-century reforms that ended this era were not as devastating as has been assumed.Even in the face of new institutional challenges, the demand for their services continued through the end of the colonial period, demonstrating the continued vitality of baroque piety.

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9780804774864

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Reviews

Writing on the religious orders of New Spain is not an easy task. It demands solid research to examine the great variety of published and unpublished documents, books, article, and doctoral theses. That would be reason enough to appreciate this book of Karen Melvin. But the subject of her work is what deserves special mention. . . Melvin has dealt skillfully with this topic, studying the importance of mendicant orders in building the religious culture in urban centers of colonial Mexico. --Francisco Morales, Catholic Historical Review

Melvin takes us beyond traditional emphases in space and time, moving from the rural to the urban and from the so-called 'golden age' of missionary activity in the sixteenth century into the rest of the colonial period. . . Melvin's book is a welcome addition to the scholarship on Spanish colonialism and early modern Catholicism. Built upon copious research across numerous archives, Building Colonial Cities of God opens a new vista onto mendicant presence in New Spain. --Matt O'Hara, Journal of Latin American Studies

[Melvin] presents a nontraditional interpretation of this middle period for the mendicant orders. . . . Recommended. --V. H. Cummins, CHOICE

Deep in primary research and offering a strikingly original interpretation of the role of mendicant orders at the generative heart of Mexico itself, Melvin's study ought to be consulted by all serious students of New Spain for the foreseeable future. --Kenneth Mills, University of Toronto

Writing on the religious orders of New Spain is not an easy task. It demands solid research to examine the great variety of published and unpublished documents, books, article, and doctoral theses. That would be reason enough to appreciate this book of Karen Melvin. But the subject of her work is what deserves special mention. . . Melvin has dealt skillfully with this topic, studying the importance of mendicant orders in building the religious culture in urban centers of colonial Mexico. --Francisco Morales, Catholic Historical Review <br>

Author Information

Karen Melvin is Assistant Professor of History at Bates College.

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