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Folio 14 (1) of the Advertencias
1 2015-02-23T06:43:32-08:00 Anonymous 4358 8 The first of two folios in the Advertencias to be numbered “14”. This image shows the recto (numbered) side of the page, which begins with the text: “¶Si el penitente quisiere nombrar en la confession al complice del delicti, en ninguna manera lo permita el confessor, por que pecarria gravamente si lo permitiesse, como enseñan Doctores graves. Vease el padre fr. Manuel P. p. sum. c. 53. concl. 8. num. 9.” Image is from an exemplar held by the Benson Latin American Collection. plain 2015-05-30T08:57:39-07:00 289679 Advertencias para los confessores de los naturales Juan Bautista Melchor Ocharte Primeros Libros Collection, Benson Latin American Collection Hannah Alpert-Abrams 9dd7500ea284b1882c8042744db689b17f2c2255This page has annotations:
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2015-02-23T06:42:33-08:00
Post-Production Interventions
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Duplicate pages, excised text, and other interventions to the printed page.
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2016-02-01T18:03:45-08:00
Although "fixity" is one of the characteristics that Elizabeth Eisenstein ascribes to the early modern printing press, book production does not end with the printed sheet. Instead, post-production practices can have a significant impact on the text as we receive it today. This page describes two sites of post-production interventions in the Advertencias: a duplicated folio, and an excised passage.
The two folio fourteens
A brief perusal of volume one of the Advertencias para los Confessores de los Naturales reveals an error in foliation: the number 14 appears twice, on two subsequent leaves in the text.The first leaf 14 follows, as it should, leaf 13. It begins:
The second leaf 14 follows immediately from the first. It begins:¶Si el penitente quiſiere nombrar en la cõfeſsion al cõplice del delicto, en ninguna manera lo permita el confeſſor, por que peccaria grauamente ſi lo permitieſſe, como enſeñan Doctores graues.¶El confeſſor a cuyos pies vìnieren Indios de obraje, procure ante todas coſas acabar cõ los amos y dueños, que les perdonen lo que les han cogido, y apañado de ſu casa: pues hablando moralmente pocos ay que no hurten algo, en los dichos lugares: y eſtan caſi impoſibilitados de poder ſatisfazer, y con eſto podran abſoluer a ſus penitentes.What's going on here? It's clear that this is not a case of duplicated leaves, which would require both pages to be identical. Nor is it simply a case of inaccurate counting (calling two leaves "14" when there should only be one). We know this because of a comparison in the quality of the paper between the two leaves. Across all copies - including the copy displayed here - leaf 14 (2) shows discoloration from age that is not seen on leaf 14 (1). This suggests that these pages come from a different sheet of paper than leaf 14 (1). In fact, the mottling extends through leaf 17 before the paper returns to its ordinary condition, suggesting that this gathering was printed on different paper from the rest of the book.The signature marks at the bottom of the page provide a clue to this story. The Advertencias was printed in octavo, which means that the book is printed on a sheet that is then folded into eight leaves (16 pages) and bundled together for binding. In this book, the first four leaves of each gathering receive a signature mark on the base of the recto page. When we examine the bundle that contains the double Folio 14s, however, we find that it contains nine leaves.A further clue is found in some exemplars of the Advertencias. Made invisible by the processes of digitization are the stubs of two leaves bound into the book just prior to the second folio 14, and cut out after binding.While there are many reasons why several leaves might have been removed, the simplest explanation suggests that an entire leaf was omitted during the process of printing and foliation. To resolve the problem, our printers removed three leaves from the book (folios 15, 16, and 17) and replaced them with a four-leaf gathering which included the second leaf, numbered 14.[Thanks to Dr. Michael Winship for help with this analysis.]The Excised Lines
The Advertencias closes with three kinds of back matter: two indices (the "Index Locorvm Commvnivm" and the "Index Rervm et Sententiarvm Memorabilivm") and several leaves of errata. Our focus is on the second paragraph of the second page of the "Index Rervm" (folio 3), which reads:Eandem auctoritatem habent Prouinciales Ordinum Menidcantium, & quibus ipſi cõmiſserint per Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conceſsã. Vide in Elencho. I. par. ver. Abſolucion y Abſoluer. ſub ſinem.
Reading the book in its material form makes explicit what is slightly obscured in the digital facsimile: a correction has been pasted over the original page, rewriting the citation: "Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conce|sã."
