Una aproximación jurídico-teológica, siglo XVI. Principios, leyes y política para la cuestión de la tierra en Nueva España

Ecclesiastical institutions and actors were essential for the formation of normative orders in early modern Ibero-America. However, both legal historiography, due to its strong legalistic, state-centred imprint, and general historiography on colonial times, more inclined towards secular law, have only rarely discussed the contribution of ecclesiastical normativity to the formation of that normative texture which, in the historiographical tradition, has been called ‘derecho indiano’. The book, focusing on New Spain, is divided into five thematic parts. The first section presents investigations on canon law and moral theology that deal with characteristic aspects of multinormativity and the teaching of those disciplines in early modern times. The second section examines diocesan governance and ecclesiastical power in Mexico City and Puebla via statutes of the cathedral chapter, members of the ‘curia arzobispal’ and pertinent legal opinions. The articles on ecclesiastical institutions and normativities in New Spain collected in this volume propose new research fields for legal history and the history of the Church, which at the same time are relevant for social and cultural history. The editors’ purpose has been to present approaches that explore the relationship between different types of normativities, their local adaptations, the ties with global debates, the forms of solving conflicts, as well as the role of jurists, theologians and other actors. The topics discussed by the authors represented in this volume – who cultivate the disciplines of history, legal history, church history, ethnohistory, art history and the history of music – contribute to a better understanding of the normative religious universe in Spanish America.