Paper short abstract:

This paper will present a selection of cases from colonial Mexico City in which different sacred objects were put into use as tools of political opposition within the context of the Tumult of Mexico in 1624. Sacred spaces too were involved in the battlefield.

Paper long abstract:

While it is difficult to assess the different agencies involved in the disturbances of the 1620s in Mexico City, what is clear from the documentation available is the involvement of Mexican clergy. From among the lower levels of secular and regular clergy up to the very head of the archiepiscopal chambers, it was impossible not to have something to say about the new viceroys appointed by Philip IV (1621-1665). Indeed, Diego Pimentel, first Marquis of Gelves, had landed in New Spain in the middle of the great debate upon the administration of Indian priesthoods and, similarly to his predecessor Guadalcazar, had suspended the king's orders in favour of the superiority of the diocesan clergy over the regular clergy. As a result, the Mexican clergy had been engaged in a strong lobbying at all levels of the Spanish Empire.

In the context broadly sketched above, the Tumult represents an opportunity for the scholar in search of practical cases of how sacred objects were differently put into use within the Atlantic worlds. Not only were they differently used by the Archbishop of Mexico to stop his forced exile (ordered by Viceroy Gelves) from his diocese, 'sacred things' were reported as being publicly offended by the newly converted population of Mexico, as well as being reported as 'taking part' to the disturbances of the day of the Tumulto grande de México. This paper will present a selection of such cases, put them into their context, and assess their implications in terms of religious spaces and sacred objects in the early modern Iberian Atlantic.