Why does the correction exist? The temptation is to ascribe the silencing of the text to some kind of censorship, perhaps a moment of Lutheran sentiment, the kind of sentiment most likely to shut down a press during the Mexico's early colonial period. But the nature of this correction allows for positive proof of the answer. The copy held by Tulane University has no correction, showing only the original text. Here we see that the glued-on phrase
Omnimodã Adria. 6. Fratribus Medicantib 9 conceſsã.
Covers up or corrects the following statement:
Pauli. 3. Bullam que incipit, Altitudo diuini Conſilij.
Why was this correction made? We'll need a better Latinist and book historian to answer that question. We invite responses from our readers to finish this analysis.The neverending book
As these two examples show, books from this period were subject to significant revision and editing long after they came off the printing press. The consistency of these revisions, which are present in most surviving copies, suggests that they were made prior to acquisition or sale. Revision didn't end with acquisition, however; there was always the possibility of manual revision by individual owners later in the book's life, in the form of marginalia or even copyediting. In other cases, scholars have observed that owners would follow the instructions in the errata in the back of the book to correct their own copies. It would be interesting to conduct a study of the Advertencias to see whether anyone has made similar changes here. -
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Reading the Advertencias
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Discussion of how the Advertencias has been read.
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2015-09-23T19:10:05-07:00
Though this project is primarily concerned with the social history of a work, the history of a book is always intertwined with the words that it contains. This page provides a brief overview of the text of the Advertencias, explaining what it is about, who its intended audience may have been, and the role the book has played in modern scholarship.
The Advertencias para los confessores de los Naturales is a confessional manual: a book that aids in the administration of the sacrament of confession. First established among Christian practitioners between the third and seventh century, confession as a regular practice accompanied by penance was formally established between the twelfth and thirteenth century. After annual confession became obligatory in 1215, various summae were written to help guide this practice; the confessional manuals of subsequent centuries were vernacular variations on this model. They frequently guide the priest on an exploration of a penitent's soul, and call for instruction on the requirements for salvation (Christensen 162-3).
In his Nahuatl and Maya Catholicisms (2013), Mark Christensen explains that American confessional manuals were an important part of the process of indigenous indoctrination. Christensen identifies seventeen Nahuatl confessionals composed between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, beginning with Alonso de Molina's 1565 manual (pictured above) and ending with an anonymous 1803 text. These manuals were distinguished, as Christensen describes, by both their style and their content. Written at least partially in indigenous languages, they employ a unique indigenous rhetoric. Their content, furthermore, frequently refers to local practices. In the Advertencias, for example, there is an extensive discussion about the theft of fruits from an orchard: if a native steals "unas Peras de un arbol, las quales su señor tenia guardadas para de ellas hazer un presente, como comunmente estos Naturales guardan sus frutillas," Bautista writes, he sins mortally (f14). The New World poses new problems for confessors; at the same time, in describing these problems, Bautista provides information about local cultural practices.Christensen describes Bautista's goal as the simplification of confessional practices among indigenous converts, explaining: "Bautista produced his Advertencias to reduce the burden of all confessors, both within and without the order, and instruct them on what was necessary and unnecessary in a confession. His two-volume work exempted natives "of little capacity" from having to remember their sins, know the sacraments of the Christian doctrine by memory, and show real contrition because their invincible ignorance excuses [them]" (172-173). While this attitude towards indigenous peoples sounds patronizing and even dangerous to modern ears, it does reflect a certain degree of compassion towards new converts and an effort to adapt religious practices to a new context. However, as Christensen observes, it doesn't seem likely that many confessors were influenced by Bautista's work: despite the large distribution of the Advertencias, later confessional manuals largely ignored the advice it gave.The Advertencias were influential in other ways, however. One remarkable instance is illustrated by the online exhibition "California's Legal Heritage," produced by the Robbins Collection at the University of California, Berkeley. They feature the Advertencias in their section on Spanish Law in the Americas, writing:
1. describe in more detail what's in the text (with pics);Though largely concerned with Catholic teaching and practice, the works of men like Bautista and fellow missionary scholars had a profound impact on the evolving legal and political development of Spanish America. Their treatises established principles and arguments for colonial administrative practices and native rights and privileges that informed the secular legal works of future generations of jurists such as Juan de Solórzano and helped to shape the decisions of the crown.
2. add concluding sentence